Seriously Cinnamony for the very first time

As many years as I have been baking (and we’re talking in the 30s here), it’s really quite amazing that I had never, until last weekend, made cinnamon rolls.

I have friends who don’t consider themselves bakers who have made countless batches of the delightful treats. I think my friend Bryce might know his grandmother’s recipe by heart. I saw him make them once and I don’t remember seeing a recipe.

I remember when my mom made cinnamon rolls, it was an overnight process. She made an enormous amount of dough, letting it rise a couple of times, then she’d roll and cut and then refrigerate them overnight, then take them out in the morning, let them rise again and then bake.

If I remember correctly, she would put a mixture of Karo syrup, butter and nuts in the pan, too. (A conversation with my friend Marty last weekend jogged that memory loose.) Which would technically make then sticky buns, not cinnamon rolls.

What’s the difference?

Well, both cinnamon rolls and sticky buns start with a rich bread dough rolled with butter and cinnamon sugar, but the similarities end there.

Cinnamon rolls are baked in a fairly naked pan (with a little butter, Crisco or cooking spray), allowed to cool most of the way and then drizzled or spread with some sort of vanilla frosting. Some use cream cheese to give it richness and a little tang. Some go with a simple milk and powdered sugar glaze.

Cinnamon rolls will sometimes contain raisins.

Not in my house.

I’m not against raisins in baked goods. I love a nice, chewy oatmeal raisin cookie (unlike a good portion of my friends). I will not turn away an offered cinnamon roll if it has raisins in it. However, if I have the choice, I will go sans raisins.

Cinnamon rolls might have some nuts going on. Usually walnuts, because walnuts go well with raisins. Not many of the rolls I’ve eaten in my lifetime have walnuts in them because, as I mentioned, I prefer my rolls without raisins.

Sticky buns? That is a horse of a different color altogether.

Sticky buns are baked in a pan of which the bottom has been prepared with a mixture that has many variations, but most often includes cinnamon, dark Karo, some butter and some pecans.

Here’s the thing. The pecans are important. They define and set apart the sticky bun from it’s white-coated cousin. There are probably buns that have walnuts or hazelnuts or macadamia nuts (oooh….that sounds good!).

But to me, pecans are the definitive nut for a sticky bun.

So you make this concoction of sugar, syrup, butter and cinnamon, you pour it into the baking pan, sprinkle that with nuts and then you lay the prepared rolls on top of this elixir and you bake it all together.

Not only do you have to goo at the bottom of the pan, but then you also have the butter and cinnamon sugar from the inside oozing out a bit.

When you bake these, it’s crucial to turn them out of the pan almost right after they’re removed from the oven. If you let them cool in the pan, you might as well say goodbye to the rolls and the pan. You’re never going to get the rolls out of the pan.

The hardest part is waiting for them to be cool enough to eat without burning several layers of tissue off the roof of your mouth.

Of course, last weekend, I made cinnamon rolls. They turned out pretty good. The recipe I found on epicurious.com was simple, yet tasty.

But apparently what I was craving was sticky buns. So I gonna have to bake again. Soon.

Thanks for stopping by, y’all. Eat something fabulous this weekend!