Keep rollin' rollin' rollin'...

This morning, I made cinnamon rolls for my colleagues. I have found that baking is a happier alternative to dealing with stress than, say, running naked on a busy street. Not that I've tried that. I did lose my hat in the middle of a rainstorm while running to catch the bus yesterday, and I thank the people who stopped on the local busy road for not running me (nor my hat) over.

Um.

Anyway.

As I mentioned before, I have an unhealthy obsession with cinnamon. As this week has been less than stellar, I've been baking to cope. However, a break is coming up soon and birthday today and all, so life is much better now that I can take a breath.

My new baby got put to good use in mixing the dough. I cringe at the thought that I would have been kneading it. I still haven't gotten over the first Daring Bakers experiment with French Bread. On the PBS website, there is a video with Julia and Danielle Forrestier. She beats that dough like it just ate her kitten. Throw, whomp. Throw, whomp. I can't whomp. My apartment complex might fall down.

The dough hook did a good job of kneading the dough, but I needed quite a bit of flour before the dough wasn't sticky. It rose within four hours (again, cold apartment) and kept overnight quite well! The end result was a cinnamon roll much like a pastry shop's. The bread was flaky and buttery, and although I didn't have cream cheese a simple butter, powdered sugar and milk frosting did just fine.



Recipe for Alton's Cinnamon Rolls on the Food Network website.

p.s. Alton, I miss you. Please come visit sometime. Unless the gym starts playing Food Network, we may be separated indefinitely. I can only take so much Ty Pennington in one weekend.