Cinnamon Roll Biscuits

Ingredients:
-2 C plus 2 TB AP Flour
-6 TB butter softened, plus extra for melting, I use salted
-1 C milk or almond milk
-1 TB baking powder (I prefer Clabber Girl)
-cinnamon sugar mix

Preheat your oven to 400F.  Using the dough hook of your mixer, mix all the ingredients except the cinnamon sugar together and extra butter.  Add more flour as needed to get the dough to a point where it is still very moist and soft, but can be handled and is not too sticky. You want to be able to roll it out.

Dust your work surface with ample flour and turn your dough out on to it.  Roll it out fairly thin and brush with butter.  Sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the surface.  Fold the dough over as shown in the top left picture, rolling it over about four times or so.  Flatten the rolled dough and take a rolling pin to it again.  Brush with butter again and repeat the cinnamon sugar.

Fold the sides in to form a square, overlapping them like a brochure.  Roll or press out so that the dough is about a half inch to an inch thick.  You should be able to get approximately 12 square biscuits out of it.  I have made mine bigger and gotten 9 and cut some of these quite small and got 16, so adjust your recipe according to the size and number of biscuits you want.

I just cut mine with a big knife into squares because it means I don't have to reroll anything and no dough is wasted.  Bake on a greased cookie sheet for 18 minutes.  As an optional addition, mix 1/2 C powdered sugar and a dash of milk or two together to form a glaze and coat when the biscuits come out of the oven.

You can use the buttering and folding method for any roll out biscuit recipe to turn it in to a flaky layer type biscuit.  I think it makes them a little more crispy and buttery tasting, so I am a pretty big fan of it.  You could use this same idea for savory biscuits too, with any compound butter or garlic butter brushed between the layers.  It is a really simple way to make biscuits look a little more pizzazzy.

Not to mention, I have a real issue with waiting for dough to proof...and that is still the reason I have never made my own cinnamon rolls.  It also could have something to do with the fact that I am always starving right when I wake up and have no patience.  A biscuit dough can be thrown together really quickly, and that is more along the lines of what I like in the mornings.

In other news, my thesis is almost written, which hopefully means I can get back to more exciting recipes soon.  It is a sad fact of life that sometimes you have to prioritize what you have to get done over what you want to do.  The last semester of graduate school has gotten the better of my schedule, but I am just over a month away from being finished, and I am quite excited.

And with a tasty breakfast item like this...who can complain!

Happy crafting!