After sharing some of my homemade cinnamon rolls with my tennis buddies, some of them asked, "Will you teach me?" Why, of course! In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I decided to hold my first baking class. We had a blast!
I began preparing a couple of weeks in advance to make sure there were enough starters (a concoction of potato flakes, sugar, and warm water) for everyone. Then, I fed each of the starters Tuesday night. The first session began on Wednesday morning when we each made a batch of dough. Let the rising begin!
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| Let the rising begin! |
The main session took place that same evening. First, I had to get everything ready. At each of the five stations, you could find waxed paper, bread flour, butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, etc. I knew this would be the "calm before the storm."
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| The "calm before the storm." |
Ready, set, go! First, literally punch down the dough. It's crazy how something so simple can be so silly and satisfying!
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| Punching down the dough! |
I took them through the major steps of rolling out the dough, spreading on butter, layering the brown sugar and cinnamon, rolling up the dough, cutting the "log" into the cinnamon rolls, and laying them out in the pan. I also showed how to use the dough to make a basic loaf of bread.
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| Lots of concentration here from Karen, Kristy, Margaret Ann, and Nancy. |
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| Kristy can't be serious for long! :) |
By the end of the session, most every surface was covered with cinnamon rolls!
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| This is one proud Margaret Ann. (And she should be!) |
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| Nancy proudly displays her finished product as well! |
The last session took place this morning and in my absence. After rising all night long, the only thing left to do was to put them in the oven and then top with icing. It thrilled me to hear that there were a lot of happy campers this morning.
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| The Montgomery brothers (Mims, Cole, and Penn) happily served as taste testers. |
Out of the mouth of babes: Admittedly, Cole said that "Puckett's is better." Ya gotta love such brutal honesty. For a moment, I was reminded of the movie scene in Michael:
I'm not ready to concede just yet. So, you can bet that I'll be heading to
Puckett's of Leiper's Fork to do some competitive benchmarking analysis! I'm betting that I may discover new factors that I can
experiment with. Hmmmmmm. Maybe I can count this as work. Take one for the team, right? :D
In the mean time, I'm already thinking about things that I'm grateful for during this season. With experiences like this, my list has grown.
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