Apple Butter Cinnamon Rolls-Wow!

I have a large family and I cook and bake a lot. I also do a lot of "experimenting" and usually that leads to some new dish or way to cook something that we really like. There have been those that were not so successful, like the "Coconut Soup" which was an accident.. .the dried coconut from the Amish store looked too much like the mashed potato flakes and I was in a hurry and needed to thicken the soup... I was planning to put mashed potato flakes in and put coconut in instead.
Oh, it was pretty bad. My family valiantly ate it... and even said it wasn't "that" bad, but let me tell you... it was bad and they still tease me about making "Coconut Soup" even though that accident was several years ago. We sure laugh about it now.


This experiment, though turned out much better. I had made homemade apple butter the week before and my mind was conjuring up all different ways to use apple butter. The thought of putting apple butter in cinnamon rolls came that week. So, a few days later I tried it.

 First, I started out with my regular bread dough recipe, which you can find HERE.

Next, I floured the table and scooped the dough out onto it... my dough was not real heavy as I wanted it to be lighter this time... so it was a little bit sticky still.

 I just rolled it out... it doesn't look pretty... and I usually try to keep it more of a rectangular shape, but we had out of town company and I was in a hurry... and this was an experiment, so I just needed to get it done.

Life seems to be so busy here... I keep trying to slow things down, but it isn't working too well. Obviously, I need to work more on this... how nice to have a bit more energy to try something like this, though. :)

 I put butter on... I think the layer of butter was a little lighter than usual. Have you seen the price of butter lately?  Almost $4.00 a pound at Aldi's! We use a lot of butter here, so I am being a little more careful with it. :)

 I put a light sprinkling of white sugar and then a lighter than normal layer of brown sugar.

Here, I have already put a layer of my homemade apple butter on it. Yes, the whole thing does look like a big old bear. :)

I rolled them up.. and it was so messy. I didn't get any pictures of that step, sorry... my hands were a mess and I had already gotten flour on my camera.  Anyway, I rolled it up into one long log and it was so messy... some of the apple butter pushed as I rolled...

 I cut the cinnamon rolls and they flopped over... they were a mess! They didn't even look like regular nicely shaped cinnamon rolls... I was determined not to waste this though, so just put them in the pan. You can see they look a bit strange. I also scraped the excess apple butter off of the table and smeared it on top.

 I figured the family would eat these anyway and I would have to "go back to the drawing board" for any future attempts at making these. They just flopped over and looked awful.

 Here they are set to rise with the loaves of bread.

 I remembered that I had forgotten to put cinnamon inside the rolls. sigh. Why do I try something like this with company, painting decks and everything else going on?

There is cinnamon in the apple butter, but I wanted more, so I sprinkled cinnamon all over the top... then sprinkled cinnamon and sugar also. Hmmm..

 Here they are after rising... they look a bit better, but still not like usual.

This is the pan after baking.....rather messy.

 I made a glaze using powdered sugar, salt, butter and milk and drizzled it on with a fork. The pan of rolls was still warm.

Well, they are looking better! :)

 My daughter cut a cinnamon roll for each person... people can't wait long to try cinnamon rolls at my house and they especially like them warm from the oven. :)  Plus the cinnamon-apple smell had been teasing our taste buds.

They sure weren't pretty, perfectly formed cinnamon rolls.... but they were good! They were REALLY good.

They were very very moist, which we all liked. The tiny bits of apple from the apple butter added a little burst of flavor and the apple flavor was strong enough to be tasted. These really were very good... and so much better than I had expected when they just flopped over and wouldn't stand nicely in the pan.

I kept hearing comments of "These are the BEST cinnamon rolls you've ever made!" and more. They were a total success with the family that was home at the time. When my husband came home and we gave him one... he was very complimentary and was sad I had only made one pan of them. He kept saying, "Oh... these are SO good!"

Will we make these again? Yes, absolutely! In fact, my family keeps asking me to make them again..  SOON. I need to buy more apples (I hope they go on sale.) to make more apple butter... I can tell we will be using the few jars I have already made,  rather quickly.   :) 

Whenever I do one of these posts of some loved food that we had ... but do not have now... the kids groan when they see the pictures on my computer and start asking when we will have it again. I suspect I will be hearing that today... and when I told my husband this morning that I was working on this... he asked when I will be making them again. :)  Thank you for visiting today.... I hope you have a great week and that you can see God's hand of blessing in your life.

You may also enjoy this new post... another wonderful new way to make cinnamon rolls... tested and winning rave reviews in my house. :) 
Apple-Pecan Cinnamon Rolls










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