Close Your Eyes for These Awesome Cinnamon Rolls

Our 12-year-old daughter has been looking at advertisements for "glutenous" cinnamon rolls lately.  They are beautiful and perfect.  Sometimes I get frustrated, because I used to make this type of cinnamon roll before our diagnosis and it is a difficult transition to get accustomed to gluten-free dough.  I'm not able to shape the dough into anything but a blob.

Not to be defeated, I decided to invent a cinnamon roll that tasted good--even if it didn't look good (as you can see by the photo).  Our daughter came up with the idea of pouring caramel syrup over the top and eating the cinnamon rolls with a fork, which is incredibly delicious!  So, simply close your eyes when you eat these and don't look at the funny shape... and enjoy!

Our Favorite Rolls 

½ cup lukewarm water

2 teaspoons yeast

2 teaspoons sugar

¾ cup milk

½ cup buttermilk (or 1¼ cups soy or almond milk)

2 cups brown rice flour

1½ cups tapioca flour

⅛ cup sugar

2½ teaspoons xanthan gum

½ cup dried potato flakes

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup cooking oil or shortening

2 tablespoons butter

2 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 170°F or warm setting.
2. To make yeast mixture, pour lukewarm water into a small bowl, and sprinkle yeast and sugar across the top of the water. Set aside. (To be sure the water is not too hot, put a couple of drops on the inside of your wrist and be sure that it is lukewarm.) 
3. Microwave milk and buttermilk for about 1 minute, or until hot.
4. Combine flours, sugar, xanthan gum, potato flakes, and salt in large bowl.
5. Add yeast mixture, hot milk, oil, butter, and eggs into dry ingredients. Beat at high speed for 3 minutes. A heavy duty kitchen mixer is recommended.
6. Spray muffin tins with cooking spray. Spoon dough into muffin tins, around ¾ full.
7. Set muffin tray on open oven door to rise, with oven preheated to 150°F. Let rise for approximately 20 minutes for rapid rise yeast and 30 minutes for regular yeast.
8. Place rolls in oven and turn heat up to 375°F. Bake for 20 to 24 minutes.

Makes 16 to 18 rolls

Cinnamon Rolls 

Use the recipe for Our Favorite Rolls

1. Fill greased muffin tins about ½ full with roll dough.
2. Sprinkle dough with cinnamon sugar.
3. Add dough to fill the muffin tins to around ¾ full. Sprinkle with additional cinnamon sugar.
4. Cover the rolls with caramel syrup when serving.

 Makes 16-18 rolls

(You may want to reduce the Caramel Syrup recipe, unless you want to save the leftovers for pancakes and/or waffles.) 

Caramel Syrup

½ cup butter

½ cup milk

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup sugar

½ cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Melt butter in a medium saucepan.
2. Add milk, sugar and brown sugar. Stir and boil gently for one minute. Remove pan from stove and add buttermilk and vanilla.

(See my cookbook for all three recipes.)