June Daring Bakers' Challenge - Cinnamon Rolls

This month the Daring Bakers kept our creativity rolling with cinnamon bun inspired treats. Shelley from C Mom Cook dared us to create our own dough and fill it with any filling we wanted to craft tasty rolled treats, cinnamon not required!

Hey - no need to click that link this time - you're already here!

This month I took a turn hosting the Daring Bakers, and dared the group to make a treat that, if you've been around for a while, you know I love - cinnamon rolls. And, as you probably already know, I love getting creative with my cinnamon rolls, sometimes skipping the cinnamon altogether and going for all kinds of creative fillings.

As examples for the group, I provided links and recipes to many of the varieties I've made over the years, including Peter Reinhart's traditional cinnamon buns, roasted banana cinnamon rolls, pumpkin brown butter apple cinnamon rolls, sourdough cinnamon rolls (of course! I borrowed Jenni's here because hers came out so much better than mine!), and, for anyone nervous around yeast, I even included my unyeasted sweet cinnamon biscuits.

But those were just examples! I then asked this creative group of bakers to be... well... creative! To make whatever dough they wanted, fill it with whatever sounded good. roll it up and bake it!

Now, the more creative submissions that rolled in on the forums, the more I craved rolled goodness. So I had to make a few too.

I started with these mixed berry rolls:

(I used Peter Reinhart's dough recipe and whipped up a mixed berry compote for the filling).

A week later, at the urging of little man, I made traditional cinnamon rolls, but immediately gave half the batch to a friend.

After that, I decided to test my own creativity and made a dinner version:

Pizza! I used pizza dough (I'll share that recipe later - it's worth its own post!) and rolled it with sauce and cheese.  Messy. But super fun!

I wanted to make more. In fact, I really, really wanted to make another batch yesterday.  But I held off. For now. Trust me - another batch is coming soon.

So, if you feel like it, check out the full challenge as the group saw it (here).

And thank you to everyone who baked along with me - your creativity and excitement were contagious and it was truly an honor to see all of the deliciousness that you created this month!