CINNAMON ROLLS

Cinnamon Rolls

¼ cup milk

¼ cup mashed potatoes, peeled

2 Tbsp yeast

2 Tbsp honey

2 Tbsp warm water

½ tsp salt

1 egg

1 ¾ cup unbleached white flour

Filling:

2 Tbsp melted butter

2 Tbsp honey

1 tsp cinnamon

¼ cup walnuts, finely chopped

Icing:

1 ½ cup of powdered sugar

1 ½ Tbsp milk

Bring milk to a boil. Turn off heat and add mashed potatoes, butter and honey. Set aside. In a medium size bowl, combine yeast and warm water. I always add a pinch of sugar to activate the yeast, stir to dissolve.  When the yeast begins to foam and bubble, add the potato mixture, beat in egg and add salt. Mix in ½ cup of flour. Mix well adding remaining flour. Turn onto a floured board, kneading until smooth and elastic. Set into a buttered bowl, cover and let rise until doubled.

Preheat oven to 375F. Punch down dough and knead again. Let dough set for 10 minutes. Roll out to ¼ inch thickness in a rectangular shape, about 9x15. Brush 1 Tbsp melted butter over the dough, then drizzle with the honey, sprinkle the cinnamon, followed by the finely chopped walnuts over the surface. Now roll the dough up by its shorter end so that you have a short but thick roll. Cut in 1 inch thick slices and set onto a buttered baking sheet, placing rolls about 1 inch apart. You should have 8 slices.

Bake 15 minutes until lightly browned. Brush with remaining Tbsp melted butter or frost with icing.


I was given this recipe 19 years ago by a friend.  Maybe I thought this would be a good recipe to make after Thanksgiving or Christmas when I had extra mashed potatoes in the house. Truly, I don’t know what I was thinking as this recipe was a flop. The recipe suggests that I let the bread rise for an hour to double in size. After allowing the dough to set overnight, it had only risen 1 ½ its original size. I decided to follow through with the recipe and I was unimpressed. The cinnamon rolls were not large and fluffy and the dough was tough. I took one bite and instantly spit it out.  My daughter Julia said, “the rolls taste like cafeteria rolls.” I’m not sure what that meant but any sentence with cafeteria in it has got to be bad. My husband Keith said, “the rolls are okay heated in the microwave with butter.” I have a number of cinnamon/sweet roll recipes to try so, stay with me as I find the perfect cinnamon/sweet roll recipe and continue to decide, waste basket or recipe box.

Trash√