The Pecan Roll Queen

French pastries melt in your mouth and Druber's donuts are delish at 2am, but not much comes close to The Pecan Rolls made by Hulda Dorsch, my wonderful MIL. She is a gifted lady in many ways and rivals the Pioneer Woman and Julia Child when it comes to cooking and baking.

We took a break from the packing and sorting one afternoon to make a batch of Pecan Rolls to have in the freezer for the weekend when "the boys" came for the big move.  If you've ever wanted to know all her tricks, here goes.

This post is especially for Cassie, Jared, Melissa, Andrew, Lindsay, Erika, Joe, Sam and Lucas so that you, the grandchildren, who have been treated to these succulent breakfast goodies over the years, can continue the tradition and make them for your families and friends.

First, the recipe for the dough:

While the dough is raising, prepare the gooey, yummy part:  on low heat, bring 1/2 C margarine, 1 C dark brown sugar and 2T white corn syrup to a rolling boil. (This is enough goo for one pan only. )

The photo lessons start with the rolling out of the dough, after it has raised 2x in a bowl.  (I'm assuming some basic know-how of yeast baking.)

Roll 1/2 of the dough into a large rectangle like this and sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar. Get it to the edges so every bite is scrumptious.

 Then start rolling it up tightly, all the way across.  Tuck it under snugly.

Look at all those pecans and syrupy goodness.  The baking pan is an important part of the goodness as well, but since most of us don't and won't have a pan just like this, we can use that as an excuse when they don't turn out quite like Grandma's.  (It's approx. a 16 x 10 in pan and this recipe makes two pans of rolls.)

Start cutting chunks off--about 1 inch chunks--you want to make sure that you have enough to fill the entire pan.

Oops, a little hole!  No, problem. 

Cover them with tea towels to let raise in a warm place until double.

Bake at 325 degrees for 22 or so minutes.  After 6 minutes of baking, push down those naughty little spirals that want to jump up.

 Bake until golden brown and then let cool before turning them upside down onto tinfoil.

They are never better than right out of the oven and we had to make sure they were fit to be eaten by others.

For those who can't abide pecans, you can make the cinnamon rolls and then frost right out of the oven with this delicious Ice Cream Frosting.  (Chopped pecans are optional.)

YUM!