There are many aspects of cooking that I enjoy. Baking this cinnamon skillet bread from Bakeaholic Mama encompassed three of those joys.
Aromas! This is powerful. Smells can transport a person to a different time and place. They often are linked to memories. Kitchen aromas almost always elude to happy memories or memories of comfort. One of my favorite kitchen aromas are my mother’s Sunday pot roast. I can open the door to my parent’s house, and if my mother has a pot roast cooking, I am immediately 8 years old again, coming home from Sunday school. So this cinnamon skillet bread took me down memory lane, straight to my Grandmother’s homemade cinnamon rolls which I am positive I will never come close to duplicating. Grandmother’s recipe, like many family recipes, includes “a little of this” and “a little of that” followed by “until it looks about right”. How long do you cook it? “Oh, I don’t know, ’til it’s done”.
How about that cast iron skillet? Who is a fan? This should be every cooks favorite skillet, especially if you are from the south. Why? It is the only pan I was specifically told not to wash, or “wursh”. In case anyone is unfamiliar with this term, “wurshing” is what ruins a cast iron skillet by removing all of the seasoning it took the owner of said skillet 20 years to accomplish. Eight years ago, as with any Southern bride, I was equipped with a set of cast iron skillets for my wedding. I thought I had taken great care to season my skillet but have been chastised on different occasion by not following the proper cast iron protocol. In reality, everyone in my family has a different routine for their cast iron skillet.
My relatively new passion is bread. I love baking homemade bread. I love trying different kind of breads. The methodical care put into baking homemade bread makes it special. Those who bake bread from scratch are really putting their heart into it. I have had a lot of hits and misses with my bread making. This is what I learned. You know. Right from the very beginning you know, you can tell whether you have hit the mark with your dough. I think to successfully bake bread from scratch you have to have felt a perfect bread dough. It only comes with practice and experience. A good bread maker must know whether you have too much flour or too little. They must know what to do to correct any miscalculation. It just happens that the stars aligned just right, and I nailed it on this recipe. I looked upon that dough ball with a sense of accomplishment and watch with pride as I let it rise all afternoon.
These are a few of my favorite things. As far as the recipe goes, it was definitely very tasty. I didn’t make any changes to the Bakeaholic Mama recipe. I did make some errors. I melted my butter when making the cinnamon paste instead of using room temperature butter. Therefore, it was difficult rolling the dough. Bakeaholic Mama posts a great short video on how the dough is rolled and braided. I butchered the strawberry, rhubarb jam. I am not sure what I did wrong. My four year old had no issues eating it by the spoonful.
This kitchen experience was a blessing for my senses. It was a comfort and joy to stroll down memory lane. Please post and share any favorite cooking experiences or kitchen memories.
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