Maryam's Sunshine Cinnamon Rolls

Soft, sweet cinnamon rolls covered in a sticky cream cheese and orange glaze. 

Where's the sunshine you ask? it's in the form of turmeric Yes those cinnamon rolls which look oh so buttery and of course they are (you could use coconut oil instead) but the colour actually comes from 1/8 teaspoon ground turmeric, adding colour without flavour which is perfect, oh i'm using that word again BUT it is my favourite colour.

I did have ups and quite a few downs making these rolls and it's not down to the original recipe but because of my, not so bright idea changes that I could easily pass over but I'm not going to.

This advice is for myself first and then anyone of you if you ever have a case of what I call 'be unique food blogger syndrome' that thing that comes over you when seeing a recipe a perfectly good looking recipe that you just can't leave well enough alone because you want to put your own twist on it and be different, been there? glad I'm not alone.

Maryam's Beautiful Rolls!

If it's not broke don't fix it!

I had some turkish halwa lurking in the cupboard and decided oh let's replace some, some being the operative word, of the butter and sugar in the filling with this, resulting in little to no difference in flavour but the filling did leak out which is partly due to my miscalculations of how much 'some' halwa I put in and how I shaped and placed them into my baking pans, I didn't follow maryam's instruction, thumbs down.

Maryam uses a large 12 x 9 inch pan which I didn't have so used a smaller one which I didn't pack full of rolls to begin with, mistake and so used a round pan as well which again I didn't pack with rolls. 

These sweet dough rolls much like a computer when not given the correct input of data / instructions from you the human will 'have a mind of it's own' then these rolls didn't have instructions nor support by other rolls or even the sides of pan so they got relaxed and the filling oozed up and out, I won't even tell you what my husband said an aerial / diner's perspective shot looked like...

Taste is more important than looks

Of course i say that now but it's true and these rolls were loaded with sweet cinnamon and the smell coming from the oven whilst baking them is better than any yankee candle going! 

Oh and the cream cheese glaze did just that and more, it added a tangy and citrus taste to these sweet rolls and made them lovely and sticky. My 5 year old son said they were too sticky but the clean plate meant he really quite enjoyed the stickiness just not the clean up of his messy hand. 

I did deviate slightly from original recipe (again) by not using all of the zest in the glaze as I'd put some inside the rolls and filling earlier.

Head on over to Maryam Makes for the original recipe 

Changes I Made

1. I didn't use flax seeds in the dough which are optional in the original recipe and used butter not coconut oil in the dough.
2. I used fast action dry yeast which doesn't require to be activated in warm milk so i added yeast to the dry mix.
3. I used 1/2 the orange zest (from the glaze) and put it in the sweet dough and 1/4 zest in the filling
4. I used toasted almonds in place of the optional hazelnuts in the filling