Pay It Forward: Cinnamon Rolls!

Last week I wrote about my Facebook commitment to Pay It Forward to 5 people this year. I got really excited for the project and paid it forward before Easter with boxes of homemade truffles and flowery cards. I worked on those packages the week before Easter and developed some kind of pay-it-forward "high". My mind was buzzing with ideas of things I could do for other people. So I came up with the idea of making cinnamon rolls for our apartment building on Easter morning.

I had briefly mumbled to Andy what I was going to do while in the grocery store. He didn't bat an eye while I loaded hoards of powdered sugar and butter into our shopping cart. I guess the prospect of dozens of fresh hot cinnamon rolls being made in our kitchen was enough for him not to question anything.

Not just one pan of cinnamon rolls, but potentially 4-pans of the ooey gooey rolls were on my to-do list. The project began at about 10pm. (I told you I was a night owl!) There was butter on my forehead and flower just about everywhere, as I feverishly rolled and cut and placed the cinnamony rolls into their pans. Andy watched from a distance with droopy eyes. He wanted to go to bed so badly, but couldn't tear himself away from the idea of a fresh cinnamon roll.

At about 1:30am the first batch of steaming cinnamon rolls came out of the oven. They smelled heavenly! I'm sure the whole apartment building was wondering who was baking at such an hour. Andy was doing everything he could not to pounce or drool as I frosted a particularly large cinnamon roll for him. He snarfed it down in about 30 seconds and promptly went to bed. As the night was quickly nearing 2am, I decided to bake the rest of the cinnamon rolls in the morning.

I was up early the next morning to bake pan after pan of cinnamon rolls. They were all generously frosted and set out for the neighbors. By the afternoon there were successfully NO leftovers and lots of satisfied neighbors. It was a 'sweet' Easter to say the least.

The recipe that I used can be found Here. It is the recipe for Cinnabon cinnamon rolls and let me tell you, it tasted exactly like their cinnamon rolls. Amazing!

PS. If you make this recipe, don't let them bake a minute too long or else this will happen and your pan will be soaking for weeks...don't say I didn't warn you:

Pay If Forward...Letters & Chocolate

Right after New Years this year, there was a 'pay it forward' post going around on facebook. I saw it a few times before I decided to act on it. The post said something like this:

"Lets create a year of creativity, giving, and paying it forward. For the first 5 people that comment on this post I will make and give something original, sometime this year. It may be a piece of art, a baked good, or some other creative thing. Also, by 'liking' this post, you agree to pay it forward to 5 other people."

At the time it seemed like a large commitment, but that also translates to 'challenge' for me, so I went for it. Along with a good challenge, it was something to help me be creative and think of other people. Since January, I have been thinking about it. It has constantly been in the back of my thoughts. It also made me think about the individual people who commented on that post. What are they up to, how are they...? I have enjoyed having these 5 people to think about.

After 3 months of thinking about these people and how I could 'pay it forward' to them, I got to work. I know that I have the whole year, but I was eager to get going on this project! I decided to make some homemade truffles (who doesn't love chocolate?) and hand written cards. I was going to make the cards as well, but then I realized that I have plenty of pretty stationary that needed to be written on.

The truffles were fun to make, as usual! I made lavender lemonade, whiskey cinnamon, stout, and honey saffron. Then I sat down to write cards. As I was writing, I realized that writing cards and letters and mailing them (snailmail) is not done much with our generation. We have email and facebook, so why would we sit down to write a letter, buy a stamp, lick the envelope, and then walk it to a mailbox? What a hassle! Despite the 'hassle', I had so much fun! I think I will continue this tradition each year. I has been a great way to do something out of the norm and think about someone else for once.

I have continued to pay it forward for Easter as well. I'll write about that next week. And it doesn't stop there, I plan on paying it forward all year. It is more addicting than you think, you should try it!