Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

The best cinnamon rolls I’ve ever had come from a teeny restaurant in Lake Worth, Texas called Ginger Brown's Old Tyme Restaurant & Bakery. It’s the kind of place with sticky floors, worn booths, and mini jukeboxes on the tables. (How fun are those?) Oddly shaped cookie jars of Elvis and Garfield line shelves while pictures of Lucille Ball and Coca Cola signs adorn the walls. There’s a refrigerated pie safe next to the register. The waitresses wear frilly aprons. Very kitschy and homey. Real good cinnamon rolls. If you come at me with your convictions about the best cinnamon rolls you’ve ever had and they come from somewhere else, I will believe you. This is not the kind of argument I’m willing to engage in. I’m sure yours are better. I just like these.

Early on in the pandemic, certain groceries were hard to come by. My son is normal toddler-picky, but he was a failure to thrive as an infant which scarred me deeply. Food is always on my mind; I’m always planning how I can get the most into him with every bite. (It’s exhausting.) So, when the things he will gladly eat became scarce, I panicked.


I never experienced food insecurities as a child - or any other time in my life. According to USDA data from 2016, 1 in 5 children in American were living with hunger. Due to the pandemic, they estimate the number has grown to 18 million children, or 1 in 4.

USDA: Food Security in the U.S.

NoKidHungry.org


The stress of what I’ve experienced off and on over the past year related to food scarcity is certainly nothing compared to what others face on the regular. It did cause me anxiety, and it did force me to get creative.


I love cinnamon rolls, those gooey ones from Ginger Brown’s and also the ones from the refrigerated cans at the grocery store. We eat breakfast-for-dinner about once a week at my house because all the people that live here will eat it without complaint. BfD always includes a can of refrigerated cinnamon rolls. Well. Last April, I couldn’t find any of those. So, I decided to make my own.


I am decidedly a baker, but I’ve never made homemade cinnamon rolls before. They intimidated me. Dough is scary. Yeast is unpredictable. But, my boy wanted them. So, I decided to give it a go.


To my cookbooks I went, searching for recipes I thought I could handle. They were all pretty similar, so I chose to try a recipe from the Pioneer Woman’s first cookbook, well-loved and now falling apart. Pages have tried to escape and are now stuffed back in all the wrong places, out of order, splattered with bits of meals gone by.


I followed the recipe like I was going to discover a pot of gold at the end. A pot of gold I did not discover, but I did learn that I can do it. I can do something I once thought was “too hard”. I can find a way forward and make shit happen. And you know what? Those cinnamon rolls were damn good, made even sweeter by my mental victory in conquering what I thought I couldn’t do.


Before.



After.

Comments

  1. you are brave! I would love to make those but I dont' think they would turn out as good as yours look!

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  2. I seriously love the word kitschy, and your cinnamon roll reflections are badass. The way you effortlessly weave in heavy things like food scarcity and failure to thrive with lightheartedness like jukeboxes and sweet mental victory is really quite impressive.

    Also, I think we have the same granite countertops. 😊

    And now I want a cinnamon roll.

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  3. I have a couple favorite places for cinnamon rolls and can guarantee I would like the Ginger Brown ones. BUT, those Pillsbury rolls are a happy fill-in. I don't buy them because I would eat them. However, when necessary, they have been my go-to treats since forever. (I like the Orange Danish best.) I've never had a reason to make them myself, but if I had too, I would hit Pioneer Woman first because I loved everything she makes.

    I'm pretty sure that Poppin' Fresh Dough is going to be on my next grocery shopping list.

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  4. Cinnamon rolls contribute to hygge. Congratulations for baking your own rolls. "Bake me happy!" is one of my favorite fridge magnets. I hope you will have more baking happy days.

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  5. What is it about cinnamon rolls? They appear to be complicated, so maybe the appreciation comes in that. Making a huge batch such as you did clearly indicates they were meant to be shared. I can't help think as the the aroma was swirling through your home, your family was likely periodically checking your progress knowing that something sweet was in their future. Everybody won today all because of cinnamon.

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