barb

this is barb. isn't she beautiful? you know her from several recipes in this collection. homecoming queen at the university of minnesota, mother of 5, petite matriarch, kitchen goddess. she was a surrogate grandmother to me.

i'm sure i didn't then appreciate, but cannot now forget how her kitchen never closed. i was the teenager who stumbled up the stairs at 10:30 for breakfast, and barb would materialize asking,
"Do you want orange juice or half a grapefruit?"
awesome, an opportunity to get out of eating real fruit! "orange juice, please."
"And pancakes or cinnamon rolls?"
"both, please."
and then she'd pour batter in the skillet, dropping blueberries onto the sizzling cakes, and i'd help myself to rolls still warming in the oven.

i've tried so many times to recreate those rolls. they are a commitment, especially at high altitude with the extra time it takes to let them rise twice. i always begin baking a few days ahead of (thanksgiving / christmas / brunch) because more often than not, the first batch does not turn out. i mean, sure, we eat them, but they're not company-worthy. it's hard to go wrong taste-wise, but for me, it's impossible to get the chemistry right. the rolls were not made my barb (or my mom, who's gotten it down. go mom!!)

sigh.

but i'll keep trying. once, several years ago, i DID actually get 'em right. but wouldn't you know it, when i reheated them for our thanksgiving meal, i dried them out by not keeping them in a closed tinfoil wrap in the oven. &*%! before that, though, i did capture the goodness:

reposting 2008 entry:

wee hoo! despite all (*unintentional*) efforts to the contrary, i didn't ruin my barb's butterhorns this time!

do you all know some of those great cooks? (trick question, some of you are those great cooks.) the ones who, when you ask for a recipe, answer,

"Well, I just throw in some x, y, and z. Bake it for about x minutes, or until it's done. But don't overstir it. And season to taste."

All these nebulous terms that make me, the nervous cook, even nervouser. Thankfully, I have a note-taker mom who will make notes on her cooking, if I ask, and will answer all my frantic, mid-recipe questions: "I know I asked last time, but could you remind me again..."

So, only to notes and several mid-recipe phone calls, do I attribute the success of this batch of butterhorns.

If anyone's interested, I can post the recipe, but for now I'll just add to the photo content. Next time, I'll make the cinnamon rolls version, even better! Bring on the baking, baby!

* Oh, yes, those unintentional efforts to ruin the rolls. I don't recommend these techniques.
1. Allocate not enough time to get it all done.
2. Drop first pan, while lifting it closer to the cooling rack. Let rolls all smash together.
3. Burn hand on oven pulling out second pan from oven. Drop pan, causing rolls to slide around on pan.

Thankfully, there were no rolls injured in this attempt. Only the one I had to sample. And the other one I had to sample to make sure the first one wasn't a fluke.