Six rolls

The early morning sun sifts through white lace curtains, settles on the black counter top. ¼ cup flour, strewn on the counter, 80grams butter, softening in a little saucer, the companion cup of which shattered and lost, and ½ a cup of a mix of cinnamon and sugar. 1 part cinnamon, 3 parts sugar. They lie in wait.

I lift the warm damp cloth and my heart swells.

Just as the mix of flour, warm milk, egg and yeast has.

Soft, round, malleable.

I plunge my fingers into it, carefully lifting it out of the bowl with both hands, setting it down on the counter.

I pat it, soft but holding its own.

I roller pin it into the perfect rectangle. Just the right length and breadth, the right thickness. Spread out the softened butter, making shapes with the spoon, smoothening them out.

I tumble the cinnamon and sugar onto my rectangle, each grain following, covering, stumbling over the other.

Detach the countertop with the dough, roll it into a spiral.

Drawing imaginary lines, I carefully slice the spiral into six. Picking them apart, I turn them over. Six mini spirals.

I leave them to rise.

My mother didn’t teach me to make cinnamon rolls. The only units of measurement she uses are ‘andaazay se’ and ‘thora sa bas aese’. Approximately and a little bit, just like so. When you can’t measure exactly what’s going in, how will you know exactly what comes to be? She calls it experience. But for now, for me, experience won’t raise my cinnamon rolls.

The warm cloth is removed again, and the six rolls look fulfilled. Dabbing the softened butter onto the tops, I place them in the pre-heated oven. 180 degrees Celsius, the standard for mostly anything I bake.

I take my place in front of the oven. I watch them rise.

She’d said she always imagined me lanky and tall. I don’t apologize for it, she wouldn’t want me to. She wouldn’t want me to scold her for not letting my kid brother help in the kitchen, but that is something that comes naturally to me. There has been a lot of growing, the growth spurt that came was not a physical one, and she hasn’t been able to keep up. It baffles her, how the things we think are so different, under the same roof. She tells me love can come after marriage. I know hers came before, twelve years before to be exact. I ask her not to blame me when I believe otherwise, all through her own example.

I know I tire her out. You’d think the hard part of parenting was over, but we practically raised ourselves. Two girls of a difference of 2 years. Organized, helpful, quiet, obedient. She’d used the right ingredients, given it the right time. It had worked all these years, but what went in did not determine what was going to become.

There is left-over butter. I mix it with another 3 tbsp, 113 gms cream cheese, 1 tsp vanilla essence. I’m out of powdered sugar, so I blend some into fine powder. Sneaking glances all the while at the rising rolls. I add a cup of this to my mix, a dash of milk until it’s just right.

When they’re ready, I dowse them in the glaze. I like to eat them, and feed them, fresh hot.

They’re perfect, just as I knew they would be when I picked up the cup to measure.