Baking for others: Cinnamon Bun Bread Semi-Fail

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Well, we're back from San Francisco.  And while I'm not stoked about having to leave my friends and family, I am looking forward to getting back into a routine with work and writing.  And, of course, blogging!

I think my stomach is looking forward to a routine as well; we ate so much good food in NorCal, which made my mouth extremely happy but my body has gone all soft.  I'm sure it hasn't helped that I skipped my usual daily pilates in exchange for more delicious food.  Mmmmmmmm...

With all the options available to us, the bf and I ate most of our meals out, which meant very little baking/cooking at home to photograph for this here little blog.  But one of my friends did contact me about donating something for a bake sale at the senior center where she volunteers, and I figured it was the perfect opportunity to make the cinnamon bun bread I'd been drooling over for weeks.

I'm not entirely certain I did it right, so rather than posting my adaptation here I think I should just send you directly to the source – mine turned out a bit hard and dense, which I suspect is down to me not mixing it right and then overbaking it a bit... I'm not sure exactly what went wrong, but I will say this: any problems I had with it didn't seem to stop me (or anyone else) from eating far too much of it.  That is, all of the secondary pan I'd made for tastings... And I didn't get any complaints from the senior center either, although I did consider bailing as I'm such a baking perfectionist and I was terrified it wouldn't be good enough.  Thank goodness the bf talked me down off the ledge when I was digging through my mother's cupboards trying to find more ingredients for a more basic cake at 1 a.m.

 

In the end, this cake/bread thing was delicious, but overcooked.  I highly recommend you make it based on the original recipe, and pay attention to the oven time.  I also recommend making old favorites for bake sales, instead of using strangers as test mice for new recipes which you baked at midnight the night before the final product is due.  Now go and do as I say, not as I did.