Food Fascinations: Norwegian Cinnamon Rolls

My new baking adventure for the weekend included making cinnamon rolls for the first time. I chose this recipe for a couple reasons: I'm Norwegian and the name appealed to me; I wanted to try a recipe from "How to be a Domestic Goddess"; and the recipe didn't seem to make sickly sweet cinnamon rolls, which don't get me wrong I love, but sometimes my sweet tooth isn't awake early in the morning.

Fair warning to anyone who tries to make this recipe, you are going to need a lot of extra flour. This dough is STICKY! Frustratingly so. But if you can accept that you are going to need to adjust the recipe a bit and sort of make it up as you go along the results are great. How can you really go wrong with bread, butter, cinnamon, and sugar? In my mind you can't. I think next time I will add more cinnamon and maybe a little orange zest. My dad always bought the cinnamon rolls with the orange icing, so I'm always a little nostalgic for a hint of orange in my cinnamon rolls.

Norwegian Cinnamon Rolls
Adapted from How to be a Domestic Goddess
Note: I halved this recipe

For the dough:
4 cups flour, reserve a lot to dust with (dough is sticky!)
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
scant 3 tbsp yeast
scant 1/2 cup butter
1 2/3 cups milk
2 eggs

For the filling:
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp softened butter
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1) Melt butter and whisk it into the milk and eggs then mix in the dry ingredients

2) Knead with a mixer or by hand until smooth, then place in oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 25 minutes

3) Preheat oven to 450 F
4) Take 1/3 of the dough and place in bottom of baking pan lined with parchment paper
5) Roll out the rest of the dough to form a rectangle about 20 x 10 inches

6) Mix filling ingredients in a bowl then spread evenly over the dough, roll the dough from longest sides until a log is formed, then cut that log into 20 pieces