Cinnamon Rolls | In Cold Blood

The travellers stopped for dinner at a restaurant in Great Bend. Perry, down to his last fifteen dollars, was ready to settle for root beer and a sandwich, but Dick said no, they needed a solid 'tuck-in', and never mind the cost, the tab was his. They ordered two steaks medium rare, baked potatoes, French fries, fried onions, succotash, side dishes of macaroni and hominy, salad with Thousand Island dressing, cinnamon rolls, apple pie and ice-cream, and coffee.
In Cold Blood
Truman Capote

In Cold Blood is renowned for being possibly the best crime novel ever written, and there’s a reason behind that. It is such a compelling read and demands your attention after every page. I read this book probably almost a year ago and was reminded of it when I noticed it balancing precariously at the top of a book pile at a local opshop.

There are a number of interesting meals within its pages, notably the last meal that Richard and Perry choose. I think though, I was interested in the idea of what they would have eaten on their journey - and the almost calculated and calmness that comes with a meal like that. Instead of making their entire dinner I chose to just make the cinnamon rolls. Partly because I have just, so much bread flour to use up. And also because cinnamon rolls are delicious and I generally can eat around 5 in one sitting.

The road trip journey is something that I did recently (not with murderous intentions), taking a long weekend to go and stay at a tiny air bnb that had been built on the bush property I grew up on in rural Victoria. We had no wifi or phone reception for our time there and spent all of it reading books, drinking wine, and watching seasons of Xena.

Cinnamon Rolls
Makes approx. 9 rolls
Ingredients
2 tsp instant yeast
2 tbsp caster sugar
275ml water, lukewarm
100ml milk, lukewarm
525g bread flour + 2 tbsp for dusting later
2 tsp salt
60g butter
Filling
60g butter, softened
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
Glaze
2-3 tbsp milk
400gm icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Combine the lukewarm water, milk, yeast, and sugar together in a bowl. Leave to sit for 5 minutes or until the yeast becomes frothy.

2. In another bowl mix together the flour and salt, pour in the frothy yeast mixture and combine until a rough dough comes together. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and begin kneading. As you do so begin kneading the 60g of butter into the dough.

3. Continue kneading for about 10 minutes or until the dough has become soft and elastic like. Place the prepared dough into a lightly greased bowl, cover with a damp tea towel and place into a warm place for around an hour or until the dough has doubled in size.

4. While the dough is rising is a perfect time to make your filling. Combine the softened butter, brown sugar, and ground cinnamon together and mix. Put to the side.

5. Remove the doubled dough from the bowl onto a lightly floured surface and gently roll the dough out until it is a few cm’s thick, and in a rough rectangular shape. Spread the butter / cinnamon filling onto the rolled out dough, evenly spreading it across.

6. From the longest side of the rectangle begin to tightly roll the dough up into a spiral. Once it is all rolled up use a sharp knife to evenly cut rolls that are 1 1/2” thick. You should get about 9 rolls from it in total. Line a baking tray with baking paper and place the prepared rolls on it, with the spiral facing outwards. Cover with a damp paper towel and leave for another hour to rise again.

7. While the cinnamon rolls are doing their second rise, preheat the oven to 180C. When the rolls have risen again, place them into the oven to bake. They should take around 15 - 20 minutes, depending how gooey you like your cinnamon rolls.

8. Leave them to cool, and make your glaze while they do. Combine the milk, icing sugar and vanilla and mix until it reaches the consistency you prefer. Drizzle over the cinnamon rolls and enjoy!

Sweet and Sour Spare Ribs | Breakfast at Tiffany's

She patted him. ‘Tend to your chores, Rusty. And when I’m ready, we’ll go eat where you want.’
‘Chinatown?’
‘But that doesn’t mean sweet and sour spareribs. You know what the doctor said.’
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Truman Capote

It may not have been the moral of the story, but the entire time I was reading Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I was experience a deep longing to attend one of Holly Golightly’s fabulous parties. Everyone crammed into a tiny apartment, steadily getting drunker until the urge to go out and binge on Chinese food finally overpowers all others thoughts? Yes, please.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a book that conjures up a world of cravings - to live as Holly Golightly does (before all the bad stuff happens at least), or even to approach the world with the outlook that the character does. Her life, documented in the pages, becomes as fascinating to the reader as it does to the narrator whose point of view we experience throughout. I always imagined that some portion of my life when moving to a city would mimic perhaps a little of a book like that - probably for the best that it didn’t. Melbourne is amazing enough that parties and entertainment every night would soon tire even the most extroverted.

Another unfortunate side effect of living in a city like Melbourne, is that there really is a vegan substitute for every craving you may have. There’s one particular restaurant in the middle of the city, hidden away upstairs that dishes out an all-vegan Chinese smorgasbord of dishes. It’s become an unfortunate habit to hole myself away in a booth when I’ve had a hard day - drowning my sorrows in tea, dumplings and a book.

*Note: I used vegan ‘ribs’ that I found at a local asian grocery. You can honestly use this sauce with whatever faux meat you have, or even cauliflower perhaps, and it will be delicious. If you’re using real ribs, follow the recipe the same, just bake for additional 15 minutes or so.

Sweet and Sour Spare Ribs
Ingredients
500g spare ribs *see note
1/2 cup soy sauce or tamari
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 rice vinegar
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Get an oven safe pan ready by layering the bottom with baking paper, placing your ribs in, side by side. Ensure that they don’t sit on top of each other. Put the pan to the side for now.

3. Combine soy sauce or tamari, brown sugar, rice vinegar, mustard seeds, and salt in a small saucepan. Put on a low heat.

4. Keep an eye on the sauce, stirring occasionally as it heats. It should begin to bubble and thicken. During this process, continue to taste and add more vinegar, sugar or soy where necessary. Remove from heat when consistency is alike to syrup.

5. Using a pastry brush, or just a spoon, brush the sauce over the ribs thoroughly, ensuring that all have a nice coating. You should still have quite a bit of sauce left over.

6. Cover the pan with foil and bake for 35 minutes. During this time, remove from oven every 15 minutes or so to reapply the same over the ribs. They should always have a nice sticky sheen to them.

7. Remove and allow to cool a little before eating. Enjoy! (Another glaze of sauce here works wonders as well, just to note).