Last weekend, I met up with some out-of-town friends for dinner, and I had what can only be described as an icky encounter with a staff member at a restaurant. The details aren’t worth going into, but I felt misunderstood. I felt judged. I felt angry for being misunderstood and judged. The restaurant worker had feelings all their own that I will never be privy to. I’ve been reflecting on the situation, and I’m left with an overwhelming empathy. We’re so tired. Our energy is in a tug of war between work and relationships and friendships and societal pressures and debt and health insurance and our country’s destabilization and the world’s destabilization and living. We’re just trying to be alive, at the core of it all. We’re being asked to do so much.
I don’t know what this restaurant worker had been through that night or in their life or what they were feeling. I do know what it’s like to work in restaurants. I know what it’s like to have patrons around you excited to be where they are and to see their friends and to eat an exciting meal. I have felt the resentment grow in my belly as I watched patrons laughing and hugging and cheersing. I have faked excitement to see them enjoying themselves, but all I want is to laugh and hug and cheers with my friends. I have smiled through sweaty lips and lower back cramps and fought tears while being berated by head chefs and managers. It can be thankless, grueling work. You feel like you have no space for yourself. You’re trying to be small. You’re moving swiftly through the dining room, the kitchen, the bathroom. Unnoticeable.
These reflections feel a little embarrassing to share. It’s a silly anecdote in comparison with the broader world conflicts that we’re dealing with, but I can’t shake the seeming connection between these smaller misunderstandings and those larger ones. We’re in pain, we’re traumatized, we’re tired. We must climb through and out of our own pain in order to see the pain of others, but how will we find the time and space to do so? Time and space are privileges not accessible to many of us. We assume the worst in people, and people often meet us at their worst. We have stories written about who people are before they open their mouths. Maybe that restaurant worker did feel like I have in the past and that’s why they treated me the way they did. That’s not the truth, that’s my story. I’m still probably misunderstanding.
I recognize that a lot of this is by design. There is an undeniable history of building systems to ensure that we are constantly misunderstanding, constantly having to dig for truth amongst highly polished lies. I also recognize that those who designed the system are not going to lead us out of misunderstanding. Our conflict is their power. This turmoil, this exhaustion is their power.
I don’t have answers. I simply have empathy. My heart, like others across the nation, is broken at the scenes I’m seeing play out in conflicts around the globe. I’m in a state of disbelief that there is a debate over a ceasefire as Palestinians lose their lives, their families, their homes, any sense of safety they might ever have had. I’m horrified that some might read my disbelief as a direct attack on their right to life when what I want more than anything is for their humanity to shine too.
I have been struggling to post about food and recipes and reflections about my healing and the eating disorder world, but I’ve decided to write today to share a recipe that brings me a lot of comfort. I have little control over the things that are happening on a global scale, and so I am going to try desperately to make my home, my corner of the universe, a warm, peaceful one. It’s not perfect. Sometimes I show up with my arms folded tightly. Sometimes I’m misunderstood and judged. Sometimes I misunderstand and judge.
I’m sharing these apple cider cinnamon rolls with as much love as I can muster. Arms wide open. Hoping you’ll join me for this embrace. It’s a bit of a project, which might help you carve out some time and space for yourself. If you make these, I’d love to hear about it. Love to you.
APPLE CIDER CINNAMON ROLLS
Makes 12 rolls
DOUGH:
8oz russet or Yukon potato, cook and mashed*
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
½ cup apple cider
¾ heavy cream
1 egg
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons kosher salt
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 package active dry yeast*
Combine the cider, cream, and butter in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer just barely to melt the butter. Remove from the heat and allow it to cool for ten minutes or so (a good time to cook your potato, see note below).
In the bowl of a KitchenAid mixer attached with a dough hook, add the sugar, salt, flour, and yeast. Add the mashed potato and mix on low until it starts to clump up. Add the liquids with the mixer still on low (they should be warm but not piping hot at this point). Increase the speed to medium and allow to mix for roughly ten minutes until the dough starts to pull away from the sides. It should be soft and tacky but not super sticky. You can also use the “windowpane” test, and stretch a piece of dough to see if it tears or thins out into a nearly transparent window of dough. Watch this video if that sounds confusing!
Transfer the dough to a large mixing bowl sprayed with vegetable spray. Don’t stress too much about making it a perfect ball or shaping it here—you’re going to roll it out eventually anyway. Cover the bowl loosely with a towel or plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for 1-2 hours, until doubled. I like to take a photo and check back in every half hour or so to be sure I’m getting the proper rise. The time will vary greatly depending on how warm your kitchen is. If you want this to be a bit speedy, place it in a warm spot (on top of the fridge is usually good).
While it’s rising, make your apple cider filling (recipe below) & butter a 13”x9” pan.
Once doubled, flip the dough out onto a lightly floured counter or table. Press the dough into a rough rectangular shape and then use a rolling pin to roll it into a large rectangle, roughly the size of a sheet pan. I have to be honest…I never measure the size at home. We’re not at a bakery selling these for a specific price per roll. What’s more important is the width of the dough, which you want to be close to ¼” thick. If you prefer to measure, shoot for 14”x8”.
Spread your apple cider filling evenly across the surface & then roll into a big log. The trick to rolling is to think of it more as tucking. A tight roll will produce more attractive swirls, so starting at the top, fold the dough up and into itself, like the dough is both the covers and bed. You’re tucking the dough around itself. Do this from left to right, then right to left and so on until you have one long log.
Cut the ends off, maybe just ½” because these tail bits often lack much filling. Then cut the dough in half, then cut those two pieces in half again, then cut the four pieces into thirds. You want 12 rolls. Again, you will not find me measuring a damn thing at home, but feel free to measure your log and cut the dough into 12 perfectly even rolls.
Arrange the rolls into your buttered 13”x9” pan, wrap well with plastic wrap and rest overnight in refrigerator. You could let these rise at room temperature now, it will probably take an hour for them to double in size, but don’t you want these for breakfast? Put them in the fridge. Have a snack, go to bed.
First thing you do in the morning? Take those rolls out. They’ll be chilled, so it will take them over an hour to rise properly. I like to turn my oven on to 350 degrees and place the rolls right next to it (on top of it is too direct of heat).
Once doubled, cut yourself a piece of tinfoil large enough to cover the rolls. Spray it with vegetable spray and loosely cover the pan. Bake the rolls on a rack in the top half of the oven for 20 minutes. Remove the foil, and continue baking for another 5-10 minutes or until the rolls are golden and a toothpick or knife placed in the center comes out clean. Let the rolls cool on a wire rack for ten minutes.
While the rolls are baking and/or cool, make the frosting (recipe below). After ten minutes cooling in the pan, turn the rolls out onto the cooling rack (they’ll be upside down, but you can flip them back over with a second wire rack, or if you don’t have a second, flip them onto a sheet tray first, then back onto the wire rack). Let cool for another fifteen minutes or so.
Frost. Eat. Lick your fingers.
FILLING:
3 apples (I used golden delicious, but whatever works), peeled and diced into 1” pieces
½ cup apple cider
½ cup dark brown sugar
3 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Pinch salt
Combine all of the ingredients in a medium-sized saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat and then allow it to simmer on low, covered, for about fifteen minutes. This gets the apples nice and soft. Now, let the mixture simmer uncovered for another fifteen-ish minutes or until the apples start to really smush and sort of disintegrate and the whole thing reduces to a thick sauce. Remove from the heat and cool to at least room temperature (alternatively you can make this the day before and keep it in the fridge overnight).
FROSTING:
1 cup apple cider
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temp
4oz cream cheese, room temp
⅔ cup powdered sugar
Pinch salt
In a small saucepan, bring the apple cider to a simmer. Let it cook and reduce for roughly 30 minutes or until it is thicker, almost like a syrup. There should be roughly 1 tablespoon left. Transfer to a small bowl and allow this to cool.
In a medium-sized mixing bowl or a KitchenAid mixer with medium-low speed, mix the cream cheese and butter together until well combined. Add the powdered sugar ⅓ cup at a time and then add the salt and apple cider syrup, mixing until everything comes together. Set this aside until the rolls are warm-ish. You don’t want to frost them while they’re piping hot or you’ll lose the body of this frosting. Serve the rolls freshly baked and frosted if you can. The next day, they do just fine warmed gently in the microwave or oven.
*I think it’s easiest to peel the potato, slice it into 1” cubes, and boil it in some water until tender as if you’re making mashed potatoes. Alternatively, I bet nuking it in the microwave until soft and mashable and peeling the skin off would also work. Of course, you could also roast it like a baked potato, but that takes the longest. You just want to make sure you mash it pretty well, you don’t want potato chunks in your dough.
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