I decided to make homemade Cinnamon Rolls.
No particular reason.
Well, maybe...yes.
Baking bread has always interested me.
I remember my mother preparing yeast rolls for Sunday dinner when I was a child. I'd watch her mix the ingredients, flour the table top, and roll out the dough. She used the rim of a Mason jar to cut out each roll. I remember the aroma as they baked in the oven. More so, I remember their sweet yeasty flavor.
I also have fond memories of making Cinnamon Rolls in Junior High Home Ec class using Bisquick Mix...rolling out the dough in the coveted "yellow kitchen" with my friends... covering it with melted butter, sugar and cinnamon... perfecting the jelly roll technique before slicing it into disks and baking.
During the nineties, I even bought a bread machine.
Just before Christmas, I watched the holiday episode of the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond. She whipped up batches of cinnamon rolls to give to her family and friends. Looked easy enough, so I wrote the recipe in my notebook and planned to bake some Christmas morning.
Of course, THAT didn't happen.
But, less than two weeks later, it did.
I had all the ingredients,
new bakeware,
and the recipe.
I started by heating a mixture of wet ingredients on the stove.
Added yeast once it cooled, and later, lots of flour and other dry ingredients.
I let the dough rise...
rolled it out
and slathered on melted butter, sugar and cinnamon.
Jelly rolling it tight, I sliced half inch disks.
I lay those disks side by side in pans to let them rise.
Finally,
I slid them into the oven
and my quiet kitchen began to fill with interested parties.
"Wow! That smells great!"
"When will we be able to eat some?"
Thirty minutes later the rolls were out and I was pouring on a sweet white glaze.
FANTASTIC!
The sweet smell found its way upstairs and invited the interested parties back to the kitchen.
We ate a pan-full before we stopped.
I shared the rest with family and even took a couple of pans to work the next day.
This was such an easy way to share something special!
