A new tradition for Conference...

This last weekend was conference weekend where we had the opportunity to hear the Prophet along with other church leaders speak. I love conference weekend because I get to stay home and watch it on television or otherwise listen to it on the radio. There were some wonderful talks given this conference weekend- I admit I caught probably only heard 70% of all of the talks- my attention had to be on the boys too, and at times, Noah and/or Ian needed my help. I decided that I was going to start a new tradition for our family this conference weekend. Aside from watching conference at home in our p.j.'s, I thought it would be fun to bake cinnamon rolls for Sunday Morning conference. I'm not much of a baker- (generally because most baked goods require flour, and well, I don't do flour since it can practically kill me if I eat the slightest bit of it) anyhow, I really enjoy cooking, and I've always wanted to be a good baker, so I pulled of my shelf my Non-Gluten All-purpose Baking Flour (it's made from a mix of rice, tapioca, soy, and potato flour), printed a cinnamon roll recipe of my mom's off of my computer and went to work. I've always been a bit intimidated by yeast and making doughs, but it seemed fairly easy enough once I got started on the task. I ran out of my non-gluten flour and I asked Spencer to run down stairs and grab me another bag from out of the food storage. He came back up with a bag of Non-Gluten Biscuit Mix- only I didn't realize it was biscuit mix and not baking flour until after I prepared my dough. I've never baked cinnamon rolls before and so I wasn't aware of how much preparation time I needed to leave myself for letting the dough rise and such before I actually put the buns in the oven.

I was hoping the rolls would be done for Sunday "morning" conference, but alas- they weren't finished baking until midway through the Sunday "afternoon" conference. As they baked they made the house smell with yummy goodness- it's a comforting smell I decided. If I'm ever at the mall, I'll walk into Deseret Book past the Lion House Bakery just to smell that smell! After I iced them, I was excited to taste one. I can't say they were the best cinnamon rolls I've ever tasted- (Cinnabon is hard to beat)- in fact they were slightly dry and flaky because of my mistake adding wheat free Biscuit mix to the dough- but they were still a nice treat to enjoy during conference. I've decided I'm going to carry on the tradition and make my wheat free Cinnamon Rolls for every Sunday morning conference- I'll need to work a little at perfecting the recipe till I get the rolls to taste just like Cinnabon's- it's certainly tricky to accomplish when you're not working with real flour, but rice flour instead. By the way- I made 16 cinnamon rolls for probably no more than $1- while at the health food store they charge people like myself who are allergic to wheat/flour $7 for four, not the best tasting, small, cinnamon rolls! It's totally ridiculous how overpriced specialty food is!