If you bake it, they will come

It started with a desire to make 

Ree's Pioneer Woman Cinnamon rolls.  

I will admit it, I took one look at this recipe and I couldn't resist creating an opportunity to make them.  This dream was met with my friend Laura's passion to do some networking within the Western Massachusetts blog community.  What better way to marry these two great tasks?  Invite some creative and inspiring women to spend an afternoon chatting and baking.  The end result?  A wealth of really good (buttery goodness, good) cinnamon rolls and some wonderful conversation with some pretty incredible women.

The Pioneer Woman perspective is nicer and neater and doesn't forget to put the yeast in the dough during the first hour when things are supposed to be rising.  Luckily we had a bread guru (I aspire to be a bread guru), Nikki who saved it with her knowledge of the fine tuned needs of yeast.

Our dough.  Pre-rising, pre-yeast.  It gets better from here.

The rising part allowed for some crafting and chatting.  We made tags for the cinnamon rolls since we were making enough to share.  And Laura had the great idea of printing the recipe to add to the gift.

and now we roll it out

Kristen's rolling out trendy style with Julia's apron on.  It inspires culinary creativity by wearing it.

These are 2 of the 4 balls of dough ready to take a butter bath.

3lbs of butter went into the creation of these rolls.  Yes, you read it right, 3lbs.  That's a  lot of butter.  It all went to a worthy cause - 15 batches of ooey-gooey cinnamon rolls.  

It's still a lot of butter.

Butter lined tins. 

This is the part where it all comes together.  The part that requires self -restraint to allow it to bake before digging in.

A quote from Kristen,"it feels like a bicep".
Eating these will not produce biceps, but the labor part definitely  justifies the  consumption.

Beauty.
Ready for baking.

I'm not a huge fan of frosting, but this sealed it.  We tweaked the recipe a bit, but it complimented the rolls perfectly.

6-ladies
4-hours of fun
2-batches each to take home and share
1-for some taste testing to enjoy our creations and reflect on the day

check out their great blogs:

(from left to right)

Nikki - http://www.artandlemons.com/

Kristen and Laura - http://www.planteatcreate.com/

Emily - http://www.relishments.com/blog/

Cynthia - http://itallchanges.com/