Maple pecan cream cheese frosted cinnamon rolls
Here's what you need..
Cinnamon Roll Dough
- 500g all purpose flour
- 75g granulated sugar
- 1 packet dry yeast
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 350ml water (lukewarm)
- 85g unsalted butter
- 1 egg
Maple Pecan Filling
- 100g brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 2 tablespoon pure maple syrup (dark & robust or very dark)
- 1 cup finely chopped pecans
- 55g unsalted butter, room temp
Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
- 220g cream cheese, room temperature
- 220g unsalted butter, room temperature
- 100ml pure maple syrup (dark & robust or very dark)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 200g confectioners sugar
..and here's how to make em!
Cinnamon Roll Dough
- Weigh and prepare all of your ingredients and slowly melt the butter in a small sauce pan.
- Add your yeast and a sprinkle of the sugar to about half of your lukewarm water and let it sit for 5 minutes.
- Crack your egg in a large mixing bowl and whisk in the sugar, the salt and the other half of the water.
- Add half of the flower to the mixing bowl and mix with a spatula.
- Add the melted butter and mix.
- Add the rest of the flower and mix until it gets too hard. At that point remove from the bowl onto a surface.
- Start kneading until you get a smooth dough. You will know when its ready, when you can press a finger in the dough and the dough won't stick to it.
- Set aside and cover for 15 -20 minutes while you start with the filling
Maple Pecan Filling
- For the filling its best to have very soft butter almost, but not runny. Mix butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and maple syrup together with a fork.
- Finely chop your pecans or blend them in food processor and mix with to form a soft paste consistency that’s perfect for spreading.
- After the dough has rested at least 15 minutes it should have puffed up about 50%.
- Move the dough to a lightly floured surface and roll it into rectangle shape with a thickness of about 1 cm.
- Evenly spread the filling into a thin layer, covering the entire surface from the inside spreading outwards, leaving 2 cm border all around the outside of the dough.
- Gentlty roll up the dough with small increments to form a long and even roll.
- Use a sharp knife and cut about 10-12 evenly sized pieces of the size you want. Remember they will roughly double in size from here so keep that in mind. (Some people use a string or dental floss but I found if you have a sharp knife and make quick clean cuts, the pressed dough will return to an even shape after it has rested. But you do you..)
- Place the rolls in a buttered exandable cake dish. This way you can fill the dish and adapt the size of the dish to the puffed up rolls. If you want nice round individual rolls in the end, leave them some space in between. But I recommend they touch. This will give you one big chunk of cinnamon rolls where you then break off individual rolls with a soft and moist outer wall. But again, you do you..
- Put the dish aside, covered with a towel to rest for at least an hour or until the rolls have doubled in size.
- Preheat the oven to 180 Celcius and bake them until:
- the top has a nice golden brown color
- you can poke them with a toothpick and pull out the toothpick without any dough sticking to it. Obviously don't poke the filling :-)
- This can take anywhere from 25-35 minutes depending on the size of your tray and how tightly the rolls are placed to each other. The closer they are together, the longer it will take as less heat will penetrate them from the sides of the rolls.
Cream cheese frosting
- In a mixing bowl, add butter and cream cheese and mix on a medium setting until you get a light and fluff texture. Probably 2 minutes depending on your mixer.
- Switch to a low setting on your mixer and slowly add the maple syrup, vanilla extract and salt and incorporate it all in.
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Now slowly add the confectioners sugar and mix combined.
- If your frosting is too runny place it in the freezer for 5 minutes before spreading on the warm tray of cinnamon rolls.
- Let them cool for 5-10 minutes and serve!