Cinnamon Rolls in a Tiny Kitchen

I live in central Tokyo, which means I live in a small studio apartment with a tiny kitchen:

This little kitchen is considered pretty swank because it has a 2-in-1 washer and dryer (the thing that looks like a dishwasher under the counter on the left) and an 2-in-1 oven and microwave (the black thing under the electric range with two burners).  I've learned to be grateful, but that doesn't change that this is the smallest, most ill-equipped kitchen this American suburbanite has ever had.  Add the tiny kitchen to the difficulty in running down otherwise standard American ingredients and I've been doing a lot less cooking than I'd like.  (You guys, we are so spoiled in the States.)

This means that a lot of what I eat comes from a konbini and, while convenience store food is much better in Japan than it is in the US, it's still not great to make it a regular habit.  In an effort to improve my mood and because I had spare time over the New Year holiday, I cut down some recipes, converted them to metric and visited multiple grocery stores to gather what I needed to make some basic meals and a few holiday treats.

Exhibit A: Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls

Pioneer Woman's recipe results in enough rolls for an entire neighborhood, so I started with KitchenMadge's Small Batch and cut it in half for a yield that my tiny kitchen could handle--12 miniature rolls.  They baked up nicely and left my apartment smelling... like home.  (Living in Japan for a year has led me to realize that much of America smells like butter.)  I skipped the frosting because I couldn't track down any powdered sugar, but these little guys were great without a cloak of icing.

Prior to Baking

If you're in Tokyo and wondering where you can find a small/cheap baking dish (my furnished apartment didn't come with one), I got mine at Tokyu Hands near Tokyo station.