Sweet Rolls

When I was a child going to grandma's house meant one sure thing: sweet rolls.  Undoubtedly at some point in the trip there would be a pan of hot cinnamony rolls for breakfast, especially on Christmas morning.  And when we couldn't be together for Christmas she would lovingly freeze and ship the sweet rolls to us so we would be able to continue the tradition together. 

I couldn't find a picture of grandma's rolls but I found this pic that looks similar to what she used to make (minus the chocolate chips, plus nuts, except for my brother for whom she would make some without).

sweet rolls pic via feistycook.com

  

Along with so many other fun things in grandma's kitchen (pie crust, chocolate cake, pork chops, shelling sooooooo many peas), my brother and I learned to help make sweet rolls with her as we got older. Several years ago my grandmother passed the family tradition on to me to keep. I've felt bad not having been able to since having to avoid gluten. Recently, however, I've been experimenting with gluten free breads again, this time with some measure of success. So I'm trying to revive the much-beloved tradition if I can. Grandma's coming up to visit later this summer & I'd love to be able to surprise her with them.

(Grandma once said she doesn't really read my blog so hopefully I'm not ruining the surprise by posting this here!)

I rarely mention it here, but I have another blog where I usually post about gluten-free issues.  I recently posted a review over there about the gluten free bread mix that I have found to work best for me, even better than mixing my own, and while it is on sale right now where I normally do our grocery shopping, it's also cheaper.

Anyway, I thought since this is more fun and less serious than what I post over there that I'd share it with you over here, especially since I've not any new sewing to show you just yet.

While most of the dough went into a loaf of bread (which is in the oven baking right now) I sectioned off a small portion for my sweet roll experiment.  To this I added a tablespoon or two of sugar and about a tablespoon of softened butter.  Then I spread it out on parchment paper in the same shape I would for the old-school style sweet rolls.

dough rectangle

Then I mixed up a tablespoon of softened butter with cinnamon and sugar.

cinnamon sugar

This I sprinkled on to the rolls as evenly as I could and spread it towards 3 of the edges.  Then I used the parchment paper and a silicone spatula to help roll the dough over onto itself.

odd angle... beginning to roll the dough

With the dough in a roll I cut it with a knife into 8 pieces.   Next time I do this I think I will try coating the outside with a little bit of starch at this point.

roll of gf dough looking much less appetizing than regular dough

I placed the sliced roll pieces into a buttered glass pie plate.  I'm hoping with the addition of starch to the outside of the rolls next time I can pack them closer together and thus retain a more traditional sweet roll shape.

looking a little sad in the pan

Then I covered them with plastic and a towel and let them rise.

mmmm...

Then they went into a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven  for about 15 minutes.

I put some coconut on top of a few of them

It was late when I pulled them out of the oven, but my husband and I just had to try a couple.

I think the consensus was that they are yummy, evidenced by the fact that after breakfast they were all gone. ^_^

 

The texture seems as close to right as I can make.  I've already said above how I hope to fix the shape. The tasted is close, but I might add a little more sugar to the dough next time and try to do the cinnamon sugar the way we used to do it with grandma, melting the butter and sprinkling the cinnamon sugar on top of that instead.

Nuts might not get added for us for a while due to cost, but maybe mom will spring for them when grandma comes (hint hint). If so I'll happily throw those in, too. :)  Either way, hopefully this is the beginning of the revival of a cherished family tradition.

Happy Friday!