Oreo Cookies and Cream Cinnamon Rolls (with cream cheese icing!)

^*1Lukewarm water: the best way to ensure the right temp of water is to use an instant-read thermometer (we’re going for 75-85°F in this recipe), but if you don’t have one available, simply use your best judgement to feel when the water is “lukewarm” but not “hot.” If the water is too hot or too cold, it will negatively effect the yeast and your rise.

^*2Active dry yeast, not instant/rapid! For this recipe we want to use “active dry” yeast, bulk red yeast or bulk gold yeast, because they're all designed for the 2-rise process we’re using here. Rapid/Instant yeast is only designed to rise once, and likely will lead to a less risen, and less flavorful roll.

^*3Room temperature egg hack: if you need to get your egg to room temp in a hurry, simply submerge it whole in a large container of warm water for 10-15 minutes until it’s warmed up and ready to go.

^*4Cinnamon or cocoa? The option of what you mix into your filling is really up to whatever sounds good to you. I personally love black cocoa, which is what gives Oreo’s their distinctively un-sweet “chocolate” flavor. But if you don’t have any available or if you actually want some cinnamon in there with that Oreo flavor, feel free to use either a regular cocoa or ground cinnamon instead for your filling.

^*5Not up for making the dough from scratch? If you’d really love to try this recipe, but homemade brioche dough is just a bit too intimidating, you can use this Hot Roll Mix as a relatively quick and easier alternative. If you’d like to use a refrigerated or frozen dough, you’re welcome to experiment, but I personally can’t recommend those here as they’ll vary greatly in flavor and performance, so I find it safer to stick with a scratch-based, predictable dough.

^*6Kneading Options: I highly recommend using a stand mixer for this recipe as brioche is both very messy and rather difficult to make by hand unless you’re an experienced bread maker. But if you’d like to try it by hand, know you may need to knead the dough for 20+ minutes to reach full development. Alternatively, you can knead this dough in a bread machine. To make in a bread machine, “bloom” yeast by completing the first step, then add all remaining dough ingredients, including butter, to the mixing bin and run it on the “dough” cycle (not the bake). Once the dough cycle is complete, continue on with the recipe from assembly step 1.

^*7Keep the mixer at 4/10 at the most! Don’t turn the mixer up past 4 or walk away from your dough for very long because it can over-mix very easily and there’s no going back from that unfortunately.

^*8Sticky or Stiff Dough: if dough is extra sticky after 5 minutes of kneading, you can add flour, a tablespoon at a time, as needed. If it’s really dry and won’t grab the hook at all, you can splash water on it 1-2 teaspoons at a time, as needed, just until it gets a little tackiness to it. Just be careful not to overdo it with either addition!

^*9Pan alternative: you can also use an 8” square pan, but I prefer the look of these rolls in a round pan if you have it available.

^*10Icing-palooza: I love a lot of icing on my cinnamon rolls so you’ll find this is a very generous amount for a modest pan of rolls. Feel free to only use a portion of the icing, or even half the recipe if you'd only like a little glaze on your Oreo rolls.