What do IKEA furniture and cinnamon rolls have in common?
They’re both Swedish, and you can assemble both at home.
Usually, cinnamon rolls and IKEA furniture have a third similarity — their “some assembly required” instructions are a dastardly euphemism for “will monopolize your whole afternoon.”
While IKEA just needs to rewrite its instruction booklets, cinnamon rolls are unfortunate victims of the reality of yeast breads. In extremely unscientific terms, yeast, a fungus, makes bread rise by eating the dough’s broken-down starch and then burping carbon dioxide. This takes time. Imagine your own average holiday feast.
My mom stopped making cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning several years ago, which I was really upset about until the one time I made yeast cinnamon rolls in college. Suddenly everything made sense. (I had kid-level patience — re: opening presents expires at 8:30 a.m., and cooking time is 30 minutes, and prep time is 20 minutes, and rise time is 90 minutes…)
I share all this with you because bad news makes good news that much better. There is another way, dusted with baking soda and baking powder. You can find your road map here.
My roommate, Alyssa, and I started this recipe at 10:45 p.m. on a Saturday and were sprawled on the floor with a plate of freshly baked rolls by midnight. She’s lactose intolerant, which called for some recipe experimentation. Cinnamon rolls usually employ all kinds of butter and buttermilk (or, vinegar-y regular milk, for those in the know). We went with almond milk instead. I also recommend non-dairy margarine.
Sadly, I don’t know of any true replacement for cream cheese icing, which is so perfect as-is that I’m afraid to throw non-dairy ingredients into the mix. That said, our dairy-dependent version turned out weirdly chunky, or as I prefer to put it, “resembling wet snowflakes.” .
Glazed Cinnamon Rolls
It probably happened because we mixed the powdered sugar and almond milk for my roommate’s rolls first and added the cream cheese after. My mom says we should have added the almond milk last.
Despite appearances, everything still tasted great. The rolls themselves were cakey and sweet and generally an exam-crazed student’s dream come true. Whether your cinnamon roll icing turns out lumpy or smooth, I heartily recommend this recipe as a quick first step toward a well-fed finals week.
