People say that money can’t buy love, but nobody ever says that cinnamon rolls can’t. And I think you might agree with me that bartering these cinnamon rolls in exchange for love might in fact be a pretty even trade. See, cinnamon rolls are happiness in food form. Most people have fond childhood memories involving the wafting smell of sweet cinnamon waking them up in the morning, whether it was a surprise snow day, a random weekend, or Christmas morning. So eating a cinnamon roll is not just about enjoying the big, delicious, warm, rich, soft, buttery, oozy, sweet, cinnamon-filled treat that practically melts away in your mouth, it’s about reliving the best parts of childhood for a moment or two.
A while back, I found this recipe from the Pioneer Woman (one of my many food blog addictions). The amount of butter in the recipe soared past sinful without so much as a passing glance, galloped easily past gluttonous, and went straight to Oh-Dear-God-In-Heaven-This-Must-Be-A-Mistake. We’re talking 8 sticks of butter just for the filling.
But they looked so incredibly delicious that I just had to make them. As it turns out, I ended up cutting the butter in half, but it wasn’t for health reasons (would anyone ever consider cinnamon buns to be healthy?), it was just because after a certain amount, the butter started to pour off the sides of the dough, all over the counter, and threatened to overflow onto the floor, so I decided to stop. The only other major change comes from the fact that I am a firm believer that cinnamon rolls are best when topped with warm cream cheese icing, so I substituted it for the PW’s coffee-maple icing.
I admit, the recipe is long, rather time consuming, and a bit messy. But the outcome of all the work? In a word: happiness. What starts off as luscious ecstasy in the first bite slowly transforms into pure giddy joy as you remember how perfect it was being a little kid. You eat the rest and let the sugar high take hold. It’s odd, but you can’t resist smiling. And that’s when you know it was absolutely, 100% worth the effort.
