Granola Stuffed, Whole Grain Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Mascarpone Frosting

A friend of mine on Facebook was posting incredibly gorgeous pictures for things that she was making with her homemade pizza dough. I had only ever made pizza with mine, so this inspired me to start trying out different things with my pizza dough as well! I recently came across a very old fashion cinnamon roll recipe and I wanted to make it healthier. My version is stuffed with heart healthy granola, raisins, dried blueberries, and walnuts. I decided if I was going to take the time to put something in the middle and roll it up, I wanted more bang for my buck than just cinnamon and sugar! The granola I used was a scrumptious, locally made berries & cream flavor. It was loaded with dried berries and the oats were crunchy and toasty. Feel free to pick a granola that features your favorite flavors. The dried fruits I use are always, always organic. Because they are super concentrated, any chemicals they contain, pesticides, fertilizers, etc are also super concentrated. I also buy mine sulphur free, make sure to check your labels when buying dried fruits.

The rolls, themselves, are made with wheat germ and whole wheat flour. They are high in fiber but still taste amazing. Even though I modernized the recipe I still wanted to maintain one traditional thing: the gorgeous, quintessential white frosting. I am a sucker for the aesthetic quality of food and I just think that a cinnamon roll is so attractive when it has a schmear of creamy, white frosting. My frosting is a little less naughty because it uses way less sugar and I substitute in local maple syrup that is high in manganese, this helps to protect your antioxidant defenses. So it's sweet and nutritious! It also gives the frosting a deep, smoky flavor that I adore and it pairs really well with the granola in the filling. If you want to leave the frosting off, feel free. They are still very delicious and definitely sweet enough on their own. 

The dough I used is homemade. I always make big batches of pizza dough and freeze the leftovers for later uses. Up until now I always just used it for pizza night and the leftovers I froze for another pizza night. But now I am ready to start experimenting because these little babies were so incredibly delicious! I give a whole tutorial and blog post on making homemade pizza dough. Click the link for my recipe and tutorial on how to make whole grain pizza dough at home. If you don't want to make your own, a store bought whole wheat, or whole grain pizza dough will work just fine.

Recipe makes 9 large rolls.

Ingredients

Rolls

1/2 The homemade dough recipe on my blog or 1 store bought pizza dough, preferably whole wheat.
2 Tbsp Earth Balance olive oil spread, melted.
1 Cup favorite granola
3 Tbsp organic, dried blueberries
1/4 Cup organic, sulphur free raisins
1/4 Cup chopped walnuts
2 Heaping Tbsp cinnamon
2 Heaping Tbsp fair trade, organic raw cane sugar
Pinch of salt
2 Tbsp Earth Balance, melted for brushing the tops.

Frosting

2 Tbsp mascarpone, I used Vermont Creamery.
1 Tbsp organic, fair trade confectioners sugar
2 Tbsp local maple syrup
A few splashes of vanilla almond milk, just to thin it out, about 2 Tbsp.

Directions


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Butter and flour a small baking dish, mine was 6 1/2 x 7 and it fit 9 rolls perfectly.

Bring your dough to room temperature, if it is cold or previously frozen. Once it is room temp. sprinkle your work surface with flour and roll out your dough. Cut the edges so that you end up with a large rectangle, I don't worry about dimensions, as long as you have a rectangle you will be fine.

In a small bowl mix melted Earth balance, granola, blueberries, raisins, walnuts, cinnamon, cane sugar and salt till well combined. Spread this mixture evenly over the dough. Roll up the dough, going slowly and making sure to keep it as tight as possible. If necessary flip it so that the seam side is up, or if you ended this way then congrats, no flipping! Cut with a very sharp knife, don't use pressure let the knife do the work so that you aren't squeezing your rolls and misshaping them, or squeezing all the filling out. I try to keep the knife as upright as possible and use a little sawing action, sort of like cutting a very ripe tomato you don't want to squish.

Place the rolls in the prepared baking dish so that they fit nice and snug, this keeps them in the "rolled" shape, if you spread them out they will collapse and all the filling will leak out. Brush tops with melted Earth Balance. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until they are golden brown.

While they are baking, in a small dish mix together mascarpone, confectioners sugar and maple syrup till combined. Add in almond milk till you get a "drizzling" consistency. Set in refrigerator so it will thicken slightly.

Serve warm cinnamon rolls with a healthy schmear of frosting and a hot cup of coffee or tea and enjoy!!

A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools.  
        -Spanish Proverb