A while back I wrote about cinnamon rolls, as I like to do, and referenced my mother's recipe. She was gracious enough to leave the shorthand version of her recipe in the comments. When I was ready to make rolls last week, I decided to go with her "better" recipe instead of my easier recipe and see if I could reach a compromise on method that still preserved the signature flavor of her rolls. So here we go. I'm posting my process in excruciating detail so you too can choose to make Grandma Judi's cinnamon rolls for your loved ones. You'll be glad you did.
This makes for a lot of rolls. A lot. You can halve the recipe if you're less piggish than we are. Keep in mind that the total time from beginning to end is about 6 hours, but that includes 4 hours of rising time and 25 minutes of baking. Plenty of time for knitting or sewing or reading a book during that time.
Ingredients:
6 cups milk
2 sticks unsalted butter
1-3/4 cups sugar
3 T active dry yeast
4 t salt
1 5 lb bag of flour (seriously)
see! I used nearly all of this. Just pick up an extra bag when you're at the store. 
Filling (this is approximate - go with your own tastes for gooiness):
1 stick of butter, melted
2 c packed brown sugar
2 T cinnamon
1/2 t salt
To begin:
Heat 6 cups of milk and the 2 sticks of butter in a saucepan until the butter is just melted. 
Cool the mixture to 130 degrees or a little less. I go slightly lower because I'm pathological about killing yeast and having to throw it all out. I pour the mixture into my very biggest bowl and let it cool in there until it hits the right temperature.
Once it has cooled, add the sugar, yeast and salt. Stir to dissolve everything.
Start adding the flour. I do not use a mixer for this. My mixer isn't big enough and my mom swears that this is the right way to do it. By hand. I add 2 cups at a time for the first 8 cups of flour and then slow down to 1 cup at a time. I stir first with a ball whisk and then switch to a wooden spoon once it's too thick for the whisk. Integrate the flour fully into the mixture before adding the next batch. By the time you get to cup 12, the dough will be very dough like, but sticky and still quite soft. You know that there's no way that your arm can stir another cup of flour into it without falling off. It's ready to knead.
Put about 2 cups of flour onto your kneading surface. Pour the dough onto the flour, scraping it off the sides of the bowl. Knead the flour into the dough ball until the dough is smooth and no longer sticky (it takes me about 8-10 minutes). It's still fairly soft - this isn't a stiff dough. Add more flour to the kneading surface if necessary.
Now you're ready for the rise. Wash and dry your biggest bowl that you just used for mixing. If the dough takes up more than 1/2 of the room in the bowl, then you need to get your next biggest bowl and split the dough between the 2 bowls. Cover with a dishtowel and let rise until doubled in size - about 2 hours.
Now you have a choice to make. This dough also makes fantastic dinner rolls. I usually divert the smaller bowl for this purpose. All you do is grab a 9x13 baking dish, dump a bit of flour onto the counter, punch down the dough and tear off balls that are a little bigger than a golf ball. The dough will be really sticky again. Just flour your hands and knead each ball into a proper little ball with the extra flour - it will smooth right up. Put into the greased pan spaced enough for some rising. I put 20 rolls into a pan that size. Set aside to rise while you do the cinnamon rolls. Add any remaining dough to your big batch.
Rolling the dough:
Add a cup or so of flour to your kneading/rolling surface (you're getting to the bottom of the bag now). Dump half of the dough onto the flour and knead a few times until it is back to smooth and resists the kneading. Call the kids over for the fun. Continue to ignore all of those dishes in the sink until after dinner.
Roll the dough into a long rectangle that is about 1/4" thick. My mother and I diverge here. She buys 8" square disposable aluminum pans and rolls the dough to about 15" wide (Mom?) per rolling batch to get 9 rolls into those pans, so her rolls are smaller. We are pigs around here, so we roll the dough into a wider rectangle to get fewer fatter rolls and we put them into another 9x12" baking dish (I use 3 total for both kinds of rolls). Brush the rectangle with 1/2 of the melted butter.
While Gunnar was rolling the dough, Annika was mixing the brown sugar, cinnamon and salt. Add half of this mixture to your dough and spread evenly nearly to the edge.
Roll it up lengthwise
slice into 2" rolls
put into the greased pan
let rise until they are plump. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. They should look like this:
If you make the dinner rolls, they should have puffed up similarly. Bake for 25 minutes or so, until golden brown.
Yum! We eat them heated with a little bit of butter instead of frosted. They also freeze well. Enjoy!
