Grandma Thiebaud’s Cinnamon Rolls

One of the fondest memories I have growing up is making cinnamon rolls with my Grandma Thiebaud and my sister. My Grandma would make the dough, roll it out, and make a simple filling out of butter, cinnamon, brown sugar, and pecans. Actually she would make two batches: one with pecans and one without as some people didn’t prefer pecans. She would make these little breakfast treats and give them as gifts to relatives or friends at holidays or special occasions.  They played a bit part in my family’s Thanksgiving and Christmas Holiday experience.

I usually don’t make a lot of sweet dishes. In fact, it hasn’t been until very recently that I’ve even really bothered with making desserts, sweet breads, etc. Generally speaking, I think I was a bit intimidated by the precise nature of baking. I am a little of this and a little of that sort of cook, using whatever I have handy instead of following recipes. So, I always thought baking to be too restrictive for my cooking style. However, like everything, the more I bake (whether it be bread or desserts), the more I’m finding that assumption to be absolutely false. I’m finding that following exact recipes has been a good starting point. However, I’m also finding that if I pay attention to the ratios of flour and dry ingredients to the general quantities of liquid ingredients, then you can play around with the rest. All that is a long way of getting to my main point here: I have taken my Grandma’s general recipe and adapted it a bit. I use additional spices, scent it with vanilla powder and citrus juice and zest, and utilize different sugar(s) to create a different depth of flavor. That said, the basic technique, look, feel, and smell while baking still takes me right back to my Grandma’s kitchen with my sister, when we were young, just watching and helping sprinkle sugar over the yellow pastry before rolling it. If you have kids, and try this, I hope you consider sharing this experience with them. It would please me and I know it would please my Grandma. Enjoy!  Recipe follows after the jump… Continue reading →