Smoke Alarm Cinnamon Rolls

So today was a really cold day. Rainy, gray, dreary. Perfect chili weather. I left a crock pot of chili on this morning, and when we came home the house smelled sooo good.
I don't know about you, but my mom always made cinnamon rolls with our chili. I pretty much can't eat chili without them. So I decided to make homemade cinnamon rolls and try a new recipe. But see, my mother was a much wiser woman that I. She chose Pillsbury.

My fancy smanzy cinnamon rolls were pretty much a disaster. I didn't put enough flour in the dough, so it was way too sticky and soft. Then, I set them on top of the oven to raise with the oven on. By the time I went back to get them, the part of the dough touching the pan had cooked. Yes.

Anyway, I pressed on and rolled them out, pouring the butter and brown sugar and cinnamon on top. When I tried to roll them up the dough was too soft to really hold together, so it just sort of loosely hung together. Then I cut them into rolls and it got realllllly loose...but I just squished them back together, stuck them on a cookie sheet (no edges, of course) and set them to raise again.


After they had "doubled in size", they looked like "The Blob" on steroids. And those two sticks of butter I had spread over that unsubstantial dough were starting to leak out. This alone should have set off some flag in my head. But, apparently I don't believe in giving up on a recipe, even though it shows no signs of success. Waste not want not!


So, I put them in the oven and then go off happily washing dishes and watching a tv show on my computer. Twenty minutes later, I go to pull them out of the oven and lo and behold, I'm greeted by a billow of smoke. Trust me, we're not talking wisp, nor curl, nor even plume...billow. The misshapen cinnamon rolls have morphed into a Papa Blob, and all that oozing butter slipped right off the cookie sheet and onto my freshly (as in last night. not even twenty-four hours.) cleaned oven. Sigh. Out comes the baking soda.


But guess what, that didn't work. The butter was still bubbling and burning and pouring smoke out of the oven vent. By this time there is a definite gray cloud in the kitchen, dining room, and laundry room. So, I resort to salt. It only costs fifty cents a carton, I can afford to pile it on.

Right about this time the smoke alarm starts blaring, waking the puppy from his nice little nap. After the smoke seems to calm down some, I put another cookie sheet on the bottom rack and finish baking the rest of the doomed rolls. By this time, as you can imagine, the smoke inhalation is starting to get to me. Even in my oxygen depleted, dim state of mind, I know I need to open some windows. Of course, it's forty degrees outside. So I turn on all our fans, open both the front and back doors, and go back to my show.

Pretty soon, I realize the puppy is no longer under the table. He's moved to the back porch, out that open door that is helping pump life back into my kitchen. He's sitting about two feet away from the door, just looking at me.


Apparently, this foreign smell is reallly freaking him out. I coaxed him in for a minute, but as soon as I let him go, he was back out the door like a shot. I finally had to go drag him back inside and let him sit on my lap for several minutes. Poor guy was shaking. I even bribed him with a treat; trust me, this guy does not take treats lightly. He was all for the treat until I left him in the kitchen with it. Then he came into the dining room with me and LEFT HIS TREAT IN THE KITCHEN. That's when you know it's serious.

I finally got all the smoke siphoned out the screens and have my kitchen back. Well, mostly anyway. I still have a headache, traumatized dog, and salty oven to deal with. But, on the upside, those blobby, smokey, buttery cinnamon rolls were stinking amazing. Not even kidding. I didn't even add the cream cheese frosting (and trust me, I don't take cream cheese lightly) because they were so good the way they were.
Just goes to show, you can't judge a cinnamon bun by it's appearance... : )