Monday, January 05, 2009

I do not resolve + cinnamon rolls

While ridiculous and counter-intuitive, I've considered not working out until February because I don't want to look like a New Year's resolutioner.

I have this thing where I imagine people will see me out running and go, oh look at that girl out running in all her new gear (which they'll assume because my running clothes never wear out - magic lycra!) when she's just going to give up and go home and eat a faceload of cinnamon rolls.

Because that would be 50% untrue and I will not have it.

Really though, I spent some serious time thinking of whether to put on ratty clothes to run on New Year's Day so that I wouldn't look like I was wearing clothes freshly unwrapped from Christmas. I considered ditching my tried-and-true cool weather running outfit of the past two+ years for cut-off sweats and a USMC tshirt so that I wouldn't look like I was wearing my special-for-New- Year's-Resolutioning outfit that had just arrived complete from Athleta.

Then I thought that might make me look EVEN MORE like a New Year's resolutioner because I was wearing clothes so obviously inappropriate for an outdoor workout in drizzly 40 degree weather and why would I do that if I weren't a New Year's resolutioner??

CONUNDRUM.

And then I just stopped being a crazy person, went for my run in my usual attire, saw almost not a single person for 7 miles and then came home to race Bubba to the middle of the pan of homemade cinnamon rolls.

Because my life is not My Life without stupendous irony.

If you could have smelled my kitchen. ..SWOON.

And today I went back to the gym after a few weeks off (the gym lives at work and I don't come to work when I'm on vacation, thankyouverymuch) and had a similar experience.

I got all ugh it's going to be so busy in there because now everyone has resolved to lose weight or get in shape and all they're going to do is steal the 10 lb weights for all of January even though I've been here three days a week for a year and need the 10 lbers. Jerks! for no reason.

Because when I got there, there were only the same old faces and a few new ones who wouldn't go anywhere near the free weights anyway because there aren't any instructions on them or those little pictures that tell you want body part you're working out with this machine. And since my gym clothes are nowhere near as fancy as my running clothes, I didn't get the did you just get that for Christmas looks from other gym-goers because who gets faded drawstring capris and Old Navy tank tops with holes on the hems for Christmas? No one, that's who.

So, the moral to this story is this - don't let me advise you on anything that requires sane reasoning because I've clearly veered off that path.

Also, you should make these cinnamon rolls if you have someone in your house who truly loves cinnamon rolls like my Bubba does because they are truly amazing.

We like canned frosting because we delightfully WT.

Do keep in mind, though, that this recipe makes 7 pans worth, so if you're not ready to bake a thousand rolls for New Year's breakfast, you can just parcel out the dough into 7 equal-ish sized portions and freeze for future use. Like, breakfast on January 3rd, 10th, 17th and so on.

This is only four portions because I don't know how to do fractions. And as I predicted, it doesn't matter.

I didn't realize this was a 7 pan recipe until I got to the 8 cups of flour part and was like, WTF? That's almost all of my flour! Why would it possibly need so much flour?

Oh. It is a holiday recipe intended to be baked and shared, one pan each, with neighbors. Isn't that nice. I guess I will just go about freezing some of this for later. And also I will go back to TJ's and get some more flour. And then I will stand back in amazement that someone is kind and generous enough with her time and flour to bake such things for her neighbors. Because as much as I bake and deliver goods to my neighbors, I've never done anything as amazing as these cinnamon rolls. That's heroic.

Oh, something else to note when making these is that you should make the dough and leave it to rise in a bigger pan than I did. Perhaps a 4+ quart sauce pan. Because this recipe in a 2.5 qt sauce pan does this on your stovetop:

This was right after Bubba said, "Babe - you're dough has gone over the wall." and I ignored him because I thought he was just being silly.

And then it does this in your fridge:

This was waiting for me after my run. I laughed for a long time before I cleaned it up. Yeast is funny.

Good news is that the dough's not super sticky, so it punches down right back in the pan like it never happened. Which is good because then you can enjoy your cinnamon rolls without having to explain why the fridge door is stuck closed. That'd be awkward.

This was from our second pan of rolls. They were better than the first, according to Bubba.

14 comments:

  1. Oh god....cinnamon rolls. My nemesis. The love that dare not speak its name. The breakfast food that calls me the gangster of love. (Or Maurice.) The REAL San Francisco treat. The beer that made Milwaukee famous. I can smell them from here. Want. Want. Must have. Getting weak. Can hardly keep typslkjadfa;lskdjfa;lkdjf............

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  2. damn you....I'm going to have to go dig that box of Krispy Kremes out of the trash now.

    We are really WT at my house because I've never had homemade cinnamon rolls in my whole entire life. Only the ones from the can that you have to whack on the side of the counter to open.

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  3. Funny, I've been reading The Pioneer Woman's blog a lot lately and when I saw your picture I totally wondered if it was the same recipe as hers. They look fantastic. (And you're as neurotic as my sister, which I love.)

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  4. MMMMM! I love you for that picture!! YUM! I've been thinking about making that recipe for awhile as well, but I also paid attention to the fact that it makes a BUTT LOAD of cinnamon rolls (and no, that wasn't intended to mean "it makes your BUTT bigger if you make 'em and eat 'em all!")

    You can also see them being made by a bunch of guys at:

    http://www.thisisreverb.com/2008/12/this-is-how-we-roll-2.html

    I like the idea of just stashing extra batches of the dough in the freezer - that way you can make more later without as much work!

    AND I like the WT idea of using a tub-o-frosting! MMM! There is NOTHING wrong with that!

    But I DON'T like the idea of the dough doing it's impersonation of The Blob all over the counter or fridge! ROFL! NICE!

    I had a similar problem when I made something that served 20 from Pioneer Woman's site, and I missed the "serves 20" part and couldn't figure out why I needed SO MUCH MEAT for the recipe...

    I think I'm gonna hold off on this recipe a little bit longer. I have just a little of "just plain grocery store" cinnamon in the pantry, and I'm planning to put together a King Arthur order soon, which will most definitely be including Vietnamese cinnamon! Ever had it? WOW - what a difference!

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  5. That photo of the dough overflow in your fridge is pretty fucking gross. Cinnamon rolls, however? Not gross. Not that I ever make them, because of that little feud I have with yeast. Sometimes the MiL makes them, but she never puts enough frosting on them. I can't complain, though, if I'm not going to make them myself.

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  6. This is a recipe that I keep wanting to try, but have yet to try it. Maybe because it makes to many. What I really want to way, however, is 7 miles???? Holy cow. You rock. Never having been a runner, I admire those that can.

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  7. You're right, yeast is funny. Also, cinnamon rolls are tasty and i like the idea of thinking ahead to plan on having cinnamon rolls for so many weeks. But I don't run, so we might have a problem.

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  8. Decca - Now that song will be stuck in my head all day.

    Elizabeth - Which is frankly more than I've ever done with respect to cinnamon rolls until this recipe came into my life.

    I had to WT it up a little bit with the canned frosting so I'd respect myself in the morning.

    Wendy - I'm pretty much as neurotic as they come. My brain works very hard to make me this crazy.

    Jeph - Yeah, it's funny because when I was taking the photo I originally had a sweater on but thought it'd be distracting to have a big sweater on with the scarf and people would be like, "Did you knit that sweater, too?!" when I clearly did not, so I took the sweater off for the moment I took those photos and then put it right back on. It was actually starting to rain as I was photographing and was about 40 degrees outside, so way too cold for short sleeves by themselves.

    Kristin - Gross, but FUNNY. I totally laughed and pointed at the big silly dough. Yeast kills me. And this was the first time I made cinnamon rolls, so, you know, I don't know what I'm doing.

    Michelle - I will say that managing the cinnamon rolls was a lot more challenging than running 7 miles. That dough was so silly!

    A Lady - Well, I do justify my naughty eating habits by working out a lot, but I doubt I'd eat much differently if I didn't run. I mean, I only started running a few years ago and I've been eating like this forever. Which explains why I still can't get near my size 4 shorts. Jerks.

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  9. Mmmm. I love cinnamon rolls, yet I've never made them from scratch. Perhaps I now know why ...

    (Another funny story from Finny.)

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  10. Haven't checked in in awhile because it always depresses me how often you travel. Bitch! But then I see the cinnamon roll post and LAUGH OUT LOUD AT 6 IN THE MORNING from the line "yeast is funny."

    Thanks.

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  11. I don't resolve either. GIMME! Those look so so good.

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  12. Oh yeah... I have big plans for this!

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  13. Oh My God! I just laughed my ass off because I do the exact same crazy-person thing in my head every single new year. That whole "wear scrubbier than normal clothes to the gym and push your lifts so you don't look like a pansy New Year Girlie Girl and run your brand new shinny white trainers through the mud so they look well used. So freaking funny.

    And I have a chubby slice of sour cream lemon pie in the fridge for the after workout energy-sugar need.

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  14. HAHAHA... oh my lord... I nearly bust a gut when I saw the pics of the pot in the fridge... that is so, so nasty!

    Is that tonic behind the pot? :)

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