Hello! I can only apologize for the month of no updates – unprecedented around here, followed by my writing a lengthy post that I then subsequently deleted and spent far too long trying to recover – another first, in nearly four (!) years of tMatM-ing.
Add on an extra apology for using the word ‘unprecedented’, which does these days also come with a familiar wave of nausea.
However, I am confident I can make it up to you with a quick recap of events around here (big Changes to the Plan), along with an exceptionally simple and delicious cinnamon roll recipe, so that you can spend this weekend casually eating fresh homebaked cinnamon rolls that are light-but-squidgy soft-but-chewy and sweet-not-sickly.
What I’m saying is: these cinnamon rolls are delicious (and despite typing the word cinnamon too many times to count, my phone is still having to autocorrect the number of ’n’ and ‘m’s that I’m typing.
Cinnamon rolls first; life changes second – lets get our priorities in order.
Remember the smug and lazy pizza dough that you should all be making on the reg?
What if I told you that you can make a batch of the pizza dough and eat half of it, in pizza form, on the sofa at 10.30pm in an exhausted semi-stupor with your husband, and then – then! – wake up the next morning and use the remaining half to make perfect cinnamon rolls? Yes you can! Yes you must!
Ingredients
Pizza dough (half a batch)
Butter, softened – c. 3tbsp
1/3cup Caster (UK)/granulated (CA) sugar and 2tsp cinnamon, combined.
Icing sugar (or frosting of choice, if you are for example a cream-cheese-kind-of-frosting person)
Method
Eat half of your pizza dough, in pizza form, while watching Six Feet Under in homage to your twenties. Stumble to bed.
Wake to an uncomfortable 5-6am start, five small children, and the realization that you are no longer in your mid twenties hopping into London taxis and dating the hot Canadian guy from your office.
Also; the realization that you have dough waiting for you in the fridge.
Preheat oven to 375F/190C. Remove the dough, and roll into a rectangle – ish between two sheets of parchment paper for minimum clean up and maximum lazy. Spread softened butter and top evenly, liberally, with cinnamon / sugar mix.
Roll into a tight sushi-style roll / log. There is no attractive way to photograph this stage. Slice into inch-ish sections, depending on how thick you want your cinnamon rolls.
Place, swirl-side up, on a baking tray. Let dough rest for 20 minutes. Brush with milk.
Bake at 375F/190C for around 20minutes, until fully cooked and lightly golden.
Remove from oven and let cool on rack, while your house smells unimaginably inviting.
Drizzle icing over the top. Smug and lazy cinnamon success!
What else has been going on here for the past month, other than now ubiquitous global deterioration?
We are firmly into summer holidays with mountain bike camps and sailing and horse riding (Mim! Not sure where this came from – but she has been asking to learn to ride a horse for a long time, in the life of a six year old, long enough that we finally relented).
Also, you may have noticed that we are not in California, despite our big plans for adventure. We were half packed into moving containers, the children had said their goodbyes, and we were due to drive down on the actual day that the US/Canada border was closed, in a fairly poetic – or ironic – turn of events. After a bit of soul searching and a lot of frantic news refreshing, our move was delayed, delayed some more, delayed indefinitely, and then finally – we cancelled the plan.
There’s not really a pithy way to describe this for a blogpost, to make it sound more jovial than it was, but inevitably these kind of curveballs just happen, it was a big shift of expectations, and has taken the children a little while to regroup. We’ll stay on Vancouver Island for the foreseeable, so at least my blog byline can remain the same! Bit pithy after all.
That’s our big news; but what about you? How are things for you? About to get better with some freshly baked cinnamon rolls, for a start.
More soon! With some super easy sensory tray toddler entertainment on the way.
xxtMatM