My Cinnamon Bun Fiasco

The day was gorgeous as I drove home. I had had an amazing time with two really amazing girl friends, the sun was shining and I was super excited for the potluck I was going to attend in the evening. Better yet I just knew I would impress everyone with the greatest cinnamon buns in the universe. My mom's recipe could not be beat; the ooey, gooey mouth-wateringly delicious delight that they are was simply a pleasure. I eagerly wanted to observe my friends enjoy that treat. Little did I know how a simple Saturday baking time could go so terribly, terribly wrong. 

You see, I had only ever made them twice myself. Both times the masters of cinnamon bun creating were within yelling distance. Generally, I pick up on baking pretty fast, but there is an art to cinnamon buns. You have to just know how much of each ingredient to use.  The first time my spiral creations were drowning (I had added too much butter) the second they were fine, a bit too dry. I was confident that this day would be better... after all, practice makes perfect, right? 

I found out that I would be alone in the endeavor of baking. No problem, I can do this... this will be epic. Then I saw we had two bread machines to make the dough. Okaayy... um... hmm... do I use this one? But I've only ever used that old one.. This one looks newer, I'll go for this one. After a bit of time bringing the machine up the stairs, trying to find the little pieces that needed to go inside, getting the ingredients inside it then realizing that it smelled like burning when plugged in, I resorted to using the other machine. Ahh, time was running out. I rushed about getting everything in the new one (which was consequently the old one), turned on the settings in a flash and heard the machine start. A feeling of triumph and satisfaction swelled within me at how well I was doing on my own, despite my few difficulties. 

I went to my room where my younger brother was watching "The Big Bang Theory" on my computer. I joined him. We laughed. 

Then the unthinkable happened. 

I hear my older brother yell, "Hey Linds, I hope you know that you're dough is baking!"


"What?!" I Jumped off my bed and ran, "That's impossible!" I said, hoping that this was some elaborate prank.

But no. There was no prank. The machine hadn't even bothered mixing. Instead of the "dough" setting, it was on "BAKE". A dark brown line of heated mush was on the machine and I could see there was no way to salvage that batch. 

What to do??

I remembered my mom saying that making them in the kitchen Aid was faster. I rushed against the clock to try and get it in. Milk, shortening, salt, flour, yeast, sugar... It was all in there. It did not take long to realize that it looked kind of funky. I took it out. It looked like dough... but it didn't feel right. 

I rolled it out, put on the butter, the brown sugar and the cinnamon. Even when cut up and put into the container to rise, they looked like weak, sad little spiral buns. Dangnabbit. I covered them and let them sit, hoping that time would let the rise to become real cinnamon buns. 

In the end, to my surprise, my friends really liked them. They weren't nearly up to the ooey-gooey yummy standard that cinnamon buns should be, but I was satisfied of the response.


Lesson learned: only feed friends who are either really polite or don't know what good cinnamon buns taste like.