An Ode to the Pillsbury Dough Boy

In my ongoing quest to become better at certain things - including cooking - I had enrolled Dear Daughter and myself in a homemade cinnamon roll class last Saturday at our local culinary school.

Prior to the class, visions of hot, gooey delicious cinnamon rolls kept dancing in my head, and I couldn't wait to learn how to create these culinary delights in my own kitchen.

I'm not sure that, after completing the class, I can claim to be better at baking homemade cinnamon rolls.

Let's just say that...um...homemade cinnamon rolls take a LOT of work. A LOT.

"Work" and "breakfast" are just two words I don't normally associate together.

I prefer "easy" and "breakfast"...or "quick" and "breakfast" together - because pretty much being half-dead and zombified after waking up, it's all I can do to shuffle into the kitchen and sleepily eat whatever I stumble across first in order to begin the slow & painful process of waking up.

During the class last week, Daughter and I carefully measured, dutifully mixed, patiently waited (forever) for our dough to rise, rolled it out, waited (impatiently) for it to "rest", and finally slathered it with a generous helping of butter, brown sugar and cinnamon.

We then gently and firmly rolled up the dough into a jelly-roll, which took four hands, and finally, began slicing, using the oh-so-clever dental floss method. Cool.


Oh, we're smiling here - on the OUTSIDE...grrr....

Only to take the rolls home to allow them to sit overnight in the refrigerator, so they could "rest" some more. I'm not really sure why the dough needed all this rest - all it was doing was sitting around, while WE did all of the work. By this time, it was WE who needed rest, but I digress.


Enough smiling...back to work...

Early Sunday morning, I drug myself out of bed before anyone else, in order to get the rolls out of the cold refrigerator and set them on the counter for 30 minutes, so they could drop to a nice "room temperature" before baking. Argh.

And then. FINALLY. I could put them into the oven.

After 25 minutes, they were ready to come out and be coated in a sugary glaze of delight.

Were they delicious?

You betcha'.

However, I couldn't help but comment to Hubby, "I think opening a can of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls is a heck of a lot easier - and just as tasty."

Seriously.

The Pillsbury dough boy is welcome in my kitchen, ANY TIME.

Peace.