Sweet Potato Cinnamon Rolls

Do not be fooled by the title.  Yes, these cinnamon rolls have sweet potato in them. No, these cinnamon rolls are not healthy. Slightly more nutritious with the sweet potato and whole wheat flour that I added, but in no way less caloric or sugary.  Regardless, they are wonderful.

I have this recipe that I pulled out of the January 2007 Southern Living magazine that was the "Grand Prize Winner."  Grand Prize Winner of what, I'm not sure. I would initially have said "Grand Prize Winner of Cinnamon Rolls" but on the back of this page is a "Finalist recipe" for Mexi-Texi Bistec Pedazos.  That has nothing to do with cinnamon rolls.

I'm pretty sure when I first made these cinnamon rolls, I made them over and over again for a good couple of months. Then I got sick of them and retired the recipe.  I remembered them being very, very sweet, but very, very good.  Today, Nelly wasn't feeling so hot so I decided to spend the day at home...baking.  I had sweet potatoes already and every other ingredient.  Fabulous.

These rolls do take some patience, but time was all I had today.  The dough came together easily and it rose perfectly.

Now if only I had taken pictures of the rolling out and rolling up and slicing.  And the "before going into the oven" picture.  I'm learning.

The filling was easy....brown sugar, cinnamon, nuts and butter.

The recipe uses a food processor to make them, I used my pink mixer.

And now, the finished product.

Mmm...I remembered them needing more time in the oven than the recipe calls for so I baked them an extra 5 minutes....I may have overbrowned them. :)

Delicious, none the less.

Yum. See the caramel sauce on the bottom of the plate? Yes, please.

I did make a few changes to the recipe myself.  Instead of all white flour, I used half whole wheat flour.  I also made my own buttermilk with vinegar and milk.  The texture with the whole wheat flour is a little more "grainy", if you will, but is still really nice and you can see specs of sweet potato.

I found the recipe online for Sweet Potato Cinnamon Rolls for everyone to try, that way I don't have to type it all out.  Hope you'll try it and enjoy.