Sticky Lemon Rolls

Like cinnamon rolls, but lemon.

Ingredients

• Dough
  
  • 2.25tsp yeast
    
  • 3/4c warm water
    
  • 1 stick butter, softened
    
  • 1/4c white sugar
    
  • 2tsp vanilla extract
    
  • 1tsp orange extract or maybe some more lemon zest
    
  • 4.5c white flour
    
  • 1/2tsp salt
    
  • 1/2tsp nutmeg
    
  • zest of 1 lemon
    
  • juice of 1 lemon
    
  • 2 eggs
    
• Filling
  
  • 1c sugar + some
    
  • 1/4tsp freshly-ground nutmeg
    
  • 1/2tsp powdered ginger
    
  • juice of 1 lemon
    
• Frosting
  
  • 6oz cream cheese, softened
    
  • juice of 1/2 lemon
    
  • zest of 1 lemon
    
  • 1c powdered sugar, more or less
    

Ok. Mix all the wet dough ingredients in a bowl and whisk thoroughly. Add flour, 1c at a time, until you've got about 3c added. Then add the last cup and a half and turn onto a counter and knead for 5 minutes or so. Set aside and cover to rise until doubled, one hour.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the filling ingredients. When the dough is doubled, roll it out on a floured counter top until about 18" across and 10" deep. Spread the filling over it evenly, leaving a small lip on the far end of the dough. Carefully, roll up the dough starting at the far end and rolling toward you. Take a bread knife and, using long sawing motions and minimal force, cut the log of dough into 12 pieces (try halving it twice and then cutting into thirds). Place the pieces cut side down in a greased 9x13 pan. Set aside to rise until doubled, about an hour. Preheat the oven to 350, and when the rolls are risen, bake for about 30-35 minutes.

When they're getting close to done, whip together the frosting ingredients. Take the rolls out of the oven and spread the frosting over all of the rolls. Allow to cool and serve.



Thoughts: This is a good recipe, but the filling is REALLY sweet. I'm not really sure what I would do to fix this. I mean, they're cinnamon rolls. I think if I were to do it again, the filling would have no lemon juice at all, just lemon zest (or maybe orange zest). The dough itself was very easy to work with, but I think it didn't really need the huge amount of butter - the eggs were actually probably enough for this. Otherwise, this was really pretty good, though I'm not sure if they're quite enough to convince me to make them again when I could be making normal cinnamon rolls.




Disaster Index: 2/10