on a roll….

…a cinnamon roll, that is! What better way to spend Mother’s Day weekend than a little baking with Mom?

As I’ve shared many times here, I’m not good with baking recipes that need yeast. So, in an effort to correct this, I “lured” my mom into teaching me everything she knows and I chose the ooiest, gooiest, stickiest, sweetest thing I could think of as the teaching tool. What good is all that learning if you can’t have a sugar high at the end? 🙂

Her recipe notes are years old, and the best part about this recipe is all of the knowledge and technique hidden in between the lines of written notes. What are some examples of those “secret” skills, you ask? Behold, the expert steps in living color:

Scald the milk until it develops a skin in the microwave.

Melt the fat into the sugar and salt until it’s cool enough NOT to kill the yeast.

If you put a pinch of sugar in with the yeast and water, it’ll encourage the yeast even more.

You know when your dough has been kneaded enough when it doesn’t stick to your finger when you touch it.

Let the dough double in size during the first rise. (And use a heated earthenware bowl for the rise. That’s a really good tip.)

And you know the first rise is done when your fingers leave an indentation in the dough.

Go ahead and roll that dough firmly – it can take it!

They’re not called CINNAMON rolls for nothing.

Pat their little faces down before they rise again, so that they don’t form peaks in the oven.

You’ll never split the dough evenly in half, so don’t worry about it. Proof: my chubby rolls on the left, my mom’s perfectly proportioned rolls on the right.

Brush a bit of butter on the rolls after they’re baked to give them a great sheen.

Add a bit of light corn syrup to the glaze to get it to set faster and to give it a beautiful gloss, even after it comes out of the freezer. (Yes, my pan is that Jackson Pollack-esque glaze explosion you see on the bottom.)

And the best tip of all? EAT THEM!

Thanks, Mom, you’re the best! Now I guess I can’t tell Andrew I don’t know how to make them anymore….

Hope everyone had a great weekend!