Winter Wrap-Up: Part One

Over the past several weeks, I have been working on getting indoor things done.  I really wanted to get some things off my to-do list before Spring.  So, in my rare moments of spare time, I've tried a couple new recipes, got some sewing done and finally got a handle on my ridiculous recipe collection.  This would be a crazy long single blog post, so I'll write it in a couple of posts.  

The first thing I checked off my list was using up the half-filled jar of   Salted Caramel Pear Butter that was in my fridge.  Pear butter was not something that had been on my must-try list of things to can.  But, my neighbors asked for help with several pounds of pears they had purchased from a school fundraiser.  It was a little late in the life span of fresh fruit to save many of the pears to can as halves or slices.  We saved what we could, but the ones that were just too mushy were turned into this heavenly jam.   I found the recipe on Pinterest we had the stuff, so we went for it. We were pretty impressed with ourselves on this.  Nothing went to waste, even though the fruit was really REALLY ripe. 

We used pint jars to can the pear butter because that's what we had handy.  Hence, we wound up with one jar that wasn't full and needed to be used right away.  So, back to good old Pinterest for Pear Butter Cinnamon rolls.  I found a handful of recipes that were all slightly different, so I just used them as a guideline and did my own thing.  They were large and sweet and lovely.

Here's the recipe for my version of 
Salted Caramel Pear Butter Cinnamon Rolls. 
(Say that five times fast!)

Rolls:

2 loaves frozen bread dough 

1 cup Salted Caramel Pear Butter (link to the recipe above)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 cup chopped canned pears

A good shake of cinnamon

2 Tbsp. raw sugar (or plain white sugar)

1/2 tsp. corn starch

Frosting:

Mix canned vanilla frosting with a block of cream cheese, a splash of milk and powdered sugar to taste.  (this was sort of a pinch hit frosting I made for the last batch of cinnamon rolls I made.  It makes a LOT, so I froze the extra and used it on these rolls.  It was perfect.)

The rolls are pretty straight forward.  

Thaw the dough overnight in a greased pan with a dish towel over it on the counter or some draft free place (like the microwave). 

Once your dough is thawed and had a chance to rise, punch it down and roll it out into a big rectangle. 

Fill the dough by  slathering it with your pear butter.  Sprinkle on the brown sugar (and if you're not frantically trying to do 17 other things at the same time, you would also add in the cinnamon and corn starch at this point) and then the chopped pears.  

Roll up dough and slice.  I usually cut my slices about an inch or so thick.  If you want monster cinnamon rolls like you get at a restaurant, cut the slices thicker.  This particular batch of rolls leaned toward the "thicker".  

Set the rolls in a greased cake pan.  I used a 10 x 15 pan, but if you only have smaller pans, just use two.  This is probably common knowledge, but I try to put the outside edges of my rolls (the flappy seam part that never fully sticks for me) facing in toward the other rolls.  This way it can't escape and come undone.

Cover with a towel again, set back in a draft free place and let them rise for about another hour.  They should just about double in size.  

*If you should get to this stage and realize that you left the cinnamon out of your cinnamon rolls, then mix the cinnamon/raw sugar/corn starch together and sprinkle over the top.  It'll be fine.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes, depending on how thick your rolls are.

Let them cool almost completely, then glob on the frosting.  I've never ever had a cinnamon roll that I thought had too much frosting on it, so let 'er rip.

Plan to have a pot of coffee and or some cold milk to serve with these guys.  

This recipe is pretty free-form in that I was going a zillion places at once when I made them and wasn't very focused. Frankly, I'm impressed that I even remembered to take any pictures of the process.  I forgot the dough in my microwave for a few extra hours in the morning and it looked scary at first.  But it was OK.  I put the covered dough in the fridge until I got home that night.  Canned pears are really wet.  So I added a bit of corn starch so my rolls wouldn't be slimy.  It also helps thicken up that yummy caramel ooze.  I forgot to put the cinnamon inside the rolls.  So I sprinkled it on top instead, thinking that if I mixed it with a bit of sugar it would melt down into the rolls.  It sort of did, but what happened was even more glorious.  It mixed with the frosting.  Oh. My. Stars.  Best kitchen mistake I ever made.  I'm not always this clumsy in the kitchen, but when I am, I have to tell about it because it's just too funny not to share.  Besides, I did get cinnamon rolls out of the deal and cinnamon rolls are always worth sharing.