Back in the Saddle

Truth be told, it feels really good to get back into blogging. We've passed that 4 months of winter milestone in Minnesota, and we're all getting a little punchy.

A brief chronology of my 6 months of slacking on the blog:

• In September I got sucked back into that mom, tutor, piano teacher, cook, housekeeper gig. BORING.
• In October I morphed into the costume maker, pumpkin carver, tutor, clean-the-damn-house-again mom-monster. I pondered the possibility of blogging about the costume making adventure, but instead I just posted a pic of the finished product on Facebook, poured myself a glass of wine, put my feet up and called it a day. 
• I can't lie, in November I just ate every single savory morsel I could get my hands on. And of course the tutor, music teacher, clean-AGAIN gig didn't go away. 
• In December I ate every single sweet morsel I could lay my hands on. Best. Month. Ever. 
• January is when the crap really flew all over because I discovered my clothes were too tight and I still don't have a real job. So I let my hub talk me into designing a website and launching a Kickstarter campaign for his little brainchild invention. Since I know nothing about videography, marketing and sales, it seemed an opportune moment to humiliate myself. Next time I'll tell him to get lost and just hire someone. 
• In February I was still slaving away on the brainchild, but I did manage to get back on the elliptical machine just enough to squeeze back into my pants.

So now it's March and almost SPRING! Florida here we come. (If they could just quit it with the sinkhole news story because that craziness is freaking me out.) Anyway, I'm devoting March to blogging again because it make ME feel good.

This morning we made the best cinnamon roll cake ever. I think I'll call it Poor-Mama-Needs-a-Pill Cake. Or maybe Cabin-Fever-Monkeys-Can't-Ruin-My-Blissful-Sugar-Coma Cake. Whatever, I'll work on the name. It's tasty like my Grandma's magical cinnamon rolls, but I didn't have to do all that tedious nonsense to make it. You know:  roll it flat, spread it out, top it, roll it up, slice it, put it in the pan, then clean up a huge mess for what feels like an eternity? Instead I plopped the ingredients in the bread maker and that magic machine made the dough. The kids dumped the dough in the pan and did the rest. Barely a mess and tasty perfection in a sugar coated buttery dough!
(It's a yeast dough, so it has to rise for about half an eternity. But it's easy to wait - just put on the new Taylor Swift album and dance around in your bathrobe while you're waiting.)

Mama Needs a Buttery Sugar Bomb Cake

Ingredients
1 cup milk
2 1/4 tsp yeast
1 tsp sugar
2 beaten eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup melted butter (+another 1/3 cup later)
1 tsp salt
4 cups flour (use white flour for heaven's sake - you only live once)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup melted butter

11x17 glass pan
baking spray

350º for 22 minutes

Directions
Get out the bread maker and press buttons until it's ready to make dough. If you don't have a bread maker then use whatever you've got. A stand mixer is awesome. A bowl and spoon will work, I guess.
Heat milk in microwave for 1 minute. whisk in yeast and sugar. Wait about 5 minutes for the yeast to proof. Put eggs, sugar, butter, salt and flour into bread maker. When the yeasty milk is ready, add it to the bread maker and power it up. After about 5 minutes of kneading, the dough is ready, so take out the bread maker pan and pop it in the oven to rise for an hour. Just put a towel over it and lay it on it's side. 


After the dough rises, get the kids to spray the pan, dump in the dough and spread it out with their hands.

Cover the dough with all the sugar and cinnamon, then pour the melted butter over it all.

This part is important, but does require some supervision.
Give the kids butter knives and forks and let them go to town on that cake. They can cut it up, poke holes in it, whatever. Just try to keep most of it in the pan.
Now cover with a towel and let the pan rise in the oven for 45 minutes.

Now it's finally ready to bake. 350º for 22 minutes. The center should be a little gooey when it cools. That's part of the buttery sugarbomb experience. And yeast bread is worth the wait!

Our sugarbomb has a sinkhole!