#18 on Life List: Completed!

Checked another task off my Life List....make homemade cinnamon rolls! January 1st, 2009 was the day of the Coppola Family Cinnamon Roll Bakeoff! Ali and Bobbi received the mother of all kitchen inventions for Christmas: the Kitchen Aid Mixer. It's a beauty and does everything except bake your concoction! So, I wanted to help them learn how to use their mixer, and I wanted to make homemade cinnamon rolls so I sent out an invitation to particpate in our first annual cooking contest. Kelly had all intentions of participating until a cold, and Tony's schedule, got in her way. Hopefully next year she'll be able to participate!

It was a great day! I was excited to use my new apron that my mom got me. Little did I know, Ali and Bobbi were hiding in her pantry digging up old aprons for themselves. Let's just say, if this had been an apron contest, I would have won the prize. The plaid apron and Dowling Maroon apron were something special!

And, we're off! We each were required to bring our own recipe. Cary and Ali found a recipe online - they used a recipe that had previously won contests. I used a recipe from the Food Network show "Down Home with the Neelys" and Bobbi used Joe's cousin's recipe (Jentry Graham). Since Kelly was gone, and because we wanted to try out my Gma Remsburg's caramel rolls, we decided to do one more batch. We used the Diagonal Cookbook and found a recipe for the roll, and then used Gma Phyllis' caramel recipe.

Kelly came just in time to make the frosting for my rolls. Kelly's secret to cinnamon rolls: "It's all in the frosting- not the roll."

Here are a few lessons we learned:

• Four recipes. Four different amounts of flour. From 3-7.5 cups...apparently, this varies
• Rapid Rise vs. Regular Yeast: Not sure we really saw a difference so I'd say go with the rapid rise.
• When it says "until yeast dissolves" - sometimes we saw the yeast in little balls or it didn't dissolve at all. Not sure what's up with that.
• Ali taught Bobbi and I how to "cut" flour. In order to get accurate amount of flour in your cup, you overfill it. Then, you take your knife and make a cross - which allows it to settle. Then, you even it out. I loved this little tip.
• When Ali asked, "Bobbi- how do you SCALD milk?". Bobbi replied, "M-I-L-K". I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. Obviously, Bobbi thought Ali asked how to spell milk. But, I laugh at what Bobbi must have been thinking, "Is she stupid or what? How does she not know how to spell milk?" Thank God- Ali does know how to spell milk, and we all now know how to scald milk.
• Your recipe may look like it takes a lot of ingredients, but it will not take many rolls. All of our recipes only made 8-12 rolls.
• Bobbi did not use homemade frosting- she used it right out of the can. This made Daddy Joe disqualify her from the get-go. Ouch.
• The Kitchen Aid Mixer REALLY is all that and a bag of chips. It's awesome. We used the "dough hook" and it kneaded and mixed the dough awesomely.
• The filling for all of our rolls was very similar- basically butter, cinnamon and sugar or butter, cinnamon and brown sugar. That part was easy!
• The caramel turned out great- but it wasn't exactly like Gma Phyllis'. That's okay- I know my Gma doesn't use measuring cups or spoons so her recipe went something like this "some whipping milk, some karo syrup, some brown sugar" and then went like this "well, you could use butter for the milk" and "about 2-3 Tbls. of karo syrup- around that" and "well, a cup of the milk, but that'll probably make too much so just do less of everything." What, Gma?????? That's how Gma rolls. Little bit of this, little bit of that. And, it all turns out in the end.
• You roll your dough the LONG way, not the short way. We all read our directions and couldn't figure it out. Finally, I had to call Gma to clarify. Long and skinny -not short and fat. You'd think we could figure this out on our own but it's harder than what you think!

Once all rolls were complete, we put half of each roll on a plate and numbered them for the judges to taste test. They took their job very seriously. There were lots of "oohs" and "aahhhs" but in the end....(drumroll please)......Ali was the winner! But, all rolls received compliments. Ali's and the Diagonal recipe were actually my personal favorites. I would say that my rolls would have won for presentation - they were the prettiest and most perfect shapes. But, I thought they were dry - I might have left them in the oven too long. And, we didn't leave Bobbi's in the oven long enough. We received a lot of comments from the guys throughout the day like - "Do you have even ONE done yet?" and "Wow- if you guys ever make these for breakfast, you better get started at midnight!" But, they appreciated our efforts!The last lesson I learned: When someone makes you cinnamon rolls, it's truly an act of love. It's not like cake or brownies or cookies, when you pop them in the oven and they're done in 30 minutes. It's a process and there's a lot of time involved (waiting for yeast to dissolve, mixing, waiting for dough to rise, rolling out, waiting for rolls to rise, baking them, etc). It's not something you do in 15 minutes. I now have a MUCH greater appreciation of my Gma's rolls (although I feel like I've always been appreciative of them - I was more appreciative of the taste, than the work involved). And, I know that if I ever want to give someone something homemade, there's not too many baked goods that say love like a cinnamon roll. And, when I gasp at the price of a homemade cinnamon roll at the Farmers Markets, I now will understand - and maybe even leave a tip!

Will I ever make them again? Yes. At least I'm not scared to try it now. This was a great way to start out 2009- learning something new and spending time with family!

Lastly, here's one more bun that's still in the oven....Kelly's baking that little one til May! The countdown is on- 2009 is going to bless us with one more little....who are we kidding? It's sure to be another boy!