Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

I know many of you may be "pumpkined out" by this time in the fall, but if you've still got some pumpkin in your cupboard or refrigerator, this is a delicious recipe to tuck away in the freezer for a special holiday breakfast treat. I had a lot of pumpkin stored in the freezer from last fall, when I cooked down and froze some pureed pumpkin I made from the blue pumpkin in my front porch display. But you could certainly use canned pumpkin if you like.

The dough is easy to make. Roll out to about 12" x 9"

After smearing it with the butter/cinnamon/sugar mixture, roll it up tightly.

Pinch the edges and flip it over to have the smooth side on top.

Cut into twelve slices and trim off the ends. 

I  smooshed the end pieces together and baked it separately in a small oven proof container, as the cook's special treat - hey, I needed to do some quality control, right?

Place the 12 sliced rolls in a baking dish. You could also choose to make two round pans with six rolls in each pan.

Let them rise until nearly doubled in size.

Bake and let cool a little before slathering on the glaze. Or freeze unglazed as I did, reheat slightly in the oven and glaze when ready to serve. 

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Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

(recipe from thefarmersdaughter.com)

Ingredients:

1/4 cup water

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast 

1/4 cup white sugar (1 tablespoon for yeast mixture, 3 tablespoons in the rest of the dough)

3/4 cup pumpkin puree

1/4 cup butter

3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (*important: don't add this all at once.  depending on your pumpkin puree thickness, and baking conditions, you may not need it all!)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg

filling:

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup butter, softened

Directions:

In a small bowl, add water, a tablespoon of white sugar, and yeast.  Stir together and set aside to rise.

In a small saucepan, stir together pumpkin puree and butter on a medium heat, stirring constantly.  Allow to cool slightly.

In a large mixing bowl, add 2 1/4 cups of flour, remaining 3 tablespoons of white sugar, and salt.  Stir in yeast and egg, and mix well.  Add in pumpkin and butter mixture.  Add in remaining cup of flour, 1/2 cup at a time (*note: you may not need all of the flour depending on the consistency of your pumpkin puree - you want your dough to pull away from the bowl, but not to get too dry.  A little stickiness is good as long as you can still work with it!)  Stir well until dough comes away from the sides of the bowl.

Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface, and knead for 5 minutes until smooth (again....it's better if you're dough's a little sticky here, rather than adding too much flour).

Cover with a clean, damp cloth, and let rest for 10 minutes.

Mix together the brown sugar, cinnamon, and soft butter.

Roll dough out into a 9x12 rectangle.

Spread butter-sugar mixture evenly across the dough.  Then, roll up the long side of the dough as tight as you can.  Pinch the seam where it ends, so that it doesn't come apart.  Use either a serrated knife to cut the roll into 12 even pieces, or you can use a piece of plain floss (slide it under the dough, bring it up, cross over each other, and cut).  

*Hint: I often trim the ends of the roll off and bake it in a mini pan to help the buns stay more even!

Arrange the twelve buns into a greased 9x13 pan.  Cover with a clean dish towel, and allow to rise for 30 minutes in a warm place.  (I let mine rise for nearly two hours.)  I placed any extra bits or warped rolls into a greased muffin tin.

Bake at 375 degrees F for 18-20 minutes.  

Allow to cool slightly before removing from pan/pie dish.  Best served warm with a glaze/icing.

Glaze/Icing

1 1/2 cup icing sugar

3 tablespoons butter (softened)

1/2 cup maple syrup

directions:

In a medium bowl, mix all ingredients together and adjust to taste/desired thickness.  Drizzle or spread over cinnamon rolls.  I like to soften my butter a lot, so it spreads on easy, and then will firm up.