Cinnamon Buns

I love The Pioneer Woman. I have only one small problem, she is generous with the fat and sugar in her recipes. So generous, that sometimes I wonder if she is doing it for shock value. I have her cookbook, and she has a recipe for the most incredible looking cinnamon buns. I tweaked the recipe slightly to lower some of the health concerns I had regarding them, and this is what I came up with:

Cinnamon Buns
adapted from The Pioneer Woman
(her recipe makes 40-50 rolls, and I didn't trust myself not to eat them all, so I quartered her recipe to make 10ish)

Ingredients:
Dough
1 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp active dry yeast
2 1/4 cups flour (divided) (I used 1 cup whole wheat and 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour)
1/4 tsp heaping baking powder
1/4 tsp scant baking soda
1/4 tbsp salt

1) For the dough, heat the milk, vegetable oil, and sugar in a medium saucepan over medium heat; do not allow the mixture to boil. Set aside and cool to lukewarm.
2) Sprinkle the yeast on top and let it sit on the milk for 1 minute. (The milk must be lukewarm, if it's hot it will kill the yeast)
3) Add 2 cups of the flour, stir until just combined, cover with a clean kitchen towel, and set aside in a relatively warm place for 1 hour.
Note: The dough is supposed to rise here. I don't know what I did wrong, but mine didn't rise very much. I ignored this problem and proceeded with making the rolls.
4) Remove the towel and add the baking powder, baking soda, salt, and the remaining 1/4 cup flour. Stir thoroughly to combine.
5) Roll out the dough into a rectangle. I didn't measure mine, I would say it was around 6 x 12 inches.
6) Prepare the filling:
Filling
This part I did freehand. Her recipe calls for 2 cups of melted butter, which for mine would mean 1/4 cup. I thought that would be a lot, so I melted some butter and used only enough to have a thin layer over the rectangle. Then I sprinkled over 1/4 cup of granulated sugar, and then cinnamon. I didn't measure the cinnamon I just sprinkled a good amount so the rectangle was covered, thinly. (You do not want a thick layer of cinnamon)
7) Started from the end furthest from you, roll the rectangle towards you. Use both hands and move slowly to ensure the roll is tight.
8) Cut out the rolls by slicing every 1.5 inches or so. I got about 10 out of mine. (They were not an even size, I am not a technical person)
9) Pour some melted butter into a pie pan or baking dish, and swirl around to coat the dish. Place the rolls in the pan (with the swirly part facing up), leaving space between the rolls.
10) Preheat the oven to 375 F. Cover the pie pan with a towel and let rise for at least 20 minutes before placing in the oven.
Note: Once again, mine didn't rise much. I ignored this problem again and hoped for the best.
11) Remove the towel and place the baking dish in the oven. Bake for 13-17 minutes, until the rolls are golden brown, but not overly brown

12) While the rolls are in the oven, prepare the icing.
Icing
1 cup icing sugar
1/8 cup whole milk
1/8 cup strongly brewed coffee. (I made the icing while the rolls were resting, and had some leftover coffee so I used a pastry brush to brush coffee all over the rolls before they went in the oven. Delicious)
dash of vanilla extract (or the seeds from one vanilla bean)
Mix all the ingredients together.
13) When the rolls are done baking, pull them out of the even and pour the icing over top of them. Try not to drool all over the baked goods. Because I'm an idiot, I chopped up pecans to roll in the filling and forgot to use them, so I sprinkled them on top of the baked rolls covered in icing.

Mine turned out to be pretty small. I think it was because they didn't rise when they should have.

Though small, they were huge in flavor. These tasted HEAVENLY. I will be making them again and again (to my waist's dismay), but are these ever worth it.