Low-Fat Cinnamon Buns

I found this wonderful recipe for cinnamon rolls! This recipe uses no butter!! The bread is tender and delicious and the filling is extraordinary! I just had to share it. It is a Weight Watchers recipe, and I believe you can actually get the recipe from their website. (I have made a few adjustments that I thought necessary.)

Low-Fat Cinnamon Buns

1 cup fat-free skim milk (I used powdered milk.)
1 Tbsp. canola oil
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. yeast, about 1 package
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted, divided
1/4 cup unpacked brown sugar
1/4 cup dark corn syrup
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg (I put in 1/4 tsp.)
1 tsp. orange zest, grated (opt.) (I put in about 1/4 tsp. and the orange flavor was really pronounced.)
1/4 cups raisins, dried cherries or cranberries (I skipped these.)

Stir together milk, canola oil, sugar and salt in a small saucepan. Heat on low to lukewarm. Pour yeast over 2 tablespoons lukewarm water and let sit 5 minutes. Stir into milk mixture.

Transfer warm milk to a large mixing bowl and beat in half the flour by hand or with an electric mixer. Mix in enough remaining flour to make a soft dough. Let rest 10 minutes; knead well on a floured board or with an electric mixer and dough hook. Let rest 10 minutes.

Spray a large, clean bowl with cooking spray, add dough, cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Lightly coat a 9-inch round baking pan with cooking spray. (I needed two 9-inch round baking pans - 12 rolls don't fit in a 9-inch pan with room enough to rise.) Turn the dough onto a floured surface and roll into a 12 x 10-inch rectangle. Spray with cooking spray.

Stir together brown sugar, corn syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg and orange zest; brush over dough. (Too thick to brush, so I spread it with a spatula. Also, I'd recommend pouring a 1/3 of the filling into the baking pans and using 2/3 for the filling. I found that if I used all of it, the filling would ooze out a lot as I was cutting the rolls, as if it was too full.) Sprinkle with raisins. Roll up tightly, like a jelly roll. Cut into 12 pieces. (A trick I do is to use a length of thread to cut the rolls. Thread doesn't press the dough down, causing more filling to squish out. Simply place the thread underneath the roll where you'd like to cut, cross the thread and pass one end under the other - like you're starting to tie your shoes. Then pull both ends until the dough is cut through. Easy!)

Place buns cut-side up in baking pan. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Bake buns until firm and nicely browned on top, 30 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes before inverting onto a serving plate. YUM! (These rolls don't really need a frosting at all!)

Pecan Cinnamon Sticky Buns variation (as seen in the picture above)
After you spray the cooking pan with cooking spray, drizzle the 1/3 of the filling over the bottom of the pan. Then sprinkle on about 1 Tbsp. of brown sugar to fill in the gaps. Next, sprinkle about a 1/2 cup of pecan pieces evenly over the filling and brown sugar. Then, just place the cut cinnamon rolls right on top of the pecans/sugar mixture. Rise and bake as normal. After cooling, make sure to invert onto a plate because the gooey, yummy stuff will harden like candy and will make it really hard to get the rolls out or to scrape off the extra from the pan.
I just made this version today and it was AMAZING! And I really mean AMAZING!