Oh, my, Cinnamon Rolls

Did I mention I love baking? That I get these sudden insane urgers to put flour or sugar or baking powder in something that will turn out sweet and delicious and make people say, 'oh, my'? That I love how chocolate smells when it was pulled out of the oven seconds earlier in the form of chocolate chip cookies? Yes, I may have a problem.

Yesterday I got the cooking bug shopping for groceries. This was new for me. Normally I'm sitting at home on my couch or at the table or somewhere in the house and I have to bake. There is no saying 'no,' I cannot think 'but I don't have all of the ingredients' and there definitely is no running away from the house to get away from the oven because if I do, I'll just be up until 1 a.m. when I need to wake up at 4:15 a.m. for work. Not. Good.

So yesterday afternoon at approximately 1 p.m. I was browsing through the grocery aisles. I had picked up flour, white and brown sugar because we all know that we need to replace these every week or two (or maybe it's just me) and, as I put them in my cart, I knew I would have to make something with them that night. That was it, the baking bug bit and I was gone.

So what can you make with flour, white and brown sugar and time on your hands?Since I have no kids and no hobbies - other than the baking and the cooking - I knew I could make pretty much anything I wanted. Well, with the undecided Iowa weather gusting around my house I decided I needed to make something warm, something that would remind me of winter nights in a warm house surrounded by family. I was going to make cinnamon rolls.

As soon as I got home and the groceries were tucked away I got out the recipe books that had been gifted to me from the people who know me best, my family. I needed to look up cinnamon rolls.

I have made cinnamon rolls on only one other occasion and that day I was not happy with the results. I think I put too much butter on the dough before I rolled it up and after I took the rolls out of the oven and dished one up I realized all of the filling had pooled on the bottom of the pan. At first I didn't think it was a bad thing because it was tasty, kind of like a caramel topping. After the cinnamon rolls cooled I changed my story. It was hard, hard and brittle and not even reheating the rolls in the microwave would do any good. It made me sad. I often turn to the internet for recipes with a little something extra or for a dash of something special, but I knew that today I wanted a tried-and-true recipe. Of course an old-school Dutch cookbook (from the very Dutch community I grew up in) hopefully would be the perfect place to find one.

I opened up my cookbooks and found a few recipes, but none of them tantalized me. I blamed this on my previous cinnamon roll trauma and decided to just go with one. It worked. It took some time due to the rising of the dough and all the amazing fun stuff that goes with baking anything with yeast, but they were, oh, my. To top off the rolls I pulled together a cream cheese frosting, very easy, and very yummy.

I held out until after supper to have one and shortly after that I knew the cinnamon rolls had made the grade. While taking a bite of mine, with the cream cheese and cinnamon and dough melding together in my mouth I couldn't help but let out a little moan of happiness. George was walking by right then and he said "is it good?" When all I could do was nod he took a bite and with a surprised (shame on him) look said "This is really good" and went to get his own.

When I went to set some aside for us and get the others ready for me to take to work the next day to share he even asked if I could put a couple more aside for us to have. That made my night. George doesn't have much of a sweet tooth. He'll eat some of whatever I make, but one is normally enough for him. So, on the George meter, I'm pretty sure my cinnamon rolls were a success.

What tasty treat makes your mouth water?