Caramel apple cinnamon rolls with raisins and walnuts

Ingredients

Ingredients:

For the dough:

• The dough recipe I've borrowed from cookingbread.com
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup milk
• ½ cup butter
• ¾ cup sugar
• 2 eggs (at room temperature)
• 1 ½ teaspoon salt
• 4 teaspoon instant yeast
• 6 cups all purpose flour

For the Caramel Filling:

• 1 cup sugar
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup cold water
• 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
• ¾ cup heavy cream (unsweetened)

For the Apple Filling:

• 2 apples, peeled, cored and finely diced
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon grounded Cinnamon
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 cup raisins (soaked in 1 tablespoon dark rum – optional)

For the Icing (optional):

• 1 cup icing sugar, shifted
• 2 Tablespoons cold milk

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Cinnamon rolls and its vanilla cream cheese frosting

Preparation

• Pour the warm, but not to hot liquid (water and milk) into a large bowl (or into the electric mixer’s bowl, as myself) and add the butter. Stir (on a middle speed with the mixer)till the butter is completely melted. Add in the sugar and stir till the sugar is dissolved. Before continuing, check the temperature of the mixture to make sure it's not too hot, but just warm (the temp needs to be about 110 F (40 C)).
  
  Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.
  
  In another bowl, mix together about 2 cups of flour and instant yeast.
  
  Once the liquid mixture is cooled, go ahead and add the beaten eggs and the flour mixture. Mix till smooth and allow to rest uncovered for 10 minutes.
  
  Add in the salt and some more flour gradually and mix.
  
  When the mixture becomes too hard to mix in the bowl, pour it out onto a flat floured surface and continue to add flour and keep kneading. Knead for about 10 minutes.
  
  In a clean bowl add some oil. Place the kneaded dough into the bowl and turn over till all sides are very lightly coated with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and allow doubles in bulk, which may take about 1 - 1 ½ hours.
  
  Meanwhile prepare the caramel filling. Caramelize 1 cup sugar ½ cup brown sugar with ¼ cup water to dark golden brown. Reduce heat, add 2 tablespoons unsalted butter and stir well. Add gradually the cold heavy cream and stir again until smooth. Remove and let cool over a bowl with ice water, stirring from time to time, until getting thick smooth mixture.
  
  Once the dough is doubled in bulk, pour out onto a floured flat surface. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough into a about 0.6 inch thick, 16x21 rectangle (or as large :) as it gets).
  
  Im a separate bowl, combine diced apples, sugar, cinnamon, risins and chopped walnuts, right before spreading the filling, so so they don’t get all soggy.
  
  Pour the caramel filling on dough top and spread out, leaving a 1/2 inch all around.
  
  Sprinkle the apple filling and roll the dough up longways, trying to pinch the dough closed as best as possible.
  
  Slice the rolls with a very sharp knife about 1 1/2 inches wide. It gets about 12-14 rolls.
  
  Place into prepared pan, wrapped with baking paper or oiled and sprinkled with flour, and allow rise for about 1 hour or until doubles in bulk.
  
  Bake in a preheated 350 F (180 C) oven for about 25 - 30 minutes or until golden broun.
  
  Remove from oven and cool.
  
  While the rolls are cooling, prepare the icing. Mix 1 cup icing sugar, shifted, and 2 tablespoons cold milk and stir well until combine completely.
  
  Drip the icing over top using a fork (or :) a spoon).
  
  Apples and caramel - a combination I could never ever resist! And the walnuts, raisins and cinnamon in addition automatically reminds me of Oscar Wilde's quotation that “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it”. So I’ve rolled up my sleeves...
  
  As far as we haven’t got over here the products the domestic mama has used to prepare her apple caramel cinnamon rolls