Cinnamon Rolls... again.

Cream Cheese Cinnamon Rolls

I talk to my baked goods.  It's probably not normal, but... there it is.  Today I got home from work to find my final pan of cinnamon rolls sitting perfectly on my stovetop, and I got all ushy gushy with them: "Awww... Have you been waiting for me all day?"  Then I proceeded to eat three of them.  They were tasty.


Yesterday was one of my employees' birthday and I totally spaced it.  So, to show that I'm a caring and supportive supervisor, this morning I baked cinnamon rolls.  Lots of them.  I hadn't intended for it to happen that way; it just did.


Last night at about 7:30 I texted my friend Colin: "You wanna come over and make cinnamon rolls?" to which he responded, "Um, yeah."  Before he arrived, I began to attempt this recipe.  One of the first things I was supposed to do was combine sugar and water at a temperature of 115 degrees.  Well, one of the kitchen implements I don't have is a candy thermometer (or a meat thermometer, or anything culinarily temperature-telling), but what I did have was a regular old medicine cabinet thermometer, so I thought, "Hey, that's pretty much the same thing."

Not for baking.

So I heated up the water in the microwave, tested it with my finger, then stuck the thermometer in: 96 degrees.  I put it in the microwave for another 20 seconds and then rechecked my progress.  Instead of giving me a temperature, though, the thermometer started beeping wildly and flashing the words "HI TEMP" across the screen.  Apparently, the thermometer was under the impression that I had a serious fever and should get myself to a hospital immediately.  Lesson learned: Human thermometers are no good for measuring anything above 105 degrees.


Plan B: Guess what 115 probably feels like using your pointer finger.  This worked just fine, as evidenced by my yeast activating and my dough rising.

However, before I let it rise, I had to do some impromptu kneading with my hands (due to a lack of a "stand mixer"), which is about the time in the story where Colin rings my doorbell.  I was somehow able to pry enough sticky dough from my hands to open the front door with a combination of fingertips and elbow.  When I went back to read the instructions I realized I had missed some rather key steps, and was concerned that the rolls might not turn out.  So I said to Colin, "I think we're going to have to get started with Plan B."


Plan B is the cinnamon roll recipe that I made over Labor Day weekend.  You should also know that Plan B yields about 50 cinnamon rolls.  But if the experimental cream cheese cinnamon rolls weren't going to turn out, I had to have a backup plan.  You understand, right?


Ok.  So lots of mixing and sifting and stirring and waiting-for-everything-to-rise...  and it turns out both sets of dough were edible and gorgeous.  So this morning when I got up, I threw it all into the oven, got ready for work, and pulled the finished products out of the oven.


Then I had a slight moment of panic when I realized I had no idea what the hell I was going to do with 36 cinnamon rolls.  I mean, to bring in one pan to work is nice, but to bring in five pans... well, that's a little crazy.  People start to wonder.


The good news is, people have been wondering about me for a long time.  So I brought in three of the five pans (which was a nice compromise), and they were a big hit.  Especially for the birthday girl.


Now I just need to figure out what to do with the rest of the dough tomorrow morning.