So my friend, Jen, is having a baby pretty soon and I am honored to help out with her baby shower this Saturday. We are doing what I would call a “Garden Brunch.” Our other friend, Kristin, is really the main host. She is awesome and has a ton of amazing ideas. Her hubby is a graphic designer who made super cute invitations featuring the grey and yellow color theme that Jen wanted with a “Bee my baby” theme worked in. We’re doing a lot of cute decorations that I’ll have to share later. The point of this post, is the food.
Since we are serving a brunch, there are going to be several different items on the menu. One of which, is cinnamon rolls. I offered to bring these, since I love love love Cinnabon and have always wanted to find a good recipe for some home-made gooey, cinnamon goodness. Jen mentioned that she has tried Pioneer Woman’s recipe and really liked it. So I figured, hey, what the heck. I’ll make that recipe too. But, since I have never cooked with yeast before I wanted to try it in advance. And it’s a good thing I did!
Something went wrong… horribly wrong.
See, heres the dough at an early stage in the process, before I let it rise.
And here it is after I let it rise…
Looks risen, right? I snapped this shot after moving it onto a different bowl and covering it in cellophane. But still, it looks risen.
So I rolled out about half of it, spread out my filling, rolled it all up and started slicing off my individual little swirly-guys. They look pretty good. They even look like I would expect them to look.
But, alas… they were not good. They did not rise, even though I promise you, I did follow the directions as well as I know how. They turned out looking so sad! Maybe I packed ‘em in the dish too tight, maybe I didn’t let them rise long enough before popping them in the oven. In any rate, they were gross.
But, the recpe called for splitting the dough in half at one point, so I decided to go ahead and do the whole thing again with the second half of the dogh. And this time, they looked a lot better!
They looked so fluffy compared to what I had made earlier in the day! So, with great anticipation, I served up a cinnamon roll for myself and another for my hubby… both smothered in cream cheese frosting (so delicious) and…
These ones were gross too! They looked good, but the texture was awful! I can hardly describe what I felt on my tongue. Grainy-ish, spongy-ish grossness. My sweet husband offered is words of encouragement, “The taste is great! But, yah, the texture is a little strange.” Welp, sorry dear, and thanks for taste-testing.
I tried them again a few days later using Bridgford Ready-Dough and they turned out great. So, that’s what I’ll be doing for Jen’s baby shower. Semi-home-made cinnamon rolls. I will serve them proudly!
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