Recipe: Apple Cream Sweet Rolls

Rhonda,
You said you used to eat the dessert out of hand when your grandmother sent it to you in college. Here is a roll recipe that might come close to what you remember. It is also from the "Farm House Cookbook" by Susan Herrmann Loomis. The same cook who makes "Pauline's Kuchen" submitted this recipe. It's a good book. You should take a look at it!
APPLE SWEET ROLLS
FOR THE DOUGH
1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 package dry yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm water
2 tablespoons sugar
2 and 1/4 to 2 and 1/2 cups flour
2 eggs
FOR THE APPLE MIXTURE
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 small tart apple
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup raisins
3 tablespoons heavy (whipping) cream
Prepare the dough: Combine the milk, butter, and salt in a small heavy saucepan, and heat just to the boiling point. Remove from the heat and cool to lukewarm, stirring occasionally so the butter melts.
In a large mixing bowl, or the bowl of an electric mixer, dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water. Mix in the sugar, and add the cooled milk mixture.
When there are some bubbles on top of the liquid, add 1 cup of the flour and mix well. Then add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in another cup of flour and mix vigorously for several minutes. (If you are making this dough in an electric mixer, mix on high speed for about 3 minutes. If mixing by hand, mix for at least 5 minutes.) The dough will become elastic, but it will still be rather sticky.
Turn the dough out onto a heavily floured suface, and knead in the remaining flour. The dough will be quite soft, but it should be elastic and should not stick to your fingers, when you touch it. If you need to do so, add a bit more flour, but not enough to make the dough firm. Place the dough in a bowl, cover with a towel, and set aside in a warm spot (68 to 70 degrees) to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. (If you want to save the dough for the next morning, place it in a bowl, cover it tightly, and refrigerate.)
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 7 x 11 x 1 and 1/2-inch baking dish, using 1 tablespoon of the melted butter. Sprinkle it with 1/4 cup of the brown sugar.
Peel and halve the apple. Cut out the core, then slice each half very thin (1/16-inch slices.) Arrange the slices in the baking dish in neat rows, overlapping them if necessary, so they completely cover the bottom of the dish.
Roll the dough out to form a 9 x 16-inch rectangle, and brush it with the remaining 1 tablespoon melted butter. Sprinkle the dough evenly, out to the very edges, with the remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar, the cinnamon, and the raisins. Beginning at one long side, tightly roll up the dough jelly-roll fashion, pushing back any raisins that fall out. With the seam down on the work surface, cut the roll into sixteen 1-inch thick slices. Place the slices on their sides in the prepared pan, so the concentric circles of filling show. The rolls will fit into the pan with room between them to rise.
Loosely cover the rolls with a towel, and let them rise in a warm spot until they have filled out the pan but haven't quite doubled in bulk, about 20 minutes.
Drizzle the cream over the rolls, and bake in the center of the oven until they are golden and cooked through, 20 to 25 minutes. To test for doneness, place the blade of a knife between two rolls in the center of the pan, and pull back on it to look into the dough.

Remove the pan from the oven, and let the rolls cool for 5 minutes before serving. Cut the rolls, removing them carefully from the pan with a spatula so you get the apple slices too. Serve apple side up. For a more dramatic presentation, invert the rolls onto a warmed serving tray. Makes 16 rolls.
The author of the cookbook likes to make the dough the night before, let it rise overnight in the refrigerator, and then allow about 1 and 1/2 hours in the morning before she plans to to serve them.