Thursday, February 26, 2009

Searching for the perfect cinnamon roll

Last weekend, in a fit of inspiration or insanity - I'm not sure which - I decided my daughter and I would bake cinnamon rolls as a treat. Little did I know.


You see, I'm the girl whose idea of baking cinnamon rolls is:
  1. Take container out of fridge.
  2. Pop it open.
  3. Place each of the eight perfectly round circles on the cookie sheet.
  4. Bake.
  5. Open perfectly round circle of premade frosting and coat the rolls.

It's about as healthy for us as it is for the environment. I didn't care. It's the occasional splurge when we have company.

Then I saw in a parenting magazine a recipe for cinnamon rolls. And I of course thought, if this 5 year old girl in the picture can do it, my culinarily blessed child certainly can!

So I ripped out the article, gave the rest of the magazine to the hospital, and promptly lost the instructions.

I did find a recipe for cinnamon rolls at Family Fun online. OK, it's a kids site, so how difficult could it be? I reasoned.

Difficult it's not. Time-consuming, it is. Mix. Wait 5, 15 or more minutes. Mix some more. Wait some more. For a 3 year old, it's pure torture. And starting right after dinner and not being done by bedtime made it worse. It took so long she was willing to go to bed before they were baked. And frankly, so was I.

The next morning, the cinnamon rolls waited, perfectly cooled, on their tray, and we whipped up the frosting, which my daughter proudly coated on each piece. The four of us - yes, even the little guy ate a small one - savored a roll for Sunday breakfast. I don't know whether it was the work involved or just better ingredients, but this was nothing like our quickie rolls from the tube. And with sticky faces and stickier fingers, we each ate our rolls to the last bite.

And then we packaged the rest, two by two, on plates to take to the church bake sale, the main reason for my jaunt into baking insanity. And my daughter, all of 3, puffed up her chest proudly as she told the volunteer that she made those rolls.

There could be nothing sweeter!

2 comments:

bhelenj said...

That is precious.
Mom

Walking Green said...

That is so sweet! What a great memory you have to share with your daughter.