Cinnamon Buns...with Bacon?

That's right, folks, you read it correctly: cinnamon buns with bacon wrapped inside! I was browsing around on Reddit looking at recipes and saw one recommending this one. The author said that rolling a slice of bacon up in a cinnamon bun gave a nice saltiness to balance the sweet, and smokiness to balance the confectionary nature. I thought, "Well, I love bacon too much to ignore this sign. I'll try it!" However, because I always worry about the outcome of my cooking I decided to only do half my buns with bacon and leave the other half as is.

By themselves, cinnamon buns are not only easy but also delicious....and if you are on a low-fat or low-sugar diet you can simply make minor changes to the recipe and they will STILL be delicious. You can't get a recipe much better than that! Plus, for me at least, cinnamon buns have a sort of homey warm quality (even though my mom never made them). Essentially the buns are comprised of three things: a rolled sweetbread, a layer of cinnamon/sugar/butter, and a glaze. The picture above is for the bread. First you have to take into account the yeast. You want to have it as close to room temperature as possible; otherwise it will take longer to foam. If you've never messed with yeast before, you put it with a little sugar in some warm water and it will start to foam. This foam is simply the byproduct of the yeast eating the sugar you gave it. It is supposed to look puffy and smell kinda sour. This is what you're looking for:

As you give the yeast more time it will continue to rise, which is why you have to add it to your bread dough and then set it aside for awhile to rise (or double in size). Although the picture below kinda looks like mangled animal brains, I assure you it is indeed bread dough (pre-risen):

I did realize once I put the yeast in the water that the recipe called for yeast in warm milk, but I figured I'd just add a bit more butter to make up for it. In any case, once your dough is ready, you knead it out with lots of flour onto a rolling surface. The recipe I used called for a rectangle of 20 x 16 x 1/4", but just approximate. The dough will expand a LOT during cooking. Also note the nice non-stick measuring mat my great boyfriend got me! <3

Then add some melted butter and a cinnamon/brown sugar concoction. I also added some chunks of butter because the amount I used was a little short:

To roll this, divide it into three section and roll a bit for each section at a time. So, start at the right side and roll a bit, move to the middle, then to the left side. This ensures that it rolls easy and evenly and you don't tear the dough. Then cut your log into however many rolls you want (I made 12):

Next came the bacon! I simply unrolled 6 rolls and added half slices of bacon into them. Candied bacon, mmmm!

Next is the glaze, which you can make while these are cooking. It's pretty simple: a whipped cream cheese, sugar and vanilla frosting that will seem thicker than it should be but melts once put on hot rolls. If you don't have a hand mixer, you'll have to whip for awhile to cream the butter, cream cheese and sugar together. But you'll get it:

Here comes a bit of advice from a stupid person. Since the bacon I used was thick-cut, when I took out the rolls the first time I checked the bacon and it wasn't completely cooked. I quite wrongly decided to put the rolls back in for 5-10 more minutes....and when they came out again the bacon STILL wasn't done! I then made the wise decision to remove the pieces, pan fry them to crispy goodness, and replace them back into the rolls. I should have done this first, because I ended up with burnt bottoms to my rolls and a little tougher bread consistency than I wanted. Ah well, life is all about learning, isn't it? What I'll do next time, and what you should do the first time, is to cook the rolls for the allotted time, remove the bacon and pan fry it, and replace the bacon. In any case, these next two pictures still look amazing, and I hope you'll try making these soon! Your man will love you forever.