It’s no secret that I love Pioneer Woman’s recipes. I follow the blog, bought both the cookbooks, and even went to a book signing. I love her recipes, when they work. I’ve got about a 50% success rate. My hypothesis is that the climate in Nashville is different and I suspect that she estimates many of her measurements.
Two years ago, I tried to make her cinnamon rolls, but they failed miserably. I saw the recipe for her orange rolls in her cookbook, but put them in the same category as cinnamon rolls. Cary had the opportunity to watch one of her shows and saw her make these. He persuaded me to try again, and I’m glad I did!
Here are the ingredients:
Dough:
2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 rounded teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
Filling:
1 stick of butter, melted
8 tablespoons orange marmalade
1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
Icing:
Zest and juice of 2 oranges
4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
Dash of salt
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) butter, melted
In a large saucepan, heat the milk, oil and granulated sugar until warm but not hot. Add the yeast and 4 cups of the flour and stir together. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and leave the dough to rise for at least an hour. So, I was a little alarmed because the dough did not rise as much as I thought it should, but I continued anyway.
Stir in the remaining 1/2 cup flour, the baking powder, baking soda and salt. At this point, I had to walk away for about 30 minutes. The dough continued to rise, which made me feel much better.
Roll the dough into a long rectangle, about 30 inches wide by 10 inches deep. I’m a nutcase, so we actually measured it with a ruler. Drizzle the melted butter all over the surface of the dough. Use your fingers to smear it around so that it coats evenly.
Spread the orange marmalade all over the buttered dough, distributing as evenly as you can. I used much more than the 8 Tbsp she recommended. Probably half of a 32 ounce jar. (Remember up there, when I said that these recipes only work out half the time? Yeah… It could be because I also tweak the recipes too.)
Sprinkle the brown sugar over the marmalade (I’m pretty sure I used about a cup and a half of brown sugar here). Finish with a light sprinkling of salt.
Roll the dough towards you into one long log. Then slice it into 1/2-inch pieces.Preheat the oven to 375°F. Place the rolls in a baking dish sprayed with nonstick cooking spray and allow them to rise for 20 minutes.
Bake for 15 to 17 minutes. While the rolls were baking, I made the icing.
Add the orange zest and juice to a bowl. Add the powdered sugar, salt, milk, and melted butter. Whisk together. Now, I had a big problem here. My icing was really, really thin. I added almost twice the amount of powdered sugar. I think maybe my oranges were really large, which resulted in more liquid.
Pour the icing on the rolls when they are warm and enjoy!
This recipe made 4 pans of rolls, with 7 to 8 rolls in each pan. I froze two of the pans, thawed them out, and reheated for about 15 minutes at 350°F for breakfast the next weekend. These will be making another appearance at our house for Easter breakfast!
*I know my tense was all over the place in this post. Please forgive me.
**Ok, so after I wrote this post, I kept thinking about the icing. When I was planning this recipe, I looked at the Food Network recipe here, the original recipe when she developed the orange rolls here, and the recipe in her second cookbook. Each place calls for a different amount of powdered sugar in the icing. When I was in my kitchen, making the icing, I followed the recipe in the cookbook. That recipe only requires 1 cup of powdered sugar. The other two internet recipes require 4 cups or 2 pounds, depending on which source you are looking at. I think there might be a mistake in the cookbook because if you only use 1 cup, the icing is very runny.
