Maple Sugar Cinnamon Rolls

Maple Sugar Cinnamon Rolls

One of my favorite smells in the whole world is the aroma of freshly baked cinnamon rolls. Unfortunately cinnamon rolls have gotten a bad rap because of the way that most of them are made with loads of butter, artificial flavorings and white flour and sugar.  This recipe is different, and in my opinion tastes even better.  I have made many versions of these in the past, but after having a slightly not so perfect experiment using spelt flour in a previous recipe, I thought why not try to make a nice yeast based dough using spelt flour?  I had originally planned on just making a bread of some sort (and will try that soon) but I happened to be watching an episode of The Chew the other day and Mario Batali was using his own pizza recipe to make cinnamon rolls.  I wanted some so badly.

I knew that today was going to be a snow day and that my whole family would hopefully be sleeping in and I love taking advantage of lazy mornings like that by baking something warm for breakfast.  But I knew making dough and waiting for it to rise would never fly with four hungry mouths to feed.  So I decided to make the dough the night before.  I figured if you can buy pizza dough from a pizzeria, or even fresh dough from your local grocery store, then it must work to refrigerate your own overnight.  I was right.  I made the dough after dinner last night, let it rise for an hour and then put it in the fridge until this morning.  That way I had fresh cinnamon rolls in less than 30 minutes.

In order to make these fit with my healthy lifestyle, I of course used whole grain (spelt) flour.  You could of course use regular whole wheat flour as well, but the spelt worked nicely and I am glad that I tried it.  Instead of loading the filling up with tons of butter, I used half almond butter (thought about using all almond butter and probably will another time as the flavor and texture were amazing).  I also chose to use pure granulated maple sugar, since maple sugar has such a rich, potent flavor while also being high in nutrients and lower on the glycemic index than regular sugar. Granulated maple sugar can be hard to find and a bit pricey (I bought my small bottle that I almost used up today at a large country fair back in the fall), but it is definitely worth the search and investment.  You could also use plain brown sugar as I mentioned in the recipe or perhaps even raw coconut sugar crystals.  I didn't feel the need to add any maple syrup onto my cinnamon rolls once they were cooked, but I did for my kids and my husband.  I am not sure if it was the fact that after having to wait for them to bake my family was completely ravenous or because the cinnamon rolls tasted as amazing as they smelled, but the whole pan was gone within minutes.  Even my usually picky daughter gobbled up a whole one in record time. Maybe next time I will have to make a double batch!!