"House-cleaning", bachelor-style

The last while I think that I've been a bit burnt out the last while, so work last evening devolved into a little housecleaning. I've started going through quite a bit of yeast since I started baking my own bread, but I had a couple of packets of instant yeast (and basically all my bread baking is done with regular yeast). Add to that a package of icing sugar that I'd never opened, and the remains of a bag of brown sugar. In short, I was indeed cleaning out my cupboards, but with the hope of more delicious results than such chores involve.

I may no longer be a subscriber to the Food Network, but that doesn't mean that I can't read their blog - more specifically this week's cooking challenge: cinnamon buns.

Above is the dough post-rise. It's been a while since I've made a dough recipe that required any kneading, but this dough seemed more awkward to knead than any I'd previously done - perhaps that's because I've flipped to the no-knead approach to bread-making (the healthier sequel to that book also recently arrived in my mailbox). I think that if I do this again I'll have to first look for a no-knead variety - I'd been debating tossing out the dough, but decided post-rise that it seemed reasonable enough.

The beer in the background of the first shot, wasn't an attempt to drink enough to have something useable as a rolling pin - I do in fact own one. I've been meaning to go the pie-making route - hence why I bought it - but I haven't gotten to that yet.

Above are the slightly sketchy looking cinnamon rolls prior to rise #2. I used the largest baking pan that I had 11"x11", but that still seemed a bit tight.

It's also a tight fit in my excuse-for-an-oven (which makes a convenient excuse if things go wrong). I did decrease the baking time, as some of the commentators on the Food Network post suggested, to around 20 minutes (with convection fan on).

Above is the final result with which the folks at church got tortured with this morning; I've been trying to outsource my junk-food-eating. (Per the commentators, the vanilla in the glaze was decreased to 1 tsp from 1 tbsp).