Mother – Daughter Gluten Free Bake Off

My goodness! Has it really been 2 months since I last posted something on my blog?? I’ve been quite busy from driving to Seattle, flying to Costa Rica (having an amazing time), trying to find a job, and putting my life together. In the 2 months I haven’t posted anything, I’ve still been baking and creating things in the kitchen. I just never documented any of it… But this! This was worth documenting…

When my older brother Jameson and I were coming home from Costa Rica, we passed a Cinnabon in the airport. The delicious, sweet smelling, cinnamon aroma was filling our senses. We both inhaled and exhaled with an “Oh my goooodness, that smells amazing!!!” We weren’t going to even stop and get one, because one it’s just processed white flour filled with unhealthy ingredients and two it was filled with gluten. But that smell… That smell almost turned us both around. I just about threw my duffle bag (filled with monkeys and mangos) through the window. I wanted to jump over the counter, and break the glass where those delicious, mouth watering, gooey cinnamon rolls were calling my name. But just as quickly as my imagination took me into another world, I snapped back into reality and quickly caught up to my brother.

When I caught up to him, he turns to me and says “Emma, can you please make me some cinnabon?” I immediately started grinning and said “YES!”  For the rest of our trip home, I visualized a recipe in my head. Visualized all the ingredients, what would work, what wouldn’t. And then I saw the final product. But first I needed to double check my visualized recipe with other recipes.

When we got home, he told my mom he wanted cinnabon and she said she would make him some too. And that is where the competition started… We both were going to make him gluten free cinnamon rolls.

So this morning we woke up and researched our recipes. Our competitive sides were coming out. We both wanted to win. Two different personalities, two competitive women, one gemini (my mother) and one pisces (myself), two skilled bakers. One winner.

We both went to the store, bought our ingredients, ran to the check out, followed by my mom nailing me with the shopping cart and the two of us bursting out laughing. Then headed home to get started. My mom’s cinnamon rolls had to rise 2 hours, so while hers were rising, I made mine. I finished mine within the hour and immediately knew something was going terribly wrong. The consistency of the dough was like a runny batter. So I added more flour and more and more. Then I finally tried to roll it out, dumped the cinnamon sugar mix on, cut, and put in my pan. While they were cooking I realized I added too much flour, which caused the dough to be crumbly (why my cinnamon rolls are still in the pan while my moms are nicely put on a plate). I was pretty disappointed, because I was really looking forward to having them be nice and fluffy like an actual cinnamon roll. They are more like a crumble cinnamon cake. Equally delicious, but not quite what I was going for.

Now my moms dough was looking quite nice. It stayed together, the consistency looked right and everything seemed good. She seemed to notice she had a little too much flour in her dough too, but it held together beautifully. I have to say I was impressed. I wanted to casually knock my dish off the counter and gobble hers up.

We had all our taste testers come over to judge the cinnamon rolls. Everyone agreed they both tasted wonderful, but my mothers cinnamon rolls had the best consistency by far. Yes, they really did. Didn’t I say I wanted to casually knock my dish of cinnamon rolls off the counter? I meant it. I didn’t like how they turned out. So what do you do? Knock them off the counter and accidentally spill a glass of water over the whole thing. “oh no! How did that happen? Oh my… that is such a bummer. Too bad no one can try them now…”

The end result, my mom is a winner and a wonderful baker! It was a pretty fun day competing with her. Who doesn’t like a little healthy competition? It’s oh so fun and exhilarating.

Have a good night and I promise I won’t disappear for 2 months.

A girl who loves being challenged,

Emma