Thank you Maria Dowdle for hosting a wonderful cooking group at your home. Below are her famous roll and cinnamon roll recipes.
3/4 C Milk
1/4 C Sugar
1 tsp Salt
1/4 C Butter
2 TBL Yeast
1 Egg
2 3/4 C Flour
1/2 Warm Water
Activate yeast in 1/2 C warm water and sprinkle a tsp of sugar over the top. While you are waiting for that to froth, scald milk in a saucepan. Take off of heat and add butter, sugar, salt and the egg to cool down the mixture. Add enough flour to make a SOFT dough. This dough would be too soft to knead with your hands, just lightly mix. DO NOT KNEAD! Cover with moist warm towel and let rise in a warm place until double (about 30 minutes). Punch down dough. Pour some flour on countertop and poor mixture onto the flour and incorporate the flour just enough that it isn't too sticky to handle with your hands. (The less you knead the more flakey the rolls will be.) Roll out and use a pizza cutter to cut into triangles and roll them like a crescent. Place on a greased pan. Let rise until doubled again (30 minutes). Bake 400 for 15 minutes.
Maria quadruples this recipe for her family and it makes 2 cookie sheets full of generous size rolls. She estimates that this recipe would make about nine rolls. (that would just cover me)
Maria's Cinnamon Rolls
Use the above dough recipe but instead of cutting them into triangles, roll the dough out and pat softened butter all over the dough. (One thing I observed, is that I melt my butter and pour over the dough. This other way, the cinnamon rolls turned out more gooey. I loved it!) Generously sprinkle brown sugar over the dough followed by a sprinkling of cinnamon. Roll the dough into a log and cut with with a knife or string to make the rolls. Place on a greased pan and let rise for 30 minutes. Bake at 400 for 13 minutes.
Maria also made CREAM CHEESE FROSTING. Sorry but this is the recipe - 1 cube of butter, 1 8oz block of cream cheese, some vanilla (maybe 1 tsp), and some butter flavoring (maybe 1/2 tsp), then add your powdered sugar. Add it until you get the consistency that you want. That is Maria's secret to her recipes. Her advice is to try out a recipe and taste as you go along to see what you like, and make it your own. I know, I know, I hate that too. I like precise measurements, but the more flexible you get, then more confidence you get with your cooking and substitutions and so on. I hope you enjoy these recipes as much as I did. Thanks again Maria!
