Buttermilk Cinnamon Rolls: 2 Ways

Cinnamon Rolls and I have a complicated relationship.

There was once a time when I believed their origins to be exclusively bound up with a puffy white spokes-thing emblazoned on a blue can, a blue can that you had to press (in great fear and anxiety) with the back of a spoon to get to pop open. Oh, the delicious Sunday mornings that can and I shared together.

Then I learned cinnamon rolls could be got in other ways, namely at restaurant drive-thrus before the clock struck a bitter 10:30 a.m. Equally sweet. Equally tooth-decaying. Equally delicious.

About 5 years ago, Southern Living told me you could buy a bag of frozen biscuits, thaw them out, pat them together, cover them in cinnamon sugar, and achieve a "homemade" result (long before Sandra Lee earned television time to teach me similar stultifying tricks). I felt empowered. I felt confused. Is this what cinnamon rolls are supposed to be?

Then somewhere along the line, I stumbled into scratch baking, which meant I had no one but a recipe writer to help me achieve can- or drive-thru-transcendence. It was then that I discovered the true essence of the cinnamon roll: the soft, bready roll, the gooey brown sugar center, the cream cheese blessing to be showered over top.

This was also about the time that I discovered 27-year-olds cannot get away with eating the things 17-year-olds do. And though I often crave (and I mean reeeally crave) the gooey goodness of a cinnamon roll first thing on a lazy weekend morning, I just can't bring myself to eat that for breakfast anymore. But dessert? That's another story.

So cinnamon rolls it is! Four of them, to be exact, adapted from ... well ... from an unidentified recipe that has been in my cookbook for several years now. Because the pumpkin train keeps rolling these days, I also did an alternate version of these rolls using the orangey goodness. Both are divine.

Part 1: Plain Buttermilk Cinnamon Rolls

makes 4 rolls; can be ready in about 30 minutes

Filling:

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 Tbsp white sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

pinch salt

dash nutmeg

1/2 Tbsp melted butter

Dough:

1 1/4 cup flour

1 Tbsp sugar

1/8 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup buttermilk

3 Tbsp melted butter

Icing:

1 Tbsp cream cheese, softened

1 Tbsp buttermilk

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 425º. Combine filling ingredients in a small bowl and stir together until mixture resembles wet sand. Set aside.
2. For dough, whisk together dry ingredients in medium bowl. Add buttermilk and butter, and stir until you get a shaggy dough. Turn out onto a well-floured surface and knead a time or two. Pat into a 6 x 9 inch rectangle, then sprinkle all of filling evenly over top. Roll from one 6-inch side to the other, pinching dough shut when rolling is complete. Cut into 4 rolls.
3. Transfer rolls, pinwheel side up, to a small, greased pan (a 5 x 5 size was perfect for me), and smush them down just a little, until they touch. (NOTE: If you have a choice between a pan that is too small and one that is too big, air on the large side. You want these rolls to spread out, not up.) Bake in preheated oven for 20-23 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, combine icing ingredients, whisking until smooth. Spoon over top and serve warm!

Part 2: Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls (alterations marked in bold)

Filling:

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 Tbsp white sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

pinch salt

dash nutmeg

1/2 Tbsp melted butter

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Dough:

1 1/4 cup flour

2 Tbsp sugar

1/8 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

dash nutmeg

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

1/4 cup buttermilk

3 Tbsp melted butter

Icing:

1 Tbsp cream cheese, softened

1 Tbsp buttermilk

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon

• Follow instructions for Buttermilk Cinnamon rolls, whisking spices into dry ingredients for dough and adding pumpkin with the buttermilk and butter (you could even decrease the butter if you wanted, since the pumpkin will provide plenty of moisture). Everything else is the same.

Pumpkin Brownies

It's PUMPKIN TIME! Finally! All these fresh vegetables, bountiful crops, and dizzying varieties during the summer--at last, we can settle down on one thing. And eat it all winter long.

Fall has several meanings for me: 1. Pumpkins, 2. Apples, 3. Cranberries, 4. Halloween Candy. And seasons changing and all that other crap too, of course, but mostly I really look forward to the foods that go with autumn. They're crisp and spicy-sweet and warm and mushy. (Think baked apples and soft roasted winter squashes and pie galore.) They also have come to mean infiltrating all otherwise normal dishes somehow with pumpkin. Enter Libby.

I saw her on the shelf and couldn't walk by. Look at that beast! Think of how many Downsliced creations she could make! Cookies, muffins, brownies, pie, pastas, soups, sauces....my head almost exploded right there on the carpeted floor (not kidding) of my local Foodmaster. 100% Calabaza Pura. I made her mine and took her home.

As usual, I wanted chocolate, but I also wanted pumpkin. Most of the recipes Google gave me had dreadful terms like "healthy" and "low calorie" in the title. Worse, they were actually promoted using phrases like, "Can't even taste the pumpkin!" or "Your kids won't know its there!" What blasphemy is this? A pumpkin brownie with no traceable elements of pumpkininity? What has our world come to?

My pointer finger went spasmodic; I think I actually made it to page three of Google's search results before Food and Wine magazine saved me. A delicious chocolate brownie with an intentionally discernible pumpkin swirl marbled throughout. Phew. The living room ceased to spin around me. I calmly clicked 'Print.' The world was as it should be.

Pumpkin Brownies

adapted from Food & Wine,* serves 4ish; takes about 40 minutes

For the Pumpkin batter

2 tsp butter, room temp

2 Tbsp cream cheese, room temp

1/4 cup sugar

1 egg yolk

2 Tbsp pumpkin

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp each cinnamon and ginger

1 Tbsp flour

For the Brownie

1 1/2 oz chocolate

2 Tbsp butter

1 egg

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 tsp vanilla

pinch salt

1/3 cup flour

(1/4 cup walnuts, optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Whisk together cream cheese and butter in a small bowl until creamy and uniform. Add sugar and whisk to incorporate. Add yolk, pumpkin, vanilla and spices then whisk again until smooth. Stir in flour. Set aside
2. Now, melt chocolate and butter together in microwave or gently over the stove. Set aside to cool slightly. In a medium bowl, beat egg, sugar, vanilla and salt until your arm gives out, or until the egg is frothy and the sugar is almost dissolved, whichever comes first (feel free to use electric beaters for this). Gradually add melted chocolate mixture, whisking all the while so it doesn't cook your eggs. Once chocolate is in, fold in flour and nuts (if using).
3. Take a well-greased 4-5 inch square pan and pour the brownie batter in. Slop heaping spoonfulls of pumpkin batter all over the top, then swirl with a knife (not too much! you still want separate entities). Bake 20-28 minutes, depending on your gooeyness preference. Tastes really good cold.

*Special note: I actually made two versions of this brownie; the first, I felt, did not have all the pumpkin-packed power I was craving. On the second round I actually doubled the amount of pumpkin swirl it called for and found it perfect.