Weihnachten Brotchen!

Herr Snicklefritz's Mutter has had a longtime tradition of baking cinnamon rolls and then haranguing her children into delivering them to all the neighbors.

Since the Snicklefritzes now have a house in a nice neighborhood with neighbors who aren't loud, beligerently drunken college kids, they thought it was high time to transport this tradition in their new homestead. So following the roughed out recipe that Mutter Snicklefritz passed on to us over the phone, we were about to whip up some holiday treats for our new friends, but then disaster struck, and we had to waterproof our basement. This was especially unfortunate since Herr Snicklefritz also had final papers to write, final exams to give and grade, final grades to post, and holiday shopping and packing to do for the Christmas excursion to the homeplaces in the old country.

After the holiday festivities were over, we caught our breaths for about twelve hours and started baking the rolls.

They turned out great; we sampled the first pan just to be sure. Thus, we set out to deliver them and use them as an excuse to finally meet our new neighbors.

Mom's Cinnamon Rolls:
Yields 4 pans with 7 rolls each

Rolls:
2 Packs of Yeast (or just scoop the correct amount out of a big jar, for it's cheaper)
1/4 cup warm water
1 1/2 cups warm milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/3 cup shortening
5 cups flour
Some butter
Some brown sugar
Some cinnamon

Icing:
Some butter (We used about a half stick)
Some powdered sugar (We used a little more than two cups)
Some vanilla extract (We used about a tsp)
Some milk (We used a splash or two)

Rolls:
1. In a large bowl, (or better yet a Kitchenaid Mixer) dissolve the yeast into the water
2. Add the milk, sugar, salt, eggs, shortening, and 2 cups of the flour and mix it all on low for a couple minutes.
3. Stir in the rest of the flour and mix it until it's smooth.
4. Let it rise until it fills the bowl. (It rises faster in a warm place!)
5. Dump the once-risen dough onto a floured surface and knead it until it's handleable, split it into two parts, and then roll one part out into a rectangle.
6. Melt some butter (about a half stick or so) and smear it all over the rectangle of dough.
7. Sprinkle it generously with brown sugar and cinnamon (which you may want to mix together in a big ol' bowl and taste test prior to the application). For my money, you can hardly add too much at this step.
8. Roll the rectangle up so that it's a really long tube of cinnamony-buttery dough.
9. Slice the roll into 14 pieces and carefully arrange 7 in each pan. (Mom has always used the aluminum pans that are like pie pans but with straight-up-and-down sides.)
10. Let the dough rise again. (Don't worry, they look little now, but they'll swell up to big tasty roll size soon enough!)
11. Bake them at 375 degrees F, on the center rack, for about 23 minutes or so.

Icing:
1. In a measuring cup or a medium sized mixing bowl melt a half stick of butter.
2. Dump in a tsp of vanilla.
3. Add a couple cups of powdered sugar.
4. Splash in a tiny bit of milk at a time and beat the mixture until it gets to a smooth, slightly-pasty consistency.
5. Wait for the rolls to cool and then drizzle as much as you like all over the top of them.