Homemade Ooey Gooey Cinnamon Rolls

Intimidated by the word "homemade?"  I know I was!  But, the enticing words "ooey, gooey, and cinnamon rolls" had me hooked.  I just had to try to make these sinfully delicious sounding rolls.  I actually got the recipe from another famous blogger known as "The Pioneer Woman."  She made the claim that once you make these rolls for family and friends, you will forever be known for them, and only them.  Now that HAS to be a great cinnamon roll, right?!

Well I started by getting all of the ingredients....almost a week and a half ago.  Not gonna lie, in the face of the word homemade, and navigating a recipe that was not written in traditional recipe format, it took me a while to muster up the courage to try to decipher and tackle it.  (From this experience I did learn that for the sake of your readers to make ANY future recipes crystal clear.)  Another intimidating factor was that it made a HUGE batch; 6-7 pie tins of rolls to be exact.  I was so afraid of messing up the recipe and ending up with a huge bowl of wasted ingredients.  So I stressed about the impending chance of failure and kept putting it off.

I must say the only thing that got me to tackle the rolls was the expiration date on the milk and some words of wisdom about stress and anxiety from my dear aunt.  She said that so often we stress so much about the unknown and put things off only to find out that our fears are unfounded, which really struck a cord with me.  Why was I stressing about making cinnamon rolls?  The only way to ease that stress and know if my stress actually had any grounds, was to try it.  And, of course, it was a learning experience and I made many notations on the original recipe, but the rolls turned out great.  All of the stressing for nothing!  So if you see these rolls and think, "I have GOT to try to make them," go ahead, conquer your fear of yeast and rising dough and give it a whirl!  You'll be glad you did.

Here is the link to the new and BETTER recipe from Ree, aka the pioneer woman.  http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/cinammon_rolls_/
It is much easier to understand than the one I used and has step by step instructions with pictures, which would have helped when I made it.  I have also added pics of my cinnamon rolls below, which I must confess truly are as sinful as they look and are SO much fun to make!