Ready, Set, Weekend with the Garden of Eatin'

I'm still on a "roll" here with my sudden obsession for comfort foods. This week I decided to whip up some yummy cinnamon rolls. I realize that Valentine's Day is over BUT I had these heart shaped cinnies in my mind for a while now. After researching HOW TO make these with an easy “no yeast” dough, this is what transpired….

First of all, I need to remind you that I'm not a professional chef or baker. I'm a fun loving, kooky and creative kinda gal who likes to “futz” around in my kitchen. Sometimes things I make turn out great and sometimes there are EPIC fails...it's fine....I'm not perfect (even though I keep telling my husband that I'm pretty close to Godliness). What matters is this....if it tastes good, who cares what it looks like? So here's the scoop with these Heart Shaped Cinnamon Rolls. I followed all the right steps and what I ended up with was about a dozen rolls that each ended up looking like a female reproductive system. Am I right or what? I ate most of them myself because no one I live with felt comfortable eating a frosted Fallopian tube. I'm going to share the recipe, which was outta control delish, but I would suggest you just roll 'em and slice 'em instead of getting all fancy with the hearts.

Oh and one more lesson learned. When placing confectioners’ sugar with wet ingredients in the mix-master, please ensure that you start on low speed. I got excited about the prospect of making this frosting (and licking it off my fingers) so I turned the machine on HIGH. Next thing I knew the white powder exploded out of the bowl and my kitchen now looked like a ski hill in Colorado. It was actually cool but I now needed to groom my kitchen in the middle of dealing with my "uterus" cinnamon rolls.

Here’s how: EASY PEASY CINNAMON ROLLS WITH LEMON GREEK YOGURT CREAM CHEESE ICING ( HEART SHAPED IF YOU REALLY WANT TO!) 2 cups flour 3 tbls sugar 1½ tbls baking powder ¼ cup cold butter or margarine 1 cup cold milk Filling: ⅓ cup butter - melted 1/2 cup packed brown sugar or 1/2 cup white sugar 2 tsp cinnamon Preheat oven to 400F. Take 2 cups of flour and place into a mixing bowl, add in the baking powder and sugar. Mix the dry ingredients together with a whisk. Use a pastry blender ( or two knives criss-crossing each other) and cut the butter in, until you get crumbly little bits throughout the mixture. Make a well, and pour the milk into it. Mix it until it forms a soft ball, then take the dough out and put it onto a floured surface. Take your rolling pin, and roll it until its about 12 inches long, 6 inches wide and ⅓ inch thick. Making the filling: Take the brown sugar, 1/3 cup butter and cinnamon and combine. Spread it out over the dough. For heart shaped rolls, you need to roll the long ends inward towards the centre, for regular rolls you are going to simply do jelly roll style. Slice them 2 inches thick and pinch the end to form a heart shape OR just leave them alone and make a regular circle. Place them in a greased baking dish and bake for 17 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. While still warm drizzle with frosting. FROSTING 4 oz. (half a package) Greek yogurt cream cheese, softened – (found this type of cheese in the refrigerator section of the supermarket, it’s literally the best thing ever, but if you can’t find it just use regular cream cheese) ¼ cup unsalted butter, softened 1 1/2 cups icing (confectioners) sugar ½ tsp pure vanilla extract 1 tsp fresh lemon juice ⅛ tsp salt Whip all ingredients in a stand mix-master, first on low speed to incorporate sugar and then turn up to medium to get it to a fluffy consistency. See ya next week! debi @thgardenofeatin xoxo