Jiffy Cinnamon Rolls

The kids have been asking me for cinnamon rolls for at least a couple of weeks. I had found a gluten-free recipe that I wanted to try, but when I sat down to prepare it today, I discovered I'm missing a key ingredient for the gluten-free flour component. So, I said I would maybe make the old standby.

The old standby is a recipe I got from my mother-in-law, but modified so that it is dairy-free, which actually makes the recipe vegan, as well. It's similar to some other Jiffy Cinnamon Rolls recipes I looked up online, but not exactly the same, so I think it's okay for me to go ahead and call it that and to share my version:

Lightly grease or spray a 13" x 9" baking pan.

4 cups flour (I used unbleached all-purpose)
4 tbsp sugar
8 tsp baking powder (or if you have the 10mL dessert spoon, you could do 4 of those, or 2 tbsp + 2 tsp of baking powder)
2 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegan "butter" (I used Becel Vegan tonight; I've never tried it with Earth Balance. I have made them with Fleischmann's, but that would make it dairy-free and not vegan; Fleischmann's has vitamin D3 in it, which is from an animal source, and Becel Vegan uses D2.)
2 cups non-dairy milk (if using rice milk, use a little less; this evening, I used vanilla rice milk because the store was all out of the regular when I went! it didn't affect the taste at all)

Another 1/2-2/3 cup of "butter" for the topping
1.5 cups brown sugar
Cinnamon (no specific amount given)

Put the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Cut in the butter until crumbly. Make a well in the centre and pour the milk into the well. Stir it all to form a soft dough.

Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface (you may need some extra flour, especially if you used rice milk). Knead 8-10 times. Roll the dough into a rectangle about 1/3" thick. [I'm not sure I've ever gotten the thickness right, but they've always turned out delicious! I think it actually works better to have it a bit thicker, more like 1/2" or even thicker: the filling becomes that much thicker and yummier.]

Melt the butter. While you are doing that, sprinkle/spread the brown sugar onto the rolled dough. [I tend to not go all the way to the edges, but I should!] Pour the butter over the brown sugar. Sprinkle cinnamon all over the brown sugar. [I would like to be able to give you an idea of roughly how much, but I can't. Mine don't always taste like cinnamon rolls. They still taste delicious, but perhaps more of a caramel roll than a cinnamon roll. I have sprinkled what I thought was a lot, over all the brown sugar, and apparently, that's not enough. I guess I'm saying: it's kind of hard to have too much! lol]

Roll the dough while you are facing it horizontally (so, longest part is left to right). Cut the roll into 12 slices and place in the greased pan. Bake at 400F for 20-25 minutes.

Let cool 5-10+ minutes and enjoy!