Homemade Cinnamon Rolls & English Muffin Bread Recipes

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a dozen times: "Make homemade cinnamon rolls? From scratch? Are you crazy? That takes all day!"
I have several recipes for homemade cinnamon rolls that do, indeed, take at least all afternoon - scald the milk and let it cool to room temperature (30 minutes); mix the dough and let it raise for an hour (1.5 hours); punch down the dough and let it raise for another hour (1 hour); shape into cinnamon rolls and let raise for another hour (1.5 hours); and then, finally, bake the cinnamon rolls (30 minutes) - for a grand total of 5 hours from start to finish.

But it doesn't have to be that way. You really can make homemade cinnamon rolls from scratch in two hours or less.

Homemade Cinnamon Rolls Recipe

From the
Rural Route 2 Cookbook

2 cups of warm water
1/2 cup sugar
4 teaspoons dry yeast (or two packages of dry yeast)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup Canola oil (you can use any kind of cooking oil, or shortening if you prefer)
6 to 7 cups of flour

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Add the sugar and salt. Mix. Add the cooking oil (or shortening), 2 eggs, 2 cups of flour and beat until smooth. Stir in 3 more cups of flour. Begin kneading the dough, adding the final cup of flour. If the dough seems too sticky, knead in more flour, a quarter to a half cup at a time. Let the dough rest for 20 minutes. (I leave it sitting on the counter and use the time to wash up the bowl and other utensils and to clean off the counter top.)

Roll the dough into a rectangle that's 24 to 30 inches long by about 16 inches wide. Spread with soft butter and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar (about 1/2 cup sugar and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon). Starting at the wide end, roll into a log. Cut the cinnamon rolls into equal sized slices (approximately one inch wide each or slightly more) and place into two greased 9x13 pans. Put in a warm place to rise for 45 minutes.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 minutes (or until the cinnamon rolls are golden brown).
Allow to cool for 5 minutes and then turn out of the pans.

This recipes makes two dozen cinnamon rolls. If you want REALLY BIG cinnamon rolls, cut into 12 equal pieces 2 inches wide. Total amount of time needed from start to finish (including time to bake) is about 2 hours.

With this recipe for batter bread, you can have fresh bread to serve in about an hour and a half.

It goes well with soup or stew and makes great toast! It also makes good toasted garlic bread to serve with spaghetti.

I usually make this recipe without the cornmeal because the cornmeal is so messy when I dump the bread out of the pans.

The bread rises while it is baking, but then before it is finished baking, the top falls, so don't be surprised that there's a dip in the middle of the loaves

English Muffin Bread

From the
Rural Route 2 Cookbook

5 cups of flour
2 packages of dry yeast (or 4 teaspoons bulk yeast)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups warm milk
1/2 cup warm water
cornmeal (if desired)

Measure 2 cups of flour, the yeast, sugar, salt and baking powder into a large bowl and stir to combine the dry ingredients. Add the warm milk and water and, with an electric mixer, blend on low speed for a minute, scraping the bowl constantly. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes.

Stir in the remaining flour. If you have dough hooks for your mixer, you might want to use them. If you don't have dough hooks, you might want to consider stirring in the flour by hand because the dough becomes quite stiff.

Grease 2 loaf pans. If you're going to use the cornmeal, sprinkle the greased pans with cornmeal. If you're not going to use the cornmeal, just grease the pans. Divide the batter between the two pans. If you're using the cornmeal, sprinkle cornmeal on top of the dough.

Let rise in a warm place for 45 minutes.

Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 35 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the pans immediately.