A Year of Holidays: Caramel Apple Sweet Rolls

Caramel Apple Sweet Rolls

This recipe from the Pioneer Woman can be found on her website here. It’s a twist on her cinnamon bun recipe, and it’s delicious!

The dough is made first, and it’s the same dough recipe used to make her Hot Cross Buns at Easter.

The chopped apples are cooked first, and then removed before heating and combining the rest of the filling ingredients over the stove to make a caramel. The apples are then stirred into the caramel along with some cinnamon.

The dough is then rolled out and the filling is spread over the dough. The dough is rolled up and sealed.

I found the filling to be too runny. I cooked it as long as the recipe said, but I think it needed longer. I ended up leaving a lot of the liquid inside the bowl rather than adding it to the dough, but made sure all the apples ended up on there. The liquidity of the filling also made it tough to seal the dough at the end, since it kept seeping out of the side. Eventually I made it work, though!

The log of dough with filling inside is then cut into sections and placed in baking dishes, with a little space to allow them to expand. They’re left to rise slightly, and then popped into the oven to cook. I didn’t see any difference in size when they were left to rise, but they definitely expanded in the oven!

While they cook, the icing topping is prepared by cooking all ingredients except the powdered sugar over the stove, and then mixing in the powdered sugar at the end. This is spread over the warm buns as they come out of the oven.

The icing didn’t melt as much as I expected over the buns, but it was still absolutely delicious!

Taste: 9/10

I loved these! They were nice and soft, and very sweet. I especially enjoyed the caramel icing topping!

Difficulty: Difficult

There were a few challenges with this recipe that made it more difficult: getting the caramel filling to the right consistency, rolling the dough tightly, and sealing the dough effectively so it doesn’t spill out. I also had to cook the buns longer than the recipe stated to make sure they were the golden brown.

Cost: Average

There are a lot of ingredients needed for this recipe, but most are pretty common or cheaper items.