My mom made the very best cinnamon rolls, hands down no questions asked.
I spent years eating these delicious, flaky, warm, sweet buttery magical rolls, filled with brown sugar, walnuts and a cup of pure baking love.
As the years went by and tons of cinnamon rolls were baked and eaten, it dawned on me that I was becoming less self involved and growing into an aware and awake adult. I found where I actually was now spending time being involved in the family, instead of living in my basement cave.
You see I was somewhat of a late bloomer, or so I was told.
I spent many years in my basement bedroom evolving from playing Barbie’s to making candles, to being the family house sitter when the parents traveled the world. I was a young woman holding a full time job who came home every night to live in her cozy basement apartment where the responsibilities were very minimal.
By chance the awakening finally happened, I woke up early one Sunday morning to go take a walk before I started my day.
I walked up those stairs. I could hear the sounds of ,mom baking, and as I opened the door walking into the kitchen the smell of cinnamon rolls hit me in the face like a warm blanket, wrapping around all my senses.
I turned the corner and suddenly if felt like the world was tipping and the walls were collapsing.
On the counter was a plastic bag, that should have contained premade dough, it was Rhodes bread dough!
In my house! I thought, I questioned, my mind racing to find a place for premade dough in moms kitchen.
What happened to the homemade flaky dough that my mom would get up in the middle of the night to slave over and make for us?
Where was all that sweet, warm, bread dough love, that I had believed for so many decades?
I will never ever forget, the sound of my mom laughing so hard it almost brought her to tears, she said the look on my face was “priceless”. she said ” your mouth has dropped to far to floor, I am afraid your going to trip over your tongue!”
I finally barely felt the arms that wrapped around me and guided me to the kitchen chair, and made me sit down.
“Dear” she said.” did you really think I was getting up early all those years making dough?, heavens No!. I am not a slave to the kitchen for Pete’s sake!” as she laughed so hard there were more tears.
I sat there for awhile collecting my thoughts and finally closing my mouth.
A cup of coffee and a plate of warm, sweet, wonderful cinnamon rolls was set in front of me,
I looked at them and felt an array of emotion, from happy to sad, to hungry, to wonderment and most of all love. I could see it was all still there even though this dough was store bought.
Hunger won, I ate the rolls, and drank the coffee, just like any other day in the life of me.
The lesson I took away from this was to spend less time in the basement reading, and more time sitting at the kitchen table, talking to mom as she baked.
As I watched that store bought dough unfold to perfection I began to question, why couldn’t I “make bread dough from scratch!”
I began experimenting thru the years with different kinds of doughs, there were many that failed and a few that were complete success.
The best recipe I created for a cinnamon rolls is the Pumpkin Cinnamon and Walnut Roll.
Sweet, moist, tender, full of sugars, and walnuts, all rolled into perfectly shaped spirals, and baked to perfection.
The biggest issue I have with these recipes is that when I bake a pan, I tend to eat it all, morning, noon and oops, night..!
Enjoy.
