Fall Spice Cinnamon Buns

Are you appalled with the amount of sugar and carbs my family seems to consume? I swear we eat fruits and veggies like they’re going out of style (I can’t keep fresh produce in the house for the life of me). But we certainly do have sweet teeth around here and with lots of free time at home thanks to Daddy’s new schedule we’re still getting used to… baking always seems like the best thing to do.

Not sure my doctor agrees… oy. But still.

When in doubt, I heard the little girls into the kitchen, lock the gate and pull out some ingredients for them to help me bake. They sit their little usually-still-jammied bums on the bar stools and we chat and hang out while dumping this and that into the bowls (*always* two bowls, always).

Enter cinnamon buns from heaven.

Seriously. These Fall Spice Cinnamon Buns are to-die-for amazing. And guess what? They’re easy. REALLY easy. My secret? Pizza dough. For the win, always pizza dough. We have a favorite shop to get fresh dough (shoutout for local people – Adrian’s Pizza of Ross sells their pizza dough balls for $2 and it’s super delicious! They also donate a percentage of proceeds if you mention “North Hills Ice Hockey” when you order… and their pizza is the best ever…so yeah- do that if you ever go there!) but if you don’t have a place to buy local -and I’m actually shocked at how many pizzerias WILL NOT sell you their dough- refrigerator dough in the tube works JUST AS WELL even though it tastes just a smidge less delicious. Ok, so anyway. You probably want the recipe now. Here you go!

Ingredients:

Cold pizza dough (freshly purchased handmade, refrigerator, or -gasp- HOMEmade if that’s your thing) leave it in the fridge for a bit so it’s cold

1/2 stick salted butter, melted

2 Tbsp. sugar

3 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. allspice

1/4 tsp. cloves

Glaze:

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1-2 Tbsp. milk or water

1 Tbsp. honey

1 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a 9-10 inch class pie plate with cooking spray and set aside.

Roll out your pizza dough into an oval about 1/4-1/2 inch thick. If you are using refrigerator tube dough, just pat it out evenly so it’s one, uniform thickness. Add sugar and spices to your melted butter and stir to combine. Using a pastry brush or your two daughters armed with spoons, spread the butter mixture out evenly across entire surface of dough. It might seem like it will make a big mess but once the butter hits the cold dough it firms up again and isn’t as liquidy (< not a real word).

Roll up the butter covered dough starting from the widest side so you have a long log of dough. Using a sharp knife and starting in the center, cut the dough in half, then the halves in half again and so on until you have cut all of the dough into equal 1 1/2 inch rounds. Reshape them back into circles if necessary. Place one round of dough in the center of the pie plate and arrange the rest around it- making sure they all touch. They will rise and expand in the oven so having extra space in your pie plate is not a bad thing.

Bake for 13-20 minutes or until dough looks golden brown, puffed up and sugar/butter mixture is bubbling around the edges and bottom. Remove from oven and let cool slightly while you make the glaze.

For glaze: simply combine all ingredients and stir until smooth.

Pour glaze over warm cinnamon buns.

Try not to burn yourself eating the whole dish right away 😉