What’s better than taking something indulgent and changing it so you can rationalize less guilt?
Ok. Don’t answer that.
Whatever. The important thing is that I made Cinnamon Rolls in a quick, easy, less-fat-bastard way, and they totally hit the spot. The important thing is that I’m going to tell you my recipe 🙂
(There’s another important thing, too– recently, the culinary rockstars at Chow.com have had the same mindset….so I’ll link to their recipe for healthy-ish pancakes in a moment 🙂 )
(There will be no photos involved. The Cinnamon Rolls à la Gradissima were not long for this world, and the camera was not quick enough to record their fleeting, beautiful existence.)
Recipe: Cinnamon Rolls à la Gradissima
Ingredients:
- 1 cup regular self-rising flour
- 1 cup superfine self-rising flour
- 1/4 cup oatmeal/wheatgerm blend (I did a 3:1 proportion of oatmeal flakes and wheatgerm and threw it into the food processor to make a coarse powder)
- 2 tablespoons sugar (go raw, if you have it!)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 cup fat free yoghurt
- 1/4 cup low-fat milk or light soymilk
Filling:
- 1 tablespoon ground hazelnuts
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons low-fat milk or light soymilk
- 1 cup raw or brown sugar
- 3 teaspoons cinnamon
Icing:
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon low-fat milk or light soymilk (add more for a thinner icing/glaze)
Make the filling first-
- Combine hazelnuts, sugar, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Add olive oil and milk and mix until damp and crumbly. Set aside.
Make the dough-
- Mix together the flour, oat/wheatgerm blend, sugar, and salt in a large bowl.
- Stir in yogurt and milk to make a soft dough.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough (or use your hands) to make a large rectangle, about a quarter of an inch thick.
- Here, you have two options. Option 1: spread half the filling on the bottom of a 8×8 pyrex and half the filling on the rolled-out-dough OR Option 2: spread all of the filling on the rolled-out-dough. Option 1 gives you a crispy, gooey surprise on the bottom of your rolls, but there’s no wrong way to spread the love here 😉
- Roll up your rectangle of dough and goodness.
- Slice into rolls. (About an inch thick is a safe bet, but if you want to make fewer thick rolls or more thin rolls, by all means, do it!)
- Put your rolls into your 8×8 pyrex. I did 9 rolls and spaced them evenly. They grew to squish into each other in the oven quite nicely 🙂
The baking situation-
As you well know by now, I rock a gas oven with no temperature settings. It’s how I roll. I preheated the oven on medium/high and baked the rolls until they seemed done… not too dark, but just starting to get golden on top.
The icing-
- Throw your sugar into a food processor and powder it. Throw the milk in and blend it. If it is too thick, add more milk. I like lots of thick icing, so this worked for me 😉
After the rolls are done, put healthy schmear of icing on each one. The heat will soften the icing and you can spread it more evenly.
Eat these babies hot.
AND THEN….
Here’s the Chow.com goodness I was talking about 🙂
Whole Wheat–Oat Pancakes Recipe
By Aida Mollenkamp
Just because you’re trying to be healthy doesn’t mean you should have to abandon all of your favorite foods, right? Here we doctor up pancakes by using whole-wheat flour and oats, for cakes that are still fluffy yet have a satisfying chewiness that’s actually good for you—sort of.
Read on and get the recipe at Chow.com: http://www.chow.com/recipes/14108-whole-wheatoat-pancakes
Enjoy your healthy-ish delights 😉
Gradissima 