Saturday, August 13, 2011

I'm no Paula or Ree

Post # 134
Last week I read a book, How to Bake a Perfect Life, and throughout the story one of the main characters was baking bread.  Ever since I read it I have been wanting to knead bread so, Thursday night about the time I should have been going to bed I decided to start making bread, cinnamon rolls actually.   Yes, it does take about 4 hours for me to make rolls, and it is now 10 p.m., why do you ask? Since it is just as easy to make two batches as one of course I mixed up two bowls at a time.  First of all, the yeast was the best yeast I have ever used. This stuff activated like crazy. I first made bread when I was 18, almost 40 years ago and I have never had yeast this alive.  Once I got to the point where the bread needed to be kneaded it was just awesome. When I was 18 and made that first loaf of bread my mother-in-law told me to knead the bread until it was as smooth as a baby's bottom. This batch of bread was perfect. It was a pleasure to knead, soft and smooth.  Bread heaven! Exactly what I needed, as kneading bread is very stress relieving for me.  Now I am ready to mix up the filling, roll up the dough, slice into rolls and let it rise again.  I melted the oleo on the microwave, packed the brown sugar and stirred in the oleo until it was thick and smooth.  Spooned it all over the bread, wishing I had one of those paint brush tools for spreading butter.  Scattered on raisins and rolled it up.  Sliced them with a butcher knife altho someday I am going to try cutting them with dental floss just to see if it is any easier.  Placed the rolls in the prepared pans (one batch of dough makes 2 pans of rolls).  They are just beautiful! Covered them up with a towel and leave them to rise again. 45 minutes later as I pick up the first pan to place in the oven I realized something.  These cinnamon rolls do not smell like cinnamon.  I forgot to put the cinnamon in with the brown sugar and oleo! At this point they look perfect but raw.  You can't pick up a raw cinnamon roll, unroll it and add some cinnamon I don't think.  That brown sugar/oleo mixture would just go everywhere.  Hmmm.  Can't eat them as dinner rolls with all that brown sugar in the middle.  Only thing I can think to do is sprinkle cinnamon on the tops of the rolls. Then I thought cinnamon by itself is not a pleasant taste to me so I added a sprinkling of white sugar, sort of like making cinnamon toast.  I realized a sprinkling of cinnamon on the tops of the rolls is nothing like the 3 Tablespoons I would have mixed in with the brown sugar. I looked around my kitchen.  I had every bowl, every measuring cup, 2 whisks, 4 beaters and  2 mixers dirty; bags of powdered sugar, brown sugar, flour, the box of raisins, messy rolling pin and flour all over my table, the floor and the counter. Now I wish I had thought to take a picture of the mess.  I thought of all the photos I have seen of Paula Deen, The Pioneer Woman, Rachel Ray and the likes cooking and their kitchens never look like this.  And they probably always remember to put cinnamon in their cinnamon rolls.  If any of you want a recipe for delicious, easy cinnamon rolls just leave a comment, and when you make them don't forget to add all the ingredients!  P. S. I did the second batch right, sent them to work with my son and left some for my daugther-in-law and my other 3 kids.  The two messed up pans of rolls are sitting in my kitchen and really aren't half bad by the time you put the frosting on them or some strawberry jam but not really a cinnamon roll.

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