Apricot and Almond Cinnamon Rolls

I'm not the biggest fan of cinnamon rolls. I think its mainly because I can't stand the smell of the cinnamon roll stands that are in malls and airports, but in our baking and pastry class we made pastries one day that were similar french elephant ears, and I decided that I wanted to try to recreate them at home. Of course I don't really have the time or energy to make laminated dough so I decided to take the flavors of the pastry and turn them into cinnamon rolls instead.

Apricot and Almond Cinnamon Rolls

1 tube of crescent roll dough
Apricot preserves
Chopped Almonds
Cinnamon
Sugar

Begin by rolling out the tube of crescent roll dough, be careful to not tear along the perforated lines. Roll out the dough to make slightly thinner. Begin by spreading a thin layer of apricot preserves onto dough. If there are chunks of apricot in the jam than you may need to blend the preserves quickly in a food processor to get rid of chunks so the rolls are easier to cut later. Sprinkle a layer of chopped almonds evenly onto the preserves. Next combine 4 parts sugar with 1 part of cinnamon  to make cinnamon sugar (I did 4 tablespoons of sugar and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon and had left over cinnamon sugar to use at another time), then sprinkle over the almond layer. You can roll the dough however you would like, I chose to imitate the elephant ears and rolled both sides up till the met each other in the middle. Once rolled cut them into pieces about 1/2 inches in width, then bake in a 350 degree oven for about 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.

These were kind of an experiment but they worked out pretty well, and I got them baked in time to write this post and still be able to get ready for my cousins celebratory graduation dinner tonight. My next two posts should be pretty interesting because tomorrow I'm going to be writing about my dinner at Talde tonight and then Monday will be a post about what my mom and I make for my dad tomorrow night for fathers day.
So till next time,
Keep Cooking Brooklyn!