Orange Rolls

This recipe comes to you straight from the lovely ladies at my church.  These orange rolls are delicious, and maybe I just haven't been around enough in the orange roll world, but I've never seen orange rolls assembled this way.  I think I actually said, "Whoa!" when I saw how they were putting them together.  And boy, were they tasty.  I ate so many of them that I actually started to feel sick.  They were amazing.  Enjoy!

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Orange Rolls

Dough:
2 cups milk
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
2 pkgs yeast (or 4-1/2 tsp yeast)
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
3 eggs
7 cups flour

Filling:
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 cup sugar
zest of one orange (just grate it on the small side of your cheese shredder)

Glaze:
1/4 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp almond extract
2 Tbsp butter
Juice of one orange
Powdered sugar

1. Scald milk by heating it in a small saucepan over medium heat until small bubbles begin to form around the edge of the pan.  Don't get it so hot that it boils.  Technically, since we have pasteurized milk now, you can skip this step, but it actually breaks down the proteins in the milk, which gives you a better dough in the end. Throw your cold stick of butter into the milk.  This will melt the butter and cool the milk to the right temperature.
2. In small bowl, combine yeast and 1/2 cup warm water.  Let it sit and dissolve for a moment while you mix together the sugar, salt, eggs, and flour in a large mixing bowl.  Add the yeast mixture and the milk.  Mix until well-combined, cover it with a towel and let it rise until doubled in size.
3. Make the filling by combining butter, sugar, and the zest of one orange.
4. When the dough has doubled, roll it out into a big rectangle and cover it with the filling.  Cut dough into 1-inch strips (a pizza cutter works great here).  Stack 3 strips on top of each other until you've used up all of the strips.  Now take the pizza cutter and cut each strip into 1-inch squares.  Place the squares turned on their sides into greased muffin tins (one square per muffin spot).  Cover, and let rise until doubled.  It should look something like this...

5. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Bake rolls for 12 minutes.
6. While the rolls are baking, combine vanilla, almond extract, butter, the juice of the orange you zested, and enough powdered sugar to make it the right consistency.  This will depend a lot upon personal preference.
7. Glaze those rolls!  When your rolls come out of the oven (if you have incredibly heat-resistant fingers, which I do not), you can grab them and just dip the top of each roll into the glaze.  This will just barely coat it and leave it shiny and delicious-looking.  If you're like me and can't take the heat, just wait for them to cool and then drizzle it on.
8. Eat them now before everyone else does!