Hello, cupcakes and lady fingers, and welcome to A Sweet Labor of Love recipe swap and blog hop. Are you ever in for a treat today. We are linking up to share a recipe for a favorite dessert or other sweet. In my case, it’s my grandmother’s cinnamon and orange rolls recipes. Baking them was an activity on this year’s winter bucket list as well as an item on my winter bucket list in 2018, here. Will be so glad to put that nice green check mark on my list indicating mission accomplished! ✔️
If you are coming by from Laura’s blog at I Do deClaire, welcome! So glad you are here.
A Sweet Labor of Love
Have enjoyed participating in a couple of recipe swaps and blog hops in the past. There was the soup-chili-stew swap in the fall. And before that, another soup recipe swap, and before that, the cookie recipe swap. When I was a member of The Blended Blog gang, I hosted a progressive dinner recipe swap. That was fun, too!
Grandma’s Cinnamon and Orange Rolls
I have been shamelessly enjoying these sweets for nigh on 60 years. The recipe is my grandmother’s. Not sure if it originated with her but we give Grandma Rosebrough and then my own mama all the credit. As I type this, I am still not sure how best to share the recipe here with you guys. I have it written in my mom’s handwriting on each side of a sheet of notebook paper that I laminated. It kind of rambles between what you do for the cinnamon rolls and what you change up to make the orange rolls. But they start with the same basic dough recipe so maybe I will just type that up first.
Basic Dough Ingredients and Recipe
The photo below shows all of the ingredients needed to make both the cinnamon and the orange rolls.
This recipe makes one 9 X 13 pan of cinnamon rolls or one orange roll. I made this recipe then divided the dough into 2, so I could make a small amount of each. We sure didn’t need a bunch of cinnamon roll and orange rolls sitting around here or attaching themselves to my hips!
- 1 cup milk (I used skim)
- 1/2 cup sugar
- slightly less than 1/2 cup Crisco
- 1 package of yeast
- 1 egg
- a teaspoon of vanilla
- flour, enough to make a soft dough
- powdered sugar
For cinnamon rolls
- 1/2 stick butter/margarine
- 2 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1/2 pound of brown sugar
For orange rolls
- 1 Tablespoon orange zest
- 1/4 stick butter/margarine
- 1/4-ish cup of orange juice
Directions
- Scald one cup of skim milk in the microwave (heat for about 2 minutes to scald)
- Dissolve 1/2 cup sugar and scant 1/2 cup of Crisco in the warm milk
- Let cool
- Dissolve 1 package of dry yeast in a 1/4 cup of lukewarm water
- Add yeast solution to cooled milk mixture
- Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla
- Beat 1 egg and add to the milk mixture
- Stir in flour slowly to form a soft dough
- Roll out the dough on a floured surface until it is approximately 1/8″ thick and measures about 16″ x 20″
For Orange Rolls
- Grate an orange for approximately 1 Tablespoon of orange zest
- Set aside to allow zest to dry
For Cinnamon Rolls
- Melt 1/2 stick of butter
- Mix melted butter into 1/2 pound of brown sugar
- Stir in 2 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon (I added a sprinkle of cloves, too)
- Spread the butter-sugar mix onto the dough
- Roll tightly starting at the shorter end
- Cut into 1″ slices and place into a greased 9″ x 13″ pan, allow a little space between rolls
For Orange Rolls
- Spread 1/4 stick of melted butter over the rolled out dough
- Sprinkle liberally with cinnamon
- Sprinkle the dried orange zest throughout
- Roll tightly from the shorter end
- Shape into a crescent and score across the top every 1 1/2″
Both Cinnamon Rolls and Orange Roll
- Place a warm, damp tea towel over the pan and place in the oven or in a sunny spot on the counter
- Allow the dough to rise about double
- Once dough has risen, bake at 350* for 30-35 minutes until golden brown
For Cinnamon Rolls
- Make icing with powdered sugar, water and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
- Allow cinnamon rolls to cool before icing
For Orange Rolls
- Use orange juice and powdered sugar to make icing
- Allow orange rolls to cool before icing
- Enjoy!!
I was a little disappointed in this batch of cinnamon and orange rolls. They didn’t rise as well as I would have liked. The same thing happened to my last batch of homemade bread. Wonder if our elevation here could have anything to do with it?
They tasted pretty good, especially in the morning, warmed a few seconds in the microwave and paired with a cup of coffee.
Last Time
Here’s a picture from the last time I made cinnamon rolls. They rose better that time.
Learning From The Best
During a visit to see Mom back in 2014, my sister Valerie and I took cinnamon and orange roll-baking lessons from our mom. We had a great time making batches of both rolls together. And I still refer back to those pictures when I get ready to make them on my own.
In the picture below, we were peeking into the cold oven to see if the rolls had risen. There just so happened to be a camera in there, too!
Your Turn
Is there a special recipe you make that you’d consider a labor of love? Maybe a family dish? Something handed down from generation to generation like our cinnamon and orange roll recipe? Would love to know all about it. Please link up your sweet labor of love recipe with us. Or share some of the details of your recipe in a comment below.
I’d like to invite you to hop over to see what Deb has for us on her blog, Deb’s World. I am heading over there, too, so we can go together, if you like.
Big thanks to the sweet bloggers who joined me for this recipe swap and blog hop. I love your enthusiastic, supportive hearts! And thank YOU for coming by and spending some time here with me. Please let me know if you give these rolls a try. And if you have any questions about the recipe, just holler.
Hugs and sticky kisses,
I bet those were yummy!
They were pretty good but want to try again in hopes of getting them to rise better. Thanks, Dee.
Those both sound delicious! We made cinnamon buns from scratch for the first time a few Christmases ago and just could not get over how much better they tasted from anything else we had bought. I have never tried orange rolls though and they sound so good. Pinned.
Thank you for pinning my recipe. Hope you will try the orange rolls. When they come out perfectly – the way
my mom always made them – they are smashing. Get Alec to try them!!
So excited to still be able to join in your fun hop, Leslie! Thanks for leaving the link open.
Your cinnamon roll recipe!!! Oh my gosh, I used to make a version of these for Mr. They were his favorite thing his mom would make. I need to make these again for my kiddos…and you’re right, they ARE a labor of love!
I am so glad to have you join us. I like to leave link ups open for a week or more because – LIFE.
Sometimes I struggle to make deadlines for my own series and link-ups. Ha!!
Make the cinnamon rolls for Easter. I think I will try again then, too. We can compare notes.
These sound (and look) delicious. I would eat them all – I cannot stop myself with one! The picture of you and your sister with your mom is the sweetest though – just look at that smile on your mom’s face! Pure joy!
xo,
Kellyann
Those look amazing!
Hi, Leslie – Your Grandma’s Cinnamon and Orange rolls look delicious. But the sweetest thing of all are the pictures with you and your mom (and sister). Absolutely priceless!
Thank you, Donna! We had such fun making the rolls together. That was about five years ago.
Since mom’s stroke, I am struggling so with talking to her on the phone. It breaks my
heart. Wish I could go back to the day we made these rolls together, and take more pictures
and savor each giggle and smile a little bit more.
Wow what –Labor of Love these treats are.
Thank you for the pictures and the recipe.
What I have made comes from the Good Housekeeping Christmas book. I made it for my parents and then I found out others like it as well. It is the Sticky Toffee Pudding Bundt Cake. A bit time consuming but it goes in no time. So it is worth the time I put into making it.
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-recipes/a11464/sticky-toffee-bundt-cake-recipe-ghk1212/
Oh, my gosh…love the name of this cake. Have a tab open to check out the recipe. Thank you for the link!!
I am certain we would all love your cake over here!! The best things in life take a little time!
I have no idea how I get the memo wrong but I did not make something sweet…I made soup. I don’t eat sugar, so I don’t eat sweets. I’m on keto. I’m sorry. I would not have participated in the hop if I knew it was just desserts. Anyway, your rolls look delicious! I can’t eat them, but I’ll enjoy them through the pictures.
I’m going to have to make these – they sound delicious! I love the pictures of you and your mom cooking. So sweet!
The combination of orange and cinnamon sounds delicious – I can just imagine these coming straight out of the oven – the smell in your kitchen must be amazing!
You had me at Cinnamon rolls because those are my weakness! Strangely, I don’t ever make them. I usually just buy them at a bakery or open a can. LOL But this is a recipe I will try. So sweet to have these memories in the kitchen with your family. Hugs 🙂
I love cinnamon rolls and these sound and look delicious! I’m pinning and making for my daughter when she comes home for spring break!
Jill – Doused in Pink
I don’t think I’ve ever made cinnamon rolls before from scratch. My husband has a recipe that is SO good, but it doesn’t have any orange flavor… I do know his secret ingredient for it is vanilla pudding, tho! LOL! Ohh, I need to try these sometime. I just adore those photos with your mom, she looks so happy!
Carrie
curlycraftymom.com
I bet the orange zest makes these extra delicious!
Umm…hello yumminess! What a great idea (recipe swap) AND the cinnamon rolls. I’m drooling over here.
xoxo
Not only do these sound amazing, but I bet they make the entire house smell heavenly! I haven’t seen any other recipes that combine orange and cinnamon except tea. I can’t wait to try these out! Yum!
These rolls are so good. A little time consuming but so worth it.
Oooooh, these look amazing! Definitely going to try these! I’m sad I missed this link-up, but I’ve been off my blog game lately. I was hoping to share the Snickers stuffed cupcakes I made for Valentine’s Day (DEFINITELY a labor of love- they took hours!) yesterday but just didn’t get to it- soon though!
If you write up your recipe, I would be glad to add it to our link up. Just let me know. Come do Sentence a Day with us. The post writes itself. And you will love it. Great way to look back on all you did during the month. With March coming up you can get started this weekend.
And I am doing 10 on the 10th. Would love to have you join for that too!! Those are both easy posts to help you get over the slump. Miss you!!