Mom's "Fill-in-the-blank"

We've all heard it. We look forward to it. Grandmas and Moms have these great recipes that are named after them. For instance: "Mom's Zwieback," or "Grandma's Apple Pie." And, it should be like that. It doesn't matter that they didn't make these recipes up themselves - they made these recipes famous. These aren't the "throw it all in the Kitchen-Aid mixer and then pour it in the pan to bake" type. These ones require some time, effort, and expertise.

I've often wondered, Will I have a recipe named after me someday? I make some pretty awesome banana bread, but it takes very little effort. And, you can't take Grandma's recipe and stick your name after it...that's just cheating!

Sunday, I was thumbing through my numerous cooking magazines to find some new recipes and I stumped across "Grandma's Pecan Sticky Rolls." I thought, Well, this isn't my grandma, so stealing it would be acceptable. Plus, nobody will know that the recipe was a grandma's as long as I don't post it on my blog.

After a quick read of the recipe, I decided to try it out - I mean, this would be way better than doing the cleaning that was calling my name.

I think this was my very 1st "from scratch" recipe (besides banana bread, but that just doesn't count). I mean, I used yeast - how much more basic can you get? So, I started out making what I hoped would be the future recipe of "Heather's sticky rolls."

I learned a few things along the way:

The smell of yeast makes me think of BIOS 206 Genetics Lab. We mated and grew yeast cultures. Definitely puts a small damper on the thought of ewwy guewwy rolls.

Warm milk (90-100 degrees)...am I really supposed to use a thermometer on that?

They should add to the instructions: Take of any rings before picking up the dough, to prevent clumps of sticky dough getting in between the prongs.

Dough should be tacky and soft...I guessed on what that means. Isn't all dough soft and tacky?

Next time, while waiting 45 minutes for the dough to rise, then 45 more minutes for the dough to rise, then 30 minutes for the rolls to double in size; plan to read a book or clean. Watching the timer makes it last forever!

The verdict? They were good. The filling is superb, but they weren't as guewy I was hoping for - mostly due to my error of using the 1/3 measureing cup instead of the 1/4 measuring cup. Richard said they were great, and he is usually honest about these things. Probably not the recipe I want to be "famous" for. We'll keep trying.