Cinnamon Rolls Recipe

Tastes like they're straight from Cinnabon, but better! Homemade with a Maple twist!

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup milk
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 1/3 cup butter, softened
• 4 - 4 1/2 cups bread or all purpose flour (plus extra for rolling)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast

Filling:

• 1/2 cup pure Pour House Maple Sugar
• 2 - 3 Tablespoons cinnamon
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup butter

Frosting:

The frosting is cream cheese flavored. For a sweeter flavor, use only 4 ounces of cream cheese. The frosting could also be replaced with Pure Pour House Maple Cream!!!

• 8 ounce package cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1//2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a saucepan, combine milk, butter, sugar and salt over medium heat until butter is almost melted. In mixing bowl, add yeast and milk mixture. Beat, along with eggs and flour. Add as much flour as you can. 
2. Knead extra flour into dough until it is smooth. (This will take 5 to 10 minutes) Cover dough with oil and let rest for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, mix filling ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
3. Roll dough into a 18 x 21 inch rectangle. Spread the filling mixture across the dough with a rubber spatula until it is even.
4. Roll up dough so you have an 18" log and cut into 12 or so rolls. Place in greased 9x13 pan and cover with a tea towel. Let rise for about 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
5. Bake rolls on center rack about 15 minutes or until lightly browned.
6. While rolls are resting and baking, beat frosting ingredients until it is smooth and fluffy. Refrigerate until use.
7. Allow rolls to cool and spread frosting (OR Pour House Maple Cream) on them.

Are best served warm.

Why Squirrels are the Enemy

Every maple syrup producer knows that this time of year means walking hundreds of lines searching for the tiniest hole that could cause us problems. As we prepare to tap, finding all the vacuum leaks is essential to a good system. The more vacuum we have, the more sap we collect and the more syrup we boil!

This is why, here at Pour House Maple, we don't like squirrels. Affectionately known as tree rats, squirrels and all the the other animals running around in the woods including bear, deer, coyotes, and chipmunks like maple as much as we do!! Throughout the summer and fall months, these critters like to gnaw on the lines just to get a taste of our sweet sap. Although we love sharing our sweet maple syrup, we'd rather not share with them. 

Needless to say, we spent these last few weeks before season walking the lines looking for little holes... Or big ones!

Making Improvements!

As the maple season quickly approaches (a little quicker than we were hoping) we are hard at work here at Pour House Maple preparing to tap and boil sap! Fixing down lines, cleaning the sugar house, and making improvements to our set up are all on the checklist.

One major improvement we made this year was upgrade one of our vacuum pumps and releaser. The new pump has a three phase motor to reduce power usage and produce more vacuum than our other pump. The releaser, the blue unit in the photo, which brings the sap from the vacuum lines to the tank, was also replaced. The new releaser has an electric pump inside which reduces surges in the the vacuum lines. This helps keep bacteria out of the tap holes and increases efficiency.

We're almost ready, so get ready to come visit us at Pour House Maple Farm!!