All for the Love of Cooking?

I am not really a cook. I only pretend to be a cook. I actually prefer baking, or so I thought until this weekend. I have since changed my mind. I am just pretending to be good at baking since most of my recipes are the quick and easy ones. I encountered a normal cinnamon roll recipe thinking to myself, "I am a good baker. I can make these cinnamon rolls." In response, the recipe laughed at me and said, "little does she know what she is in for!!"

My sister-in-law, Marian, made the most wonderful cinnamon rolls on Christmas Day. I asked her for the recipe, and she emailed it to me. I quickly scanned through the recipe, then did a double take at the words scald the milk, and then, add dissolved yeast when the mild is tepid. What!?! I don't speak cookeze, so I had no idea how to scald milk, or even for that matter what tepid meant. Yes, I am a journalist and should know these things, but because I am only a pretend baker, I don't.

Anyway, I decided to jump feet first and go for it on Saturday night. Of course after chores and shopping, I did not start until 9 p.m. No problem, I said because the recipe only indicated 2 hours of prep time. I figured I'd be in bed by 11:30 p.m. at the latest. I got directions from Marian on how to scald milk and what tepid means (it means cooled down - why can't they just say that instead!) and started mixing ingredients. I had a small breakdown when I got to the kneading part. I realized I have never actually kneaded anything! (I have a bread maker, so why in the world would I need to know how to knead?)

I finally stumbled my way through the kneading and let my dough rise. After an hour, the dough was not rising!! Time check: 10:15 p.m. Well, I was running out of awake time, so I heated up the oven a little bit and gave the dough a jump start. Success! By 11 I was rolling out the dough and putting on the yummy parts. I had the rolls into the casserole dish and went back to the recipe to see how long I needed to cook them in my already preheated 350 degree oven. Oops, I missed a part - reread...uh-oh...I had skipped the part where it said, "let the rolls sit and raise for an hour. Aahhh!!! It was 11:15 p.m., and I had to wait another hour before I could even put these stinking rolls into the oven! I was starting to get a bit disgruntled because I was getting tired.

Okay, I mustered up some extra energy and told John the bad news. Finally, 12:15 a.m. rolled around and I got the rolls into the oven. At 12:40 a.m., I enjoyed my yummy, ever so cinnamony rolls - then crashed into bed by 1 a.m. just a few hours before rolling out of bed for early morning church!

I love baking, but I have decided there is a limit to how much I can bake. I will be using my quick and easy recipe from here on out. Anything that requires kneading will not be found in my cookbook. I will simply wait for someone else to do the kneading, and then I'll enjoy their hard work. In return, I'll bake them some yummy chocolate chip cookies (the non-kneading kind anyway).