Citrus Cranberry Cream Cheese Breakfast Rolls Recipe

How many food bloggers can you fit in a phone booth?  I'm guessing seven.  That's how many we crammed into our condo this weekend for the Evo Conference in Park City,Utah.  Seriously.  Seven.  You might have some vision of seven women wrestling over the curling iron or taking cuts in line for the shower.  Not this weekend, we spent our free time laughing over the lemon chicken, sending food back to the kitchen and setting  up our computers around the dinning table to write our posts together.  Now I know what it feels like to be one of the rebels sitting in the back of the classroom at school.  I do have to say, it was so nice to have a room full of friends that share the same passion about cooking and blogging and laughing.

Oh, and baking!

Barbara from Barbara Bakes was in the house.  And yes, I seriously recommend taking Barbara with you on any vacation.  Barbara gathered up the ingredients for her yummy Citrus Cream Cheese Pull Apart Rolls before we even arrived and had things all ready to go when we got back from a fun filled food blogger's dinner (more about that later).  She threw them together in a flash and put them in the fridge overnight for us to have warm from the oven on the first morning of the conference.

The best part was that Barbara divided the duties between all of us so we could chip in and see how she made them.  Me?  I was assigned "butter duty." I buttered the pans, then brushed the dough with the butter that Deborah melted.  That way, I was free to man the camera and take step by step photos to show you.  Oh, and I provided the "muscle" for mixing the cream cheese sauce by hand since the condo did not come equipped with an electric mixer.

The rolls are amazingly easy.  No kneading, no yeast, no flour all over the kitchen.  We put them together in just a 10 to 15 minutes (I think we all slowed Barbara down a bit), let them rise once, covered them in a citrus cream cheese sauce and cranberries.  Then, stuck them in the refrigerator until morning.  Yep, that easy.

Here's how we made them:

Step one:  Gather as many friends or family as you have around the house and get them to the kitchen to help with the fun.

Left to right we have Megan from Megan's Cookin', Carrian from Sweet Basil, Barbara from Barbara Bakes and Deborah from Taste and Tell (in orange).  Amanda Formaro (who made a fantastic bacon and cheese frittata) and Lindsay  from Cafe Johnsonia also roomed with us.

Step Two:  Thaw the purchased frozen dinner rolls at room temperature for 30 minutes.  Butter two 9 inch round cake pans.   Cut the thawed dinner rolls in half and divided them evenly between the two pans.  Place the dough cut side down.  Brush the dough with 1 stick of melted butter.  Cover the pans and allow the dough to rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.

Step Three:  Zest the lemon and the orange.  Combine ¼ cup of the granulated sugar, cream cheese, orange juice and egg together and beat at medium speed until well blended.  Or, get your daily workout by beating the mixture with a whisk until the mixture is smooth and has no lumps.

Step Four:  Mix the remaining ¾ cup granulated sugar and zest together and cover with plastic wrap, set aside.

Step Five:  Sprinkle the rolls with dried cranberries and pour the cream cheese mixture evenly over the rolls.  Cover the rolls and refrigerate for up to 12 hours or over night.

Step Six:  Remove the rolls from the refrigerator and sprinkle evenly with the sugar and citrus zest mixture.  Let the dough rise at room temperature until double in size.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees and bake for 20 minutes.  Cover with aluminum foil and for another 5 minutes or until the center of the rolls is done.  Remove from the oven and cool for 15  minutes.

Step Seven: Combine the powdered sugar and the lemon juice to make a smooth glaze.  Then, drizzle the glaze over the rolls.  Serve the rolls warm from the oven.

You can find the complete recipe on Barbara's blog.  Just follow this link to barbarabakes.com to get the amounts of each ingredient.

These sweet rolls are so delicious and I love the fact that they can be left in the refrigerator overnight.  They are perfect to serve on special occasion that requires an early morning breakfast.  Even though these rolls have "Christmas Morning" written all over them, I really hope you don't wait that long to try them.  The citrus and dried cranberries add a really nice, tart flavor to balance the sweet cream cheese sauce.

 

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—posted by Sandy