Getting a Rise

Before I found THE perfect recipe for cinnamon buns EVER!... I had only used yeast once and that was just putting it in a bread maker.
I do believe that, aside from the smell, that I love this stuff!  I've got several packets of Fleicshmann's dry yeast to use up and I'm looking forward to it.  But, I think that on the package it says to proof the yeast by adding 1/4 cup warm water and a teaspoon of sugar  while the recipe for these best cinnamon buns ever! calls for 1/2 cup of water.  This way has worked for me just fine so far.  I  have come across a recipe that calls for 1 whole cup of warm water.  That one worked fine too until I punched down the dough.  It looked fine all rised and what not, but it barely rose more after I punched it down.  The rolls that I made with it were tough, so, I won't be doing that again.

This was going to be a super long post,  but I'm just going to share pictures and move on to the next =-)

After putting the dough together, it required a 10 minute kneading.

After that was done, I set it to rise for about an hour or until it doubled in size.

While it was rising, I prepared a caramel sauce for the bottom of the pans. All that was to it was to melt butter and brown sugar. It smells SOOOO good!

Next was to roll it out into a rectangle. I got it pretty good here:

The recipe says to melt the butter and brush it on, but after reading some reviews, (what I love about allrecipes.com) I just let the butter soften and spread it on.

After sprinkling with the brown sugar, cinnamon, and but mixture, I rolled and cut the Sticky buns. The last step before putting in the oven to bake is to cover and let them sit and rise for another 25 minutes in the pan.

After it was all over-

The recipe calls them 'Ooey-Goeoey Cinnamon Buns' But mine didn't turn out so ooey gooey and haven't since I've found this recipe. I think that the caramel on the bottom is what's supposed to make them ooey gooey and while it does bubble up around the buns while in the oven, it hardens fast once out.

To get that stickiness that I was looking for, I just turned them out,

and got what was left on the bottom of the pan and returned it back to my sauce pan and re-heated it.

And Now, The Good Part!!

Ooey

Gooey

I absolutely love these, but in the frenzy of putting it all together, forgetting to add salt is easy, so I often do. It goes into the pan with the milk, butter and sugar.
They could be sweeter. If they were, they would be almost exactly the Cinnabons that we love getting at the mall.