Sweet, Sugary Goodness

So much for a new direction, after one day of cooking vegetables I went back to my old ways...baking.   This, however, was not an ordinary baking day.  So I made muffins, big deal, although it was my first time making them from scratch, I have made some form of muffin before.  Then I baked coffee cake, which again I did make the batter from scratch, but I have baked cakes so I guess it really was not a stretch.  Today I was going to take on something that I would have never attempted if I had not started this cooking project.  I did something so epic that it made my day and changed my whole outlook on the possibility that I could open a bakery.  Today...I...baked...sweet dough bread.  Okay maybe its not that epic of a feat, but for someone who doesn't really bake or cook this was huge.

I had to start early today because guess what, I had to go into WORK!! Wohoo I am finally a contributing member of society.  I got up this morning without a clue as to what I was going to make.  I had decided that I must have all of the ingredients in the house for whatever dish I picked.  I am extremely lazy and I did not want to have to make a trip to Walmart only to be annoyed that they don't have anything in their store.  I also didn't want to have to go to Giant Eagle because I swear only old people are there in the morning and dear god I cannot stand them.  They push their carts around so slow and it takes them 1000 years to check out.  For some reason even though I probably do not have anywhere urgent to be on the days I go to the grocery store, I cannot stand being stuck behind old people that take forever.  In addition to cooking maybe I will work on patience.

Anyways back to baking, going through the cookbook I realized we do not have an entire chicken hanging out in my freezer nor do we have zucchini and radishes; again I was left with the bread/pasta/rice section.  Everyday I have had it in my mind that I was going to bake bread.  Each day I would go over bread recipes and then chicken out because I thought I knead incorrectly or maybe I would add too much yeast and the bread would rise and take over my kitchen.  Today came, I saw the bread recipe, and thought today is the day I end all nightmares; I will make bread and it will taste awesome.  The bread I chose to make was sweet dough bread.  With this dough I could choose to make a loaf of bread or I could make a myriad of other desserts.  Getting started I needed yeast, warm water, sugar, flour, salt and milk.  I dissolved the yeast in warm water and then added the rest of the ingredients, not too hard.   After this came the part that scared me the most, putting flour on the counter and kneading the dough.  After kneading for a while the dough didn't really feel "elastic" like it was supposed to so I figured I should look in the cookbook to learn how to knead dough.  Kneading ending up being pretty easy; I put the dough in a greased bowl and stored it in a warm place for about an hour and a half.

After waiting forever, I was actually pretty nervous to check on the dough.  I figured it either didn't rise or that it rose so big that it would be spilling over the side of the bowl into the oven.  Good news it was perfect.  I then had to punch the dough down and figure out what I was going to do with  it.  I had decided to make cinnamon rolls.   Really simple; roll out the dough. spread butter, cover with cinnamon and sugar.  Then roll the dough and cut into 9 pieces which turned into 12 for me because apparently I don't know how to count.  I then had to wait another 40 minutes for the rolls to settle/rise I'm not sure, but after that they only baked for 25 minutes.  They were perfect golden brown when I took them out of the oven.  To top it off I made a homemade glaze out of powdered sugar, milk and vanilla extract.

Taste testing obviously came next.  The dough was perfect.  I had made bread all by myself.  It was definitely my biggest victory yet in the kitchen.  The cinnamon rolls tasted great, they had the perfect amount of sweetness.  I am so happy with the outcome and now I cannot wait to make an actual loaf of bread.  I will no longer have the fear of dough seeping out of the oven coming to overtake me in its fluffy awfulness.  I really do not know how to top this tomorrow.  I might have to suck it up and go to the nursing home that is the grocery store to get more ingredients.

Picture of sweet, sugary goodness....