Grandma Deanie’s sweet dough for cinnamon rolls
by Harry Copeland
Nadine was born in Joplin, MO. In 1917 and moved to Tulsa, OK in 1937 where she met my Dad, Jack Copeland. I was an only child, so my Mom, Nadine Copeland, went all out when she baked. She loved baking pies and she always had pie dough in the fridge ready to bake. Cherry and cream pies were my favorite, but mom and dad liked gooseberry pie.
I remember one time, she decided to make oatmeal cookies for dad and me. She baked 12 batches of oatmeal cookies just for the three of us. You would have thought we had a dozen people in the family. There were oatmeal cookies on plates on the table, on the hutch, on the top of the stove, and on plate after plate all over the kitchen cabinet counter space. Can you believe it, we managed to eat all those cookies in a very short time. I even think cookies were passed around the neighborhood but I sure had a good time eating those cookies and feeling so special that Mom made so many cookies just for me. That was a fun memory.
The recipe I′m sharing with you is my mom′s cinnamon rolls. Boy were they ever good! Mom was known for her prize winning pies but her cinnamon rolls were to die for. Mary, my wife, uses Mom′s recipe in the bread machine on the “Dough” setting and it works out real well. Nothing smells as good as fresh baked cinnamon rolls, the aroma of love from the oven.
• 2 pkgs of yeast
• 1 cup luke warm water
• 1 cup scalded milk (cooled)
• ½ cup butter
• 2/3 cups sugar
• 2 eggs well beaten
• ¼ tsp nutmeg
• 7 cups flour or less maybe
Pour yeast into 1 cup warm water. Add 1 tsp sugar, stir. Let stand 5 minutes. Scald milk. Let cool. Cream together the butter, salt and remaining sugar. Add to this, egg and nutmeg. Add softened yeast and milk when luke warm. Blend all this with 3 cups of flour until smooth. Add more flour till you can handle the dough easily.
Let dough rise in a warm cozy place until double in bulk. Fold down and let rise again until nearly double. Roll dough on board and spread with butter, then brown or white sugar and cinnamon, the way you like it. Roll up like jelly roll and cut ½” thick slices.
Put on greased pan. Let rise till double in size and bake at 350 to 375 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes.
