Aunt Carol's Orange Rolls

My husband's Aunt Carol is a phenomenal cook. She put together a cookbook of family recipes and gave one to each of her nieces and nephews. I just happened to be lucky enough to marry into the family and the cookbook was transferred into my willing hands.

I've asked her permission to post her recipe for orange rolls, and she was happy to oblige. I've made only a couple of changes to make it vegan, and I hope you'll enjoy the results.

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cup flour

1 pkg. active dry yeast (or 2 1/4 tsp. loose active yeast if you don't have a package)

1 1/4 cup plain soy milk

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup margarine

1 tsp. salt

1 Tb. ground flax seed, mixed thoroughly with 3 Tbs. water

4 tsp. grated orange peel

1/2 cup sugar

4 Tb. melted margarine

Glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar

1 T. margarine

1 T. orange juice (plus a little more if needed to make right consistency)

Instructions:

In mixing bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups flour with package of yeast. Heat milk, sugar, margarine and salt in saucepan until warm, 115 - 120 degrees, stirring constantly to melt margarine. Add to flour and yeast, along with the flax seed mixture and beat on low speed of electric mixer for 1 - 1 1/2 minutes, scraping bowl. Beat 3 minutes more at high speed.

By hand, stir in rest of flour (it may not all combine), shape dough into a ball and place in lightly greased bowl. Cover and let rise until double, 1 1/2 hours. Punch down, cover and let rest another 10 minutes.

Divide dough into 2 parts. On a lightly floured space, roll 1/2 of dough into a 16 x 8 in. rectangle. Brush with 2 tablespoons of melted margarine and sprinkle with 1/4 cup sugar and 2 tsp. orange peel. Roll up jellyroll style and seal edges. Cut into 1-in. slices. Place, cut side up, in a greased 9 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan. Repeat with remaining dough.

Cover and let rise in a warm place until double, about 45 minutes. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes or slightly more, until golden brown. Combine glaze ingredients. Remove rolls from pan and glaze while still warm.

*I glazed half of the recipe and left the other half unglazed for my husband, who doesn't necessarily care for the super sweet glaze on rolls. You could also add some dried cranberries to the inside of the rolls. That would add some special pizzazz, although it's really not necessary.

This may take a bit of time, but the results are definitely worth it!