Lizzie and her friends had a dance practice at our house after school today and I thought hot cinnamon rolls would be a nice birthday surprise for her.
I used a Lion House recipe, with special instructions from a woman who was famous for her homemade rolls. But something seemed off, right from the start. The dough was more like a …roast…or a big ham. I could tell that it wasn’t rising in the bowl so I kept re-wetting and microwaving the dishtowel, trying to coax a little life into the muscle.
Three hours after all the friends had left, having snacked on multiple sleeves of Ritz crackers and cheese, I was still determined that Lizzie would have these sweet rolls! I put the bowl with the solid in a warm oven. Still nothing.
I thought that maybe it just needed to be rolled out…and then it will remember what it’s supposed to be doing. So, I made a commercial cookie sheet full of crescent rolls and carefully brushed the tops with melted butter. Then I made another giant cookie sheet full of Parker house style rolls, carefully brushing half of the inside of each round with more butter, folding it over, and brushing the top half again with the butter. Then, I made the sweet rolls. For some reason, I didn’t need to add any flour. The dough was super easy to work with. Exactly like play dough. I filled two 9 x 13 inch pans.
Lizzie was still really hopeful. I thought for sure that the crescent rolls would rise when I turned the oven up to 350 but they held their own. Finally, after 15 minutes, I could see that the bottoms were toasted so I pulled them out. Weirdest thing ever. They looked like little…pottery rolls…before the glazing. They reminded me of some funky art project where the kids sculpt clay into the shape of common foods. My husband broke, fully busted, one in half, nibbled a corner and then said, “Shoot, that’s too bad”. Total good guy, all the time.
I went ahead and baked the cinnamon rolls next thinking that for sure all the butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon would help boost the dough into what is was meant to be. Not so much. They came out looking like…pottery…but oozing melted butter and cinnamon sugar. I plated one up for Lizzie anyway. She said she really wanted it but was still a little too full from all the crackers right now. Smart girl, even on her birthday.
Last of all I thought, I am going to torture fry all 40 of the Parker house rolls into scones. I can tell that they won’t rise in the oven but surely these suckers will rise when submerged in burning hot OIL! (I knew that I was out of control by this point, but just couldn’t stop myself. I needed someone to just slap me as hard as they could.) What I ended up with was two gallon Ziplocs full of miniature scones that look exactly like chicken nuggets. Our stroganoff dinner was so over-cooked it was more like a poultice. Lizzie kept looking deep into my eyes from across the table and then in a really small voice said, “Mom, this isn’t something I really like too much.” Mike and I both politely worked our way through our one serving and my mom thought it was great! Great.
One of my college age daughters, Hailey, showed up around 10:00 p.m. and saw me dumping all the crescent rolls into the trash. Next I began to chip and scrape the two pans of cinnamon rolls out of the Pyrexes that were being held hostage. Then she noticed the Ziplocs. ”What are those?” “Those are Creepy-Little-Mini-Scones…that look like chicken nuggets.” “What happened?” I told her the whole story and she just laughed and said, “Mom, 30 minutes into this deal you should have thrown the kids in the car and taken them for Hagen Das.”
Her turn is coming.
