Caramel Apple Cinnamon Rolls
Dough
1/2 cup warm water
1 tsp brown sugar
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
5 cups AP flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 large eggs, room temp
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup milk, warmed
Add the water, yeast, and teaspoon of sugar into a medium bowl. Whisk to dissolve the yeast and set aside.
In a large bowl, add sifted flour. Make a well in the middle and add sugar, salt, butter, eggs, vanilla, and warm milk. Add the (hopefully now foamy) yeast on top. Stir the wet ingredients together, slowly pulling the flour into the mix while stirring.
Mix until a wet, sticky dough forms and all the flour is incorporated.
Cover and set aside in a warm place to double in size, generally 45 minutes. Work on the filling while it rises.
Apple Filling
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
3 tbs pumpkin pie spice
1/8 tsp sea salt
3 medium apples
1 tbs lemon juice
1/4 cup caramel sauce
In a large bowl, combine butter, brown sugar, salt and pumpkin pie spice and blend until smooth. Leave the caramel out for now.
Peel and chop the apples into small cubes. Toss in lemon juice and set aside.
Crumble
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup AP flour
1/4 tsp sea salt
6 tbs butter, melted
Combine all but butter and blend well. Add melted butter and mix until crumbly.
Assembly
Spray or butter a 9x13 casserole dish, preferably with straight sides. Punch down the now risen dough and fold until a smooth dough forms.
Sprinkle a clean surface with flour and set the ball of dough on it. Sprinkle flour on a rolling pin and the top of the dough before rolling it out to a large rectangle. You're looking for roughly 12 by 18 inches.
Spread the pie spice, brown sugar and butter mix onto the dough. Sprinkle with the chopped apples and drizzle the caramel on top of the whole thing.
Starting on one of the long sides, roll to the other long side. Cut 12 equal pieces with either a very sharp knife or using floss/string to wrap around and pulling tight.
Place rolls into the casserole dish and let rise for another 15 minutes while you preheat the oven to 355 degrees.
Sprinkle the rolls with the crumble and bake for 30 minutes, or until they turn golden and bounce back if poked.
Salted Caramel Cream Cheese Glaze
4 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup caramel sauce
2 tsp sea salt
2 cups powdered sugar
3 tbs milk
In a medium bowl, whisk the cream cheese until smooth. Add in the caramel and salt, whisk well. Add powdered sugar a little at a time, until gone. Add the milk a little at a time until it's a consistency that can be drizzled over the top.
Pour the cream cheese over the warm cinnamon buns and serve!
*I tried this recipe with non-dairy cream cheese, butter and milk. It was still fantastic, but the brown sugar mix inside the rolls was much wetter, so if you want to use it, cut the amount of butter to about 1/3 cup.
**This recipe is based off Flouring Kitchen's Apple Pie Cinnamon Rolls.
As we FINALLY get into the brr months, we're ready to pull out the fall flavors. For September we chose our apple and cranberry wine, Darling Doe. Since most apple harvests start this month, it's a great flavor to celebrate, even though the cranberry is the forward flavor in this pretty colored, semi sweet wine.
The name Darling Doe came as a companion wine to our Blushing Buck, which was our cranberry Traminette. Since that was named Blushing due to the color, it seemed reasonable to go with a similar line for this one.