Wednesday, Oct 7, 2009

Cinnamon Girl

I wanted to start a tradition of cinnamon/orange rolls for October General Conference, so I spent last week looking at different recipes, deciding at the last minute on one from King Arthur Flour. A lot of butter later, I had these to show for my work.

A little more butter, a little more sugar, and I had these babies.

I made a lot so we could buy friends with the valuable currency of baked goods.

We'd hoped to deliver the goods before 11:00 conference started, but we weren't ready in time so we decided to deliver them between sessions. I didn't want them getting hard during the two hour wait, so I put them back in a slightly warm oven with a pan of water to keep them nice and soft. For good measure, I also spritzed them with water from a spray bottle.

Now, about six months ago I bought a four-pack of spray bottles from Costco, identical except for the bottles' color accents. I use them as water bottles for plants and laundry (and sometimes cooking) and for homemade and reconstituted household cleaners. Perhaps you see where this is going.

Once the orange and cinnamon rolls were in the oven, I grabbed the bottle next to the stove to give them one last mist before I let them be. *mist* *mist* *mist mist* Then in one of those slow-motion realizations, the slight smell of lemon verbena tells me something's not right. I wasn't spraying water but Mrs. Meyer's All Purpose Cleaner on the cinnamon rolls that were supposed to make us friends.

I shriek and Elliott rushes in, frantic to know which family member just died. I'm standing there, horrified, but manage to tell him, between sobs and giggles, what I've done.

After spending hours making almost sixty orange and cinnamon rolls, I was determined someone outside of our house was going to enjoy them. Luckily there were enough that weren't in the oven with their ill-fated brothers that we managed to deliver a couple plates of non-cleansed goodies, but if we never manage to have more than 2 friends in Houston, we'll all know why.