Great Homemade Cinnamon Rolls in 45 minutes

You'll need:

2 boxes of hot roll mix

1 1/2 C ( 3 sticks ) salted butter, room temp

Cinnamon

Vanilla

Brown Sugar

White Sugar

optional: chocolate chips, nuts

Prepare hot roll mix as directed for cinnamon rolls on the side of the box.

Note: DO NOT add more flour. Yes, the dough will be sticky. Deal with it! Keep on kneading it. I promise--if you add more flour to the mix to try to make it less sticky, you'll end up with tough hard cinnamon rolls. When you need a bit of flour to coat your table, sprinkle gently and not a whole lot.

Let rest for 5 minutes

Dough resting.

Dough should be soft, springy to the touch,and lightly floured, not coated in flour or sticky.

Whip butter.

Add cinnamon and vanilla

Whip whip!

See how soft the dough looks?!

Roll out dough. I like a thicker dough.

lightly flour as needed

Spread the whipped butter onto the dough.

Sprinkle white and brown sugar. It's really up to you. I don't like an overly sweet cinnamon roll, so I go heavy on the cinnamon instead.

Start rolling it up! I roll it towards myself. I lift up the edge just a tad, push it away from me to stretch it just a tad, and then I roll it tight. I do this the whole way down.

At this point, find a string or unflavored dental floss. Cut yourself a piece and slide it under the cinnamon roll log. Bring both edges up and criss cross the string and pull down. It will cut the cinnamon roll log into pieces. I like big cinnamon rolls so I make my pieces rather large.

I greased a pan with pam and floured it.

At this point, you can add almonds, walnuts, pecans, butterscotch or chocolate morsels!

If you prefer, you can add those things after you add the sugars. that way, they're rolled up into the cinnamon roll.

My three types of rolls- chocolate chip, almond slivered, and plain ol' cinnamon.

I sprinkled them with a bit more cinnamon. YUM!

This was an edge that I baked separate to test the baking temp and time.

Bake them at 350 for about 12-15 minutes (depending on how big the rolls are. bigger ones last about 15)

It was perfect. Soft center and a gentle crisp on the outside.

Yum!