Salted Maple and Candied Bacon Sinamon Rolls

Flashback to my previous post where I talked about being a busy horse show mom….horse shows on pause, VOLLEYBALL is in full swing! Three games so far this week. However, this post is about much more than volleyball! It’s about golden, buttery, soft, coffee and salted maple, candied bacon, cinnamon filled piles of gooey goodness! You guessed it, cinnamon rolls! (It is Fall right??)

Today I’m baking for my daughter’s volleyball team, well, actually for their coach. These are her favorites! It will be at her discretion if the girls play well enough to earn one! Fingers crossed! Go Wildcats!

Ok, let’s talk cinnamon rolls. We all have our favorite recipe, probably one handed down from generation to generation. I did too. UNTIL….I came up with this recipe, which I adapted from a few well loved recipes I’ve used over the years. I made a few tweeks for that meatitarian husband of mine and discovered that even the best things in life can have improvements made! ( I mean really…CANDIED BACON!!)

I’m a sucker for specialty spice shops. The two that I love the most are Savory Spice Shop and High Plains Spice Company. These two places are the ONLY places I will buy spices, vinegars and oils. I will include a link at the bottom of the page to both. Try it. You will not regret it! SOOOOOOO delicious!

Ingredients

Dough

1 cup vegetable oil
1 Quart whole milk
1 cup sugar
2 packages active dry yeast (4 1/2 teaspoons)
9 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 heaping teaspoon baking powder
1 scant teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon salt
1 Cup melted butter (for pouring into pans)
2 cups super soft butter (for schmeering onto the dough to hold the cinnamon/sugar!)

Filling:

1/4 cup ground cinnamon, or more if you like more (Ground Saigon Cassia Cinnamon-Savory Spice Shop)
2 cups brown sugar, plus more as needed

Maple Icing

- 1/2 cup whole milk ( or less, I use more coffee, eliminate coffee if you just hate it, but I wouldn’t recommend it!)
- 2 pounds powered sugar
- 1 stick butter, melted
- 4 oz softened cream cheese
- 1/4 cup strongly brewed coffee
- Dash of salt
- ¼ cup maple ( I use Natural Maple Extract from Savory Spice)

SECRET INGREDIENT! Murray River Flaked Sea Salt (Again with the Savory Spice Shop) OR Course Kosher salt. Don’t add it to anything until I say!!

Candied Bacon

You read that right. How can life get any better than THAT?? Candied BACON?? Oh good gravy!!

Two pounds of thin sliced bacon (raw)
1 cup Pecan bits
2 cups Brown sugar

Directions:

Make the bacon FIRST! Combine the pecan bits and the brown sugar. Press the raw bacon into the mixture until coated. Bake in the oven at 375 degrees until deliciously crispy. I like my bacon VERY crispy so I let it go for quite awhile. When it’s cool, chop it up into little pieces to spread all over those SINomon rolls!

For the dough: Heat the milk, vegetable oil and sugar in a medium saucepan over medium heat to just below a boil. Set aside and cool to warm. Sprinkle the yeast on top and let it sit on the milk for 1 minute.

Add 8 cups of the flour. Stir until just combined, and then cover with a clean kitchen towel and set aside in a relatively warm place for 1 hour. After 1 hour, remove the towel and add the baking powder, baking soda, salt and the remaining 1 cup flour. Stir thoroughly to combine. Use the dough right away, or place in a mixing bowl and refrigerate for up to 3 days, punching down the dough if it rises to the top of the bowl. (The dough is easier to work with if it’s been chilled for at least an hour or so beforehand.)

To assemble the rolls, remove half the dough from the pan. On a floured baking surface, roll the dough into a large rectangle, about 30 by 10 inches. The dough should be rolled very thin.

For the filling: Schmeer a full two sticks of butter on your rolled out dough, making an even layer of creamy, soft butter to hold your cinnamon mixture. Generously sprinkle half of the ground cinnamon and sugar mixture over butter. Use your fingers to even it out.

Begin rolling the dough towards you. Make the roll as tight as you can, so none of that cinnamon goodness gets out! When you reach the end, pinch the seam together and flip the roll so that the seam is face down.

Here it is! PRO TIP!!! Go to your bathroom. Retrieve the dental floss. Slide a long piece through your left over flour and wrap the piece under the roll and bring it together to cut the pieces, about one inch thick. This is seriously the BEST way to do it!

Pour a little bit of butter into the bottom of your pans, enough to coat the whole pan and place your rolls in the pan. I put 12 rolls into one 9×13 pan. Or 6 rolls into an 8” round cake pan.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Cover all the pans with a kitchen towel and set aside to rise on the countertop until they double in size.

Remove the towel and bake until golden brown, 15 to 18 minutes. Don’t allow the rolls to become overly brown.

While the rolls are baking, make the maple icing: In a large mixing bowl, mix together the powdered sugar, milk, butter, cream cheese, coffee and salt. Pour in the maple flavoring. Whisk until very smooth. Taste and add in more maple, sugar, butter or coffee until the icing reaches the desired consistency and taste. The icing should be somewhat thick but still very pourable.

Remove the pans from the oven. Slather the rolls with the icing while they are still pretty warm. Be sure to get it in every nook and cranny! The icing will soak into the rolls and make them even more delicious! We have come to the point in this conversation that makes these cinnamon rolls different from all others….and will have people begging you for the recipe. SECRET INGREDIENT: SALT!! I typically use Murray River Flaked Sea Salt from Savory Spice Shop, however, if I don’t have that I use course Kosher salt. A light dusting of this magical mineral will have your taste buds dancing!

Now for that BACON!! Distribute the bacon chunks evenly across your pan and then pour a big cup of coffee and wait for your neighbors to arrive. They will. In droves. The aroma of cinnamon, maple, coffee and bacon is bound to bring you friends you never knew you had. These are special. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

Sidenote: The girls earned their cinnamon rolls, but coach got her own pan 😉

Until next time! Fly safe everyone. ☺