Pumpkin & various yummy spices….

It’s Fall, time for white girls to lose their shit with sweaters, Pumpkin & Apple picking, taking plandid pictures amongst the pretty leaves changing colors & completely overdosing with all things “Pumpkin Spice”.
While I am all for baking with those delicious, warm, fragrant spices, I am just so the fuck over seeing pumpkin spice invade every thing.
With that said… I love pumpkin, I love spices & I love cinnamon rolls. So I made these. They were fucking glorious.

Pumpkin Cinnamon (& various other spices) rolls with Maple Cream Cheese Icing

2/3 cup milk

4 Tablespoons butter

1 cup canned pumpkin

1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

2 packages instant yeast

3 1/3 cups flour

Warm the milk & butter together in a small sauce pan and gently warm up till registers 105 - 115 degrees on a thermometer. Be careful not to over heat this, so just focus and do only this one thing, don’t text or call anyone, just enjoy this peaceful moment. Add the yeast and stir, set aside and let the yeast do it’s thang (it’s thang is microorganisms waking from their dormant condition and begin to eat and reproduce, fucking science is great) Set that science aside

Beat together the pumpkin purée, brown sugar, nutmeg & salt together on medium speed. Add the milk, butter & yeast mixture & beat till combined. Add eggs and beat well.
Add 1 cup of flour & mix for 1 minute, scrape bowl & add the rest of the flour and beat for another minute. This dough will be softer because of the pumpkin purée, don’t you worry though, you got this. Place the dough in a bowl that’s been greased and turn the dough so it’s greased on all sides.
Cover the dough tightly with plastic wrap and keep in a warm place (I heat my oven to 200 degrees, turn the oven off, place the dough in there & keep the oven door open slightly) now let science do its mutha fucking thang. It’s thang is to double in size, it’ll take about 1, 1/2 hours.
This is when the yeast changes the sugar in the dough into carbon dioxide gas and ethanol. The gas, trapped in the dough, makes it rise; the alcohol produced during fermentation evaporates during baking.
How fucking cool is baking?

Gently punch the dough down to deflate it (show that dough just who, in the actual hell, is in charge here) Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface, if it’s too sticky, throw it all away, you’ve ruined it. KIDDING! Just knead in a little more flour, you got this!
Roll the dough out into a 18x10 rectangle as best you can & for the love of Buddha, it doesn’t have to be rolled out to those exact measurements, it’s really more of a suggestion. The gluten will be pulling the dough back and forth but you’re in charge here, work that dough.
Spread the 12 Tablespoons of room temp butter all over your slightly rectanglish shaped dough with a pastry brush or whatever the hell works best for you. Sprinkle the sugar/spice mixture evenly all over the butter & just look at what you’ve done so far, good work.
Get yourself a drink & then roll up the dough as tightly as you can. Using your sharpest knife, cut into pieces, I went for a generous 2ish inch thick cut each, but I live on the wild side. Arrange rolls into a greased 13 x 9 inch pan. Cover with plastic wrap & allow to rise again, it should take about 1 hour.
Fucking science bringing us beautifully risen dough.
Bake the rolls in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for about 25 minutes.
Let rolls slightly cool and drench them with that magical Maple Cream Cheese Icing.

Make certain to re-heat these beauties when you eat them because you don’t hate yourself do you?

Filling

12 Tablespoons unsalted butter at room temp

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

2 Tablespoons ground cinnamon

1 Teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 Teaspoon ground cloves

1 Teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 Teaspoon ground all spice

Mix the brown sugar & spices together in a small bowl till well combined. The butter will be used to spread all over the dough, ah yeah!

Maple Cream Cheese Icing

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1/2 cup cream cheese

pinch of salt

1 Tablespoon Maple extract (IT’S SO FUCKING WORTH IT)

4 cups sifted powdered sugar

Cream the butter, cream cheese & salt together until very well combined. Add the Maple extract & beat again till very well combined. Add the powdered sugar & mix together until well combined & then just beat the living daylights out of it. Store in an airtight container at room temp till ready to frost those rolls.