Roll with it: Cinnamon Rolls in Review

There is a sad moment when you realize that you can’t do something, and I can’t spell. A well proven point seeing as how I have talked about the cinnamon rolls from brunch a million times, and every single time I spell cinnamon, I use an e instead of an a. Thank heavens this doesn’t actually reflect on my cooking and baking. But moving on from there. So about a month ago Deb from SmittenKitchen went to meet Ree from The Pioneer Woman, and I’m pretty sure I called my mom and in an extremely long sentence with no pausing for air said: “Oh my gosh did you see that Deb is on the ranch and she is cooking and made bagels and the most awesomest looking cinnamon rolls ever?” It was at this point my dear mother asked what ranch. And whoa did I give a giant gasp followed by a “What RANCH?? Ummm, The Pioneer Woman ranch.” My message rang loud and clear (maybe not that clear) cause our conversation ended with a “oh that’s where she is…by the way did I tell you…”

Well thank you to what may be the best pairing, that lead to the best brunch food ever. Thus I give you, well…it doesn’t really have a name so we’ll just say it’s a Smitten Cinnamon Roll.

Pretty much it was amazing, and it was the first real adventure for the new camera. But that aside. I had seen the Pioneer Woman’s cinnamon roll recipe and then Smitten Kitchen went and made it even more fattening and called is Ranch Rugelach. With my well known love of all things Jewish, there was nothing holding me back; I take that back, the only thing holding me back was deciding to make the orginal or the jewish version. Adding my indecisiveness to this mix, I decided to make both. No one can ever say I’m not ambitious in my kitchen.

And thus the process began: milk was scalded, a massive bag of flour was almost gone, dough was rolled, I was covered in flour, the dough was covered in goodness (i.e. butter, jam, sugar and pecans).

Then the rolling and cutting process began, this is also when the camera was placed on the opposite side of the kitchen (a good idea if you can see how much flous is on my apron now). So in the first shot…we bring the Ranch Rugelach.

blueberry crumb bars = heaven in a bar

There are days were you are all sunshine and roses. And then there are days when every sentence ends with self-censoring and you have taken so many pills of ibprofen that you wonder if it’s healthy.

I’m just going to let you guess what day today is.

But instead of a lament, let me instead present, the blueberry crumb bar, otherwise known as “the dessert that will totally get me a spouse, maybe,”:

So this may not be the best picture of the beautiful photo of them. It may be because it’s a grainy photo, or because of the flash/lack of flash. or it could just be my horrific point-and-shoot camera. Can we tell I feel disdain for it?

But back to the beauty of these little beauties. So, it was March and I was going out of town. To be completely honest, I was running away from a lot of things: repeated fights with people, my dwindling bank account, the need to move, and my health throwing week long migraines at me. When a friend gave me the opportunity to escape the city for the weekend, you can bet that I did a little cheer, a dance, a squeal and then promptly had a panic attack (never should be said that I am a simple girl). I had just committed myself to go out of town with a coed group, and I really only knew one of the other seven well, and one other moderately well…pretty much, I have just committed to running away for a weekend with a group or almost strangers. Begin, panic attack.

The Thursday before we left, the world of my mother came to me in a dream sequence (actually, that is totally a lie). But I did kind of channel her, cause she always said that if I wanted people to like me I should bake for them, and you bet your socks that’s what I did (you can also bet I went overboard, which I did). On a Thursday night, in between cleaning, showering and a new episode of 30 Rock, I made margarita cookies, hamantaschen and blueberry bars. Those last ones were an impulse cause I had blueberries going bad, and oh what a tasty impulse it was. And friday morning, running on very little sleep, I packed up these gems (and enough goodies to add a second tote bag to my stack of bags) and was on my way to work, and then to the lovliness of Western Maryland. And oh, were they loved.

Needless to say, I became the bane of several waistlines, and one of my favorite comments of the weekend ensued on Saturday when after getting up from a nap I couldn’t find the hamantaschen container. When I finally vocalized this outloud, I’m pretty sure the response came, “the what?” folllowed by, “oh the jam cookies…we took them downstairs when we watched the movie.” Pretty much, they, like there blueberry crumb bar siblings, were enjoyed.

I love the Jews, simple as that

Somehow that title seems even more sacrileg then I intended it to. (We should also note, as I don’t think it has been noted before, that apparently people from the west coast like to chop endings off of words. Ex. obvi, phenom, and my personal favorite…sacrileg). But now on to the topic at hand.

The Jews.

Which leads to my favorite Jewish Holiday…Purim.

Which leads to why it’s my favorite holiday…Hamantaschen.

And you know when it got better, last year when Deb at SmittenKitchen posted a hamantaschen recipe. I near about died and went to heaven. And so this year, I was totally going to accomplish my goal. It was messy, a lot of them fell apart, I took them with me when I went out of town with friends, everyone look baffled by the name, but they were eaten with great gusto. Thus, I was happy.

The recipe (and more Purim love) is after the jump, and after what could be the start of the best Gossip Girl comments ever…all the ones referencing religion. The first…went to the Jewish Seder (making it so appropriate for this post):

Eleanor Waldorf: “I don’t even know how to say half the words in this prayer book named after Joe Lieberman’s wife.”
Dan: She’s Hadassah. This is a Haggadah.

And in case you all don’t know what Purim actually is…