a step-up from last year

If there's two foods Ryan loves and you can never go wrong serving him, it's this: Cinnamon rolls or a cheeseburger. Last year for his birthday, I was so proud of myself because I got up super early to open a can of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls and baked them for him before he left to work. I pretty much gave myself a pat on the back for being "wife of the year". I deserved something for enduring the dreadful 'POP' when opening the can. I HATE THAT!!!!!!!!! I'm pretty sure I never liked the Jack in the Box toys growing up---  No thank you.

This year though, being Ryan's FIRST father's day, I decided to be a big girl and just avoid the Pillsbury can all together and make my own cinnamon rolls from scratch. Whoa. I am a big girl now.

First time making homemade cinnamon rolls and I needed to find an easy recipe. I found one (thank you Pinterest) and followed the recipe to a 'T', making sure his morning breakfast wasn't a complete disaster. Having store bought cinnamon rolls on back-up would have been smart, but that's just setting me up for failure. Luckily, for Ryan's sake, there was pure success that morning with me, kitchen, and these cinnamon rolls.

I would call them easy-cheesy cinnamon rolls, but that might give the impression there's cheese in them. So I'll just say,  "easy-peasy cinnamon rolls for someone who's never made them homemade before and wants a safe recipe to try" :) yah, that's better.

rolls
2 & 3/4 cup all purpose flour
3 tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
1 pkg. red star yeast
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup milk
2.5 tbs butter
1 egg

filling
3 tbs butter- softened to room temperature
1.5  tbs ground cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar

glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tbs milk
1 tsp vanilla

1. Make dough: set aside 1/2 cup of flour. In Bowl, toss remaining flour, sugar salt, and yeast. Stir ingredients and set aside.
2. heat water, milk, and butter together in microwave until butter is melted and mixture is hot to touch. Mix butter mixture into flour mixture. Add egg and only enough of the reserved flour to make the dough soft. Dough is ready when it pulls away from side of bowl and has an elastic consistency.
3. knead dough on lightly floured surface for 5 minutes. place in lightly greased bowl and let it rest for 10 minutes.
4. Make filling: Roll dough out to 14x8 inch rectangle. Spread softened butter on top. Mix cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle over the dough. Roll dough up tightly. Cut into 11 pieces and place in lightly greased 9 inch. round pan. Loosely cover rolls with aluminum foil and allow to rise in warm, draft free place for 60-90 minutes. OR (what i did) heat oven to 200F degrees. Turn oven off. Place rolls inside oven and allow to rise.
5. After the rolls have doubled in size, preheat oven to 375F. Bake 25-30 minutes until lightly browned. (Mine were ready at 20 minutes). Cover rolls last 10 minutes to avoid heavy browning.
6. Make the glaze: Right before serving, top cinnamon rolls with glaze. Mix powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk until smooth. You can add more powdered sugar to make a thicker glaze.

*Best eaten same day, but can store up to 5 days in container. Recipe fromsallysbakingaddiction.com