spring break relaxin' - day 2

Today was day two of my Spring Break. Again I enjoyed another morning of not being awaken by a screeching alarm. I did have to get up by 7:45 am so I could get ready for my dentist appointment. Luckily it was just a 6-month check up and not drilling. I was in and out of there in about 30 minutes.

I had a few minutes to kill before I headed over for my bread making lesson so I swung by the local Methodist church's Bargain Box. I hadn't been in a while and hoped to find something great, but I didn't. Oh well! Off to bread making I go!

I went over to my coworker Becky's house for my lesson. Her sister Sammie is in town from Houston, TX. Sammie is the yeast roll/cinnamon roll queen and I was hoping to glean some bread making wisdom from her...and some freshly baked rolls :) My other coworker, Carla, joined the bunch.

Bread making is quite a process - more than I originally thought. You have to "proof" the yeast and then add the rest of the ingredients. Then you mix that together and then turn it out onto the counter to knead the dough. Then you have to let it rise for an hour and a half. Now comes the fun part...making the rolls. Here is a picture of me, Carla, and Sammie forming the rolls.

Voila! Here is our finished pan of rolls. Now they have to rise again for another hour before they can be baked.

We saved half of the yeast roll dough to make cinnamon rolls. We mixed in some cinnamon, sugar, and butter chunks and kneaded it into the dough. We then took golf ball-sized pieces of dough and pulled it into a 4-5 inch log and rolled in melted butter, cinnamon, and sugar. Here is Carla and I getting our hands dirty in the tasty mixture.

Here is our finished pan of cinnamon rolls. Again, they had to rise an hour before they could be baked (and devoured). That hour was torture...the smell of melted butter and cinnamon sugar was filling the air and driving us nuts! And yes, I thought about licking my fingers when I was done rolling the dough. I didn't though, Sammie said that would be gross.

So after the hour of rising and then 20 minutes baking time, I got to savor the sweet taste of success!


I ate 3 yeast rolls and 2 cinnamon rolls! What can I say, they were good! I had a great time with Becky, Sammie, and Carla. It was fun to spend time with my coworkers outside of work. Thanks to Becky for opening up her home to us and thanks to Sammie for sharing her bread making wisdom :)

Another blog entry...two days in a row!? I'm on a roll! Wow, free time is a glorious thing. Can you tell I'm really glad to not have to go to work this week?