Cranberry Pecan Sticky Rolls and My Trip to the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! Test Kitchen

When I was contacted about the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! Holiday Bake-Off trip, I quickly agreed to participate.  Then I realized I would need to come prepared to bake something. (Pictures from the trip are at the end of this post.)

Cranberries are a natural holiday food, so I created two recipes featuring these beautiful gems.  Cranberry Muffins with Orange Marmalade Glaze is the recipe I chose to enter, only because I was afraid the roll dough in this recipe would not have time to rise in the 2-hour time limit.

But the rolls are a cinch to make and have all the sticky-sweet goodness you expect from a sticky roll.  As a bonus, they’re studded with tart, red cranberries making them perfect for the Holidays.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 10 frozen dough rolls, thawed
• 1 cup cranberries, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1 stick I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Spray a large pie plate with cooking spray.  Place the roll dough in the pie plate.  Sprinkle the nuts and cranberries over and around the rolls.  Let the dough rise until it’s double in size, about 1 hour, depending on how warm your kitchen is.

Melt the ICBINB! in the microwave.  Stir in the brown sugar and cinnamon.  Drizzle over the top of the risen dough balls.  Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until the rolls are done.  Turn upside down on a plate to serve.

Here’s how they looked before I flipped them over:

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! Holiday Bake-Off

Nine bloggers were invited to take part in the bake-off.  It was such a privilege to meet all of them.  {Left to right, front row: Barbara, Barbara Bakes,  Amanda, Fake Ginger, Aly, Aly-tude. Back row: Jenn, BeanTownBaker, Sara, Average Betty, Anna , Cookie Madness, Liz, Hoosier Homemade, Alison, Ingredients Inc, and me}

Most of the bloggers were new to me, but I have stalked read Cookie Madness for a very long time.  Her Frito Candy is legendary around my house.  Anna knows her stuff when it comes to baking.

I was also excited to meet Liz of Hoosier Homemade.  We know each other from Twitter and we worked together on the Virtual Progressive Thanksgiving Dinner.

Our day started with a limo ride to the Unilever Test Kitchens.

We were fed breakfast and later, a lunch of appetizers and dessert.  It was all delicious!

And we baked!  The test kitchens are very much like the kitchen you have at home, if you had 6 of them all in one room.  They want to replicate the appliances and pantry of the average home cook, so the recipes will work for everyone.

I was very surprised to learn that one of the most popular desserts to bake at this time of year is cheesecake.  Because of this fact, the test kitchens created Holiday Pumpkin Cheesecake which has a gingersnap crust. Yum!  Seeing the kitchens where back-of-the-box recipes originate was interesting.

Here, Liz is working hard on her Homemade Twix Bars.  Sarah from Average Betty had the winning recipe – Snow Ball Cupcakes.

See that counter full of desserts? That was some of the goodness baked up by us.

I had a wonderful time and learned that I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! is more than just a product to spread on your toast.  There are a ton of recipes on the ICBINB! website, if you’re looking for more information.

Some of the photos in this post were taken by Paul Gelsobello, who was there to take photos of everything.

Disclaimer: I received an all-expense paid trip to the Unilever Test Kitchens for the ICBINB! Holiday Bake-Off.  I was not asked to write this post and all of the opinions are my own.