First time ever making cinnamon rolls

I know they look a bit wonky shaped (have to het better at rolling) but they tasted wonderful. Also my family loves cream cheese frosting so I practically bathed them in frosting 😂

I usually bake a lot of cakes and muffins for tea time. I have always been intimidated by yeasty baked goods despite working with dough since I was a teenager (making rotis & parathas etc). I bought the ingredients 2 days ago and was hesitant to even begin the recipe. My husband would ask me every day, “Babe, any chance of us experiencing these cinnamon rolls soon?” and I was just like, “I promise I’ll make them just give me some time I’m terrified of them right now!” 🤣 I don’t even have a stand mixer but I did have a determination to make these doughy babies. So I finally started making them at 8pm after dinner. My husband got me a soft clean bedsheet and I sat down on it and went to town kneading the batter for 10 minutes. I usually do it on my kitchen island but I couldn’t stand as my feet were hurting and had to sit down. Took me 4 freaking hours to make these but worth it. My kids scarfed their face down at 12am with cinnamon rolls (it was a Friday nigh so I let them 👻) and then 5 minutes later both kids were passed out on the sofa snoring away. The evidence as you can see in the picture, one roll is missing before I could take a full tray picture 😆

I used The Preppy Kitchen cinnamon rolls recipe with three changes. The first change was in the yeast. John says to use only Active Dry Yeast and not Instant Yeast. I only had Platinum Yeast from Red Star with Dough Enhancers so used that. My milk temp was a bit less than warm but not exactly room temp either. The 2nd change was that I added 1/2 cup of warmed heavy cream and poured a bit over the cinnamon rolls and the remaining warmed heavy cream in the bottom of the rolls. The third change was to adjust the baking time. John bakes them for 20-25 minutes but I baked mine at 350F for 40 minutes due to the addition of heavy cream (I can’t stress enough how much this was worth it). I also don’t have a proper steel/ceramic/nonstick baking pan so I baked them in a disposable Aluminum Foil Pan by Alcan.