The No Pressure Cooker: Easy Cinnamon Rolls

This is my favorite cinnamon roll recipe... but it wasn't always. The book I found it in had an error. Like a big error. Like missing 2 cups of flour error. The picture got me though, and I kept making these, tweaking each time and finally landed on the extra two cups of flour. This is Nigella Lawson's recipe. I love her, and her frothy, voluptuous, candlelit show. She's gorgeous. She's British and therefore wonderful. In my humble opinion, she's missing two cups of flour.

These really are easy. Start to finish these take less than 2 hours. And they aren't too sweet. They are not frosted. In fact, they are healthy. These are a smart choice. Like I said, I've made these a million times, but this time I thought I'd mix things up to get 3 sorts in one recipe. I added chopped chocolate (WIN) to a third of the dough and chopped apple to another third (needs refining) and left one third OG (AWESOME.)

I'll totally try the apples again, but I will use less chopped apple and will arrange things in the pan more strategically.

Cinnamon Rolls - by Nigella Lawson

Makes 15-20 rolls

Preheat oven to 450 and line a 9x13 baking dish with parchment paper

For the Dough

6 cups all purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons instant yeast

1/2 cup butter

1 2/3 cups milk (I used whole milk)

2 eggs

For the Filling

1/2 cup softened butter

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 egg, beaten for glaze

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt and yeast. In a measuring cup, melt butter and add milk and whisk in eggs. Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture.

Knead dough until smooth and springy, about 7 minutes in a stand mixture fitted with a dough hook. A bit longer if kneading by hand.

In a warm spot, let dough rest for 25 minutes. (We keep our house pretty cold, so to rise bread, I microwave a hand towel or hot pot holder and let the dough rise sitting on the warmed fabric in the microwave. I do not microwave the dough!)

While the dough rises, mix together the filling. And chop apples and chocolate if using. (I used a cup of chopped apple and a cup of chopped chocolate. I will cut these amounts in half the next time I do this.)

Roll out a small hunk of dough - about 1/6th the total dough and place this in the bottom of the parchment lined pan. This will form the bottom of the rolls so the cinnamon goodness doesn't leak out.

With the rest of the dough roll a VERY large rectangle, about 24 inches by 16 inches and spread the entire thing with the butter and cinnamon mixture. The coverage will be thin, but it's OK.

Spread apples and chocolate along a long line, if using, and roll up from the short side to have three different types of rolls or along the long side to have one type of rolls, each with three flavors. Slice into sections about an inch to an inch and a half wide. Place each roll in the lined baking dish and bush with the beaten egg glaze. Let rolls rest for 15 minutes.

*If making three types of rolls, place the plain ones in the middle and surround them with filled rolls along the edges of the pan. Due to the added moisture and volume of the filling, the chocolate and apple rolls take longer to bake.

Bake at 450 for 20-25 minutes. These will be nicely browned and they will spring out of their rolls and look gorgeous.