The Best Homemade Cinnamon Buns Ever!

All of you who love the taste of homemade cinnamon buns, here is the best recipe for it! I have made these for a ton of people and every person has said they were the best cinnamon buns they had ever had! My husband says we should open a bakery and just sell cinnamon buns and bread. :)

Makes 2 dozen cinnamon rolls

Dough

4 c warm water

1/4 cup sugar

2 tbsp yeast

2 heaping spoonfuls of lard

1 tbsp salt
flour
Filling
Butter
Brown Sugar
Cinnamon
Icing
(see below)

Mix warm water, yeast, sugar, lard, and salt in your bosch or kitchen aide. Then start adding flour until your dough looks like this. You want the dough to be sticky to the touch and coming away from the edges of the bowl. You will add more flour later. The less flour you use the more moist the cinnamon buns will be. 

Next, I put a timer on and let it rise for about an hour or until the dough almost falls out of the bowl. (My trick to make it rise faster is turn on my oven on at 375 and put the bowl on it. Also cover it with a dish towel)

After it is risen, take some flour and put it on your counter or table and cut the dough in half and roll out one half while leaving the other half in the bowl. Once its about 1/4 inch thick put as much melted butter, cinnamon and brown sugar as you want on the dough. (Make sure you do this part of the process as fast as possible because the dough is rising while you work with it and sometimes you end up making huge cinnamon buns.) Repeat with 2nd batch of dough.

Slowly and very patiently roll the dough lengthwise.

The best way to cut the dough is with floss. I learned this in Home Economics in Junior High.

I usually make them about an inch and a half wide. While you are cutting these, in a pot put about a 1/2 cup butter with a 1/4 cup brown sugar and let it simmer. This is what is going to make your cinnamon buns caramelize.

Then pam your pan, and dump the mixture into the pan. Depending on how big of a pan you use you may need to make more. You only need a thin layer because otherwise your cinnamon buns may get too moist on the bottom and won't cook properly. 

Then you put your cut buns into the pan. Also the bonus is you can make a loaf of bread, and it is quite delicious! I let it rise again in the pan for about another 30 minutes. It makes them even more moist.

Bake at 375 for 20-30 minutes until golden brown on the edges. You then dump them upside-down on wax paper to let them cool. After they cool you flip them over to the white side to add icing.

Now I love icing on cinnamon buns. They are delicious without it but even better with it! I put 2 tbsp of cream cheese in it too, it makes the icing that much more delicious.

1/2 cup butter

2 tbsp cream cheese

1 tbsp vanilla

1/8 cup milk

Add icing sugar till its thick

I prefer to put the icing on the cinnamon buns about 10 minutes after they are out of the oven because the icing kind of melts into the bun so it doesn't stay so thick on top of the bun, and then you taste it throughout the whole bun!

I cover the buns as soon as they are cool because they can dry out quite easily. I cut mine in half too because I can't ever eat a whole one myself.

There you have it! You will not be disappointed :)

Note: The extra loaf of bread, bake at 325 for about 30-40 minutes depending on how brown you like it.