Kansas City Food Blog

​Cinnamon rolls are the tabula rasa of breakfast. With cinnamon rolls, the day starts off full of promise and anything seems possible until you eat your third one.

And as the weather turns cold, we begin to yearn for hot breakfasts. But since man can't live on steelcut oatmeal alone, Fat City presents you with a veritable smorgasbord of cinnamon bun options.

First, there's the basic cinnamon roll from the Food Network, which is as much about the cinnamon as the intense sugar glaze. It's only included so you have a point of comparison and an alternative to Cinnabon. If you've never seen how cinnamon rolls are made, this cooking-show video from an NBC affiliate in Rhode Island is a good guide.  

Things get a bit crazier when it comes to pumpkin cinnamon rolls with caramel frosting.

If you're not yet one of Da Bears and you have dietary restrictions, these vegan cinnamon rolls prepared by our sister blog, Eating Our Words, look shockingly good.

Cinnamon rolls are incredibly versatile, in part because you're dealing with massive amounts of sugar and butter -- which means that even a recipe that's simply good will probably taste great. In addition, most of us have been eating them since our days in the school cafeteria, so they fall into the category of near-primal comfort food, where tastes are more akin to emotions -- a cinnamon roll is a spiral of happiness.   

If you want to go back to the roots of cinnamon rolls, you might just end up with monkey bread -- the round, bundt cake-like treat that can be pulled apart into pieces.

But if you want to break away from tradition completely, you can opt for a savory version of cinnamon rolls and just call them pinwheels.

In any case, eat a cinnamon roll. It's probably the best decision you'll make this morning.
 
[Image via Flickr: notahipster]