One early Friday morning, before the birds were awake and singing, I hopped in my car and headed to Granny’s house to bake her mouth-watering, homemade cinnamon rolls. I walked in and was greeted by Granny with a genuine smile and, “Hey sweetie, how are you?” My heart was already full before the day had hardly started. Walking in, I immediately got a whiff of crispy bacon and fresh biscuits that Granny made for our breakfast. As I made myself at home, Granny said, “Go ahead and fix your plate, dear.” I sat down to eat at the kitchen table that was an organized mess of opened mail, devotionals, phones, napkins, pecan shells, and pill bottles.

After breakfast, my time to learn how to make Granny’s light and legendary cinnamon rolls had come. We pulled out a great big dough bowl and got right to baking. As we started, I was a little confused, so I asked Granny, “Where is the recipe?” A smile swept across her face as she replied, “After making these for so long, the recipe is etched in here,” and she pointed to her heart. I was a little unsure about her heart recipe; how accurate can that be?

I measured warm water and poured the water into the dough bowl along with a packet of yeast. While I was opening the tiny, yellow packet, I noticed that the yeast was almost a year older than the printed expiration date. I was a little grossed out, so I asked Granny, “Did you know that this yeast is out of date?” Granny laughed a little and answered my question, “Honey, those manufacturers slap dates on their products that really don’t tell the expiration date, so it’s okay to use it.” Still a little weirded out that the yeast was “old,” I started stirring the yeast into the warm water. The brownish mixture started to bubble as soon as I began stirring, and an aroma of fresh bread rose from the bowl to my nose. As I added a few more ingredients, Granny got to working on the mashed potatoes. The “recipe” from Granny’s heart called for a cup of mashed potatoes, but she did not find measuring necessary, so she just poured the mashed potatoes into the dough bowl and said, “Ehh that looks about like a cup to me.” Because I had no clue what a cup looked like without a measuring cup, assuming there was a cup of potatoes in the pot was a little off to me. We mixed in the remaining ingredients until we had a fluffy ball of dough. Before we could roll the dough and craft delicate rolls of sweetness, we had to wait for the dough to rise.

About an hour later, the dough had grown to be twice its size and was running out of the dough bowl, spilling over the sides. I was not expecting the yeast to help the dough rise because of the expiration date, but boy was I wrong. I kneaded the ball of dough with my fists, the way a pillow is fluffed, but much much more aggressively. We used a rolling pin to roll the dough into a flat rectangle shape as thin as a cookie. Butter, brown sugar, more butter, cinnamon, and more butter was then drizzled over the flat dough; my mouth watered the whole time I was layering that ooey gooey goodness on top. We rolled the dough as tight as we could, trying not to let the sugar and cinnamon mixture escape from the sides; we cut about five dozen rolls of sticky sweetness, and placed them in pans ready for the oven.

The rolls baked and filled the kitchen with a smell that was just plain yummy. When the bubbling cinnamon rolls were hot out of the oven, I flipped them out of the scolding hot pans onto plates; my anxiety rose as I wondered if the rolls tasted as delicious as they looked. I poured icing over them until each one was glazed to perfection.

I could not wait until they were cool to try them because I had waited long enough. Granny made me a cup of coffee, and we both sat down to taste our creation. A little nervous because of the spoiled ingredients and lack of a recipe, I hesitated to bite into the warm swirl I held in my hand. The light and fluffy roll was full of flavor and glittering glaze, and I had never tasted such a delectable sweet; the roll completely disappeared in my mouth. Granny saw my face fill with surprise and said, “Sometimes you will find that the way the world has taught you is not always the only way or the right way. Stick with me sweetie, and you’ll learn a lot about this world.” As I chewed the sticky mess, I nodded in agreement because I knew that getting rolled up in the world is just too easy sometimes.