It starts with extra
flour in a mixing bowl, a wooden spoon and the inimitable imagination
of a child. Adding a splash of water, she becomes the mommy. Her
sister shakes in colored sprinkles and takes the form of another
little girl trying on a different voice, slightly higher and more
excited. Here's to an exploratory afternoon in the family kitchen.
My husband likes
cinnamon rolls. Weeks ago my daughters and I worked up a plan to make
heart-shaped cinnamon rolls for Daddy's Valentine's Day breakfast.
I've never made them before, so that set out a challenge and I
rarely, if ever, back down from myself.
What
happened first was a mistake in calculation. I chose an overnight
recipe from the Food Network's website that says, clearly and
explicitly, “In
the bowl of a stand mixer.” I do not have a stand mixer, but I have
mad juju with my hands and I stand when I mix.
Anyway, bad idea. The doubling in size after two and a half hours was
more like a sigh. I tossed it without even rolling the dough.
Then
knowing I'd be up before the dawn mixing and scraping, I found these recipes, and, for sake of time, opted for the yeast-less variety.
OHMYGODTHEYARESOGOOD.
I
even managed to shape them like pretty little hearts that turned into
pretty little squarish hearts in the oven. I have to say, the recipe
makes WAY
too much frosting. I don't even know what to do with all this cream
cheese frosting. Something inside me is saying, “Bake a cake.”
But that's just nonsense; where would I put a cake?
Maybe
I should just give my kids another mixing bowl filled with flour and water,
some dry rice and salt and pepper. They know just how to cook up a
proper St. Valentine's Day massacre.
