Single Serving Cinnamon Roll

Hey everyone!  So, for some reason I've recently been craving a cinnamon roll, but unfortunately I'm (A.) too lazy to make a whole batch, (B.) too impatient to spend so much time making a whole batch, and (C.) not really wanting to make a whole batch, because it uses so many ingredients.  Or, I should say, a lot of what ingredients it uses.  That didn't really make sense.  That's okay.  ANYWAY.  I was scouring the internet for a recipe that was (A.) fast, (B.) small, and (C.) delicious! The first qualification was easy to find, but unfortunately called for using yeast.  Let me tell you, for a single serve cinnamon roll, you don't need yeast.

The second qualification was harder to find, and the third even harder because it is difficult to taste a recipe from your web browser.  In fact, impossible.  You can only imagine what it would taste like.  Now I'm picturing someone licking their computer monitor, which is a rather disturbing image and therefore I had to share it with you!  You're welcome :)

Yes, I did just Google search that.  :)

Anyway, I found this recipe here that is a single serve, and supposedly delicious, fast, easy-to-make cinnamon roll.  I scrolled through the pictures and the ingredients, and decided that I would have to modify this recipe to make it to my tastes.  No offense to the creator of that yummy looking cinnamon roll, but the dough looked kinda crumbly when she was making it.  Not only that, but I didn't have dates readily available, and I wasn't about to peel a banana just to use two tablespoons of it.  

So, after that long winded explanation, here's the recipe that I created, using that one as a base.

Time: 30-40 minutes at the most.

Servings: 1-2 (sharing is caring!)

Ingredients for the dough: 

1/3 cup + 1 tbs flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp salt, scant

1 tbs butter, melted

1 tbs white sugar

1 1/2 tbs milk

Ingredients for the filling:

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp white sugar

1/2 tsp brown sugar

1/2 tbs butter, melted

1 pinch of salt

Directions for dough:

1. Mix together all dry ingredients in a small bowl (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar).  
2. Melt the butter in a small dish in the microwave, and pour it into the dry ingredients.
3. Add the milk, and mix all of the ingredients together until you get a soft dough.  If you get little clumps of dough, try adding a tad bit more milk, but not too much.  You only want all the ingredients together in a dough clump, not in a soup.  If you have added too much milk, or it just seems too soupy, add some more flour.  
4. (This is the best part.) Squish the dough with your hands until it is all gathered into one ball, and the mixture seems even.  Set it aside.

Directions for filling:

1. In another small bowl, mix together the cinnamon, white sugar, brown sugar, and pinch of salt.  
2. Melt the butter in a small dish in the microwave, but DO NOT add it to the sugar mixture. 
3. Now we get to add it to the dough!  Take a small cutting board, or even your counter, and sprinkle a little flour on it.
4. Take your dough ball and roll it out into a log shape, then squish it out into a long flat rectangular shape.  Don't make it too wide, or you will have to do what I did and cut it in half.  That is why my picture seems like it has two cinnamon rolls instead of one.  The longer your strip of dough is, the thicker diameter roll you will get, so its better to make it long than wide.  
5. Take your melted butter and drizzle it onto your dough strip.  Using a spoon, smear the butter evenly across the whole strip.
6. Next, take your sugar filling mix and sprinkle it onto the length of the strip.  Again using a spoon, spread it into the butter so that it evenly coats the dough.  
7. Using your fingers, begin to roll the dough lengthwise until it is one little bundle. 
8. Grab a mug and stick it inside.  If you made the roll to wide, it will likely stick out of the mug, or fall over.  If this is the case, cut the roll in half and stick both little bundles into the mug.  
9. Microwave it for 1 to 1:30 minutes.  If might look pretty soft on the top, but keep in mind that the bottom will cook faster, and the longer you cook it, the crunchier the bottom of the roll will be.  This recipe also has no eggs in it, so you could even eat it without microwaving it at all.  

Voila!  You have a cinnamon roll, ready to eat!  Unless of course you want to add some frosting to the top, which is highly recommended! ;)

Frosting ingredients:

2 tbs of butter

2 tbs of cream cheese

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/4 tsp of vanilla extract

Directions for frosting:

1. Put both the butter and the cream cheese into a small dish or mug, and microwave it until the butter is completely melted. This will make both ingredients much easier to whip into a frosting!
2. In a small bowl, add the powdered sugar and the vanilla, then add your butter and cream cheese mixture.  Using a spoon or a whisk, mix all the ingredients together until smooth.  If it seems a little bit watery, that's okay.
3. *OPTIONAL* Chill the frosting until a thicker consistency is achieved.  You can even put it in a little baggie and stick it in the freezer.  It will not freeze into a frosting ice cube.  This is due to the alcohol in the vanilla extract.  It will make it into a nice thick consistency, but it will not be frozen.  
4. Pour the frosting over your cinnamon roll, or put it in a dish for dipping.  

TADAAA!! Your easy, single serve cinnamon roll is ready to eat!

Introducing "Professionally Tacky"

Hey everyone!  So my recently graduated friend has a brother. Well, two actually.  But the older one started a band called Professionally Tacky.  They even have a website!  She had told me about them, and actually mentioned their music was pretty good.  So the other day I got bored, and found them on YouTube!  I like their style of music, and I wanted to share it.  They're both funny and musically talented, a great combination for performers.  I sincerely hope they put more music on the internet.  I want to hear more! Anyway, the brother's name is Jadon Lindburg.  Forgot to mention that.  Anyway, enjoy!

And although the video quality of the next video is not that great, here it is anyway! :)

Driving

Some of you who know me, know that I just love driving.  I don't know what it is about it that I love so much.  Its probably a combination of freedom, and 'rite-of-passage', and 'being an adult' (though I'll never be adultish), and the ability to get myself places when I actually want to.  This means NOT BEING LATE!! Well, at least not being MADE late by other people being late.  At least now I can choose to be late.  Its up to me.  Anyway, I really love it.  But there is something about being a passenger that I really miss.  When you're driving, you're in control for the most part, and you can do things and go places.  But when you're the passenger you can think, you can relax, you can stare out the window, you can watch the clouds roll in, you can daydream, you can philosophize, the possibilities are endless.  Oh, and you can also eat without making a huge mess, because you can look at what you're doing instead of just stuffing your face blindly.  I wish that I could both drive and stare at the clouds, observe the weather, and eat.  Doesn't safely work that way though.  I did realize something about this the other day though.  You know how adults are always commenting that the younger you are, the more creativity and imagination you have?  I believe that is indeed true.  Not because of age, but really more because of life.

That was very vague.  Let me elaborate.  When you're young, you have limitless time, you can do fun things, and you have the freedom and naivety to be carefree.  But as we grow older, we are thrown into the Pit of Responsibilites, Deadlines, Schedules, Work, Coffee, and Stress.  We go about our lives like robots.  

"Wake up, work, sleep, repeat." 

So now it begs the question, who is more free?  The youngster skipping through the grass day by day who is forced to go to bed at a certain time, has to follow rules, and has to be ferried around everywhere, or the average adult who can drive, can earn money, can be 'independent,' but must follow the monotonous rhythm of life? 

My Archenemy, Salad.

Okay, I know salads are great and stuff.  I love salad.  With some meat, and some cheese on it, mmmm.... I'm getting hungry just imagining it.  But I'm pretty sure salads were invented by rabbits, who didn't have to use forks in order to be accepted by society for having manners.  Sure, forks are very 'civilized.'  But I'd honestly much rather eat neatly and quickly with my fingers.  That might sound gross, but let me give you some reasons why.

1.  Croutons.
I'm sure you've all run into this problem before.  You're eating a delicious salad with one of those wicked inventions we call a fork, when you stumble upon a tasty bit of stale bread which civilization calls a crouton.  You viciously stab the crouton with your 'fork' and it disintegrates into a billion smaller pieces of stale bread. Now your crouton is ruined, and you can never successfully eat it unless you forget your manners and lick the bowl.  I know, I know, first world problems.

2.  The Lettuce. 

This part especially irritates me.  Lets use our earlier example, just for the sake of not making too many salads ;)  So you're already in tears because you just destroyed your crouton mercilessly with that weapon of mass destruction called a fork.  Now you have to chase your lettuce around in the bottom of the bowl because it doesn't have a big crunchy, juicy stem like the other lettuce you already ate.  At this point, I usually just forksake (ha. ha. PUN INTENDED!) the fork and resort to using the tools God gave me. MY PHILANGES!!! (Speaking of using the tools God gave me, I've never understood why my parents were like "DON'T OPEN THAT WITH YOUR TEETH!! GOD GAVE YOU TOOLS, USE THEM!" and I'm thinking, yeah, God gave me tools called teeth... I am using them...)  This guy here is doin' it right.  By the way, not my photo, nobody arrest me or sue me or anything. :)

Aaaand this picture also leads me to my third point.  

3.  Those big honking pieces of lettuce. 

See that guy? Eating that giant piece of lettuce?  It looks like a lettuce pizza its so big.  Most romaine lettuce is like that.  And when you get a big unwieldy piece of lettuce, you can't just stuff it in your mouth, it looks like one of those heartburn commercials where your 'food is fighting back.'  But this guy is doing it right, and taking it one bite at a time by using his fingers!!!  

Anyway.  Public Service Announcement.  Well, and my personal opinion.  (We'll call this a BSA, and no that's not an abbreviation for some form of swearing, it stands for Biased Service Announcement.)  Eating salad with your fingers is easier! :D