No Yeast Cinnamon Rolls

No Yeast Sweet Rolls
adapted from Fine Cooking

For the dough:
3/4 cup cottage cheese (4% milk fat) I only had 2% cottage cheese on hand- it totally worked
1/3 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup granulated sugar
4 Tbs real butter, melted
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
9 oz. (2 cups) flour; more for rolling
1 Tbs. baking powder
1/2 tsp. table salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda

Orange Roll Filling:
4T butter, softened
1/2 C sugar
zest from one orange

For the cinnamon filling:
3/4 oz. (1-1/2 Tbs.) unsalted butter, melted
2/3 cup packed light or dark brown sugar
1-1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves

Orange Roll Glaze:
2/3 C powdered sugar
1 T melted butter
2 T Orange juice

Regular Glaze:
3 Tablespoons melted butter
2 Tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2- 2 cups powdered sugar
Whisk together.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
In a food processor, combine the cottage cheese, buttermilk, sugar, melted butter, and vanilla.

Process until smooth, about 10 seconds. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda and pulse in short bursts just until the dough clumps together (don’t over-process). The dough will be very soft, probably softer than you’re used to. Don’t add anymore flour!
Scrape the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead a few times just until smooth.

Roll the dough into a rectangle, about 12×15 inches.

Now put your filling on. The pictures below are from when I made the recipe as written in Fine Cooking. We decided we weren’t too fond of nuts inside the rolls themselves because they tend to get soft after baking. I did, however, like the addition of the allspice and cloves. Next time I’ll probably stick to my normal cinnamon roll filling, but still include the extra spices.

After it’s filled, you know the drill. Roll it, slice it, dice and entice it….(totally my husband’s line)

Okay now, forget about cinnamon rolls…my family inhaled the orange roll version. Pretty self explanatory-same drill, just with orange roll filling. If you have a favorite recipe, use it or use my quick version as noted above.

After the rolls are filled and cut. Place them in a pan that has been sprayed with cooking spray. The recipe in Fine Cooking tells you to bake the rolls in a springform pan. However, the batch I cooked in a spring form pan were very overdone on the bottom. I cooked my orange rolls in a ceramic pie pan and they were perfect. So I suggest using a glass or ceramic pan vs. a springform pan.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the tops are golden brown. Not gonna lie–I was completely doubtful when these went into the oven. But when they came out? Wow!

When the rolls have a few minutes left in the oven. Whisk your glaze ingredients together. When the rolls are done cooking, let them cool for five minutes. Then spread the glaze on and eat those suckers warm. They are seriously so soft and tender and delicious! You’ll be so surprised.

These are definitely best fresh out of the oven. We had some that sat out all day and they weren’t nearly as delicious. Check out these pictures, you’d never know these were made out of some weird cottage cheese mixture.

See how light and soft they are inside?

As delicious as these are, I don’t think they are a replacement for a normal sweet roll cooked with yeast. However, that’s because it would be like comparing oranges to tangerines. These are super yummy, quick and easy, and you have to give them a shot to see what I mean. I guarantee this dough will come in handy. I’m loving it for the morning hours when I don’t want to get up at the crack of dawn to allow normal rising time. Or for an event where I need something done at a very specific time. Or when I have a craving and need a cinnamon roll NOW not 2 hours from now!