In the golden days of motherhood when I was wrinkle AND sleep free, I started marketing and selling my baked goodies on Facebook. I honestly don't have very many clear memories of that time. I was told by a physician that I was living in a constant state of adrenaline. I keep saying this and I'll say it again, I have no idea how I made it through those days alive, but through the grace of God, I did.
I digress. The topic of a mother's physical and mental health will have to wait for another day. This topic is a little less triggering.
In an effort to make my rolls beautiful and professional I was trimming the ends off of each rolled up and filled dough log before cutting the rest of the rolls to place in the foil pans. I only sold them by the half dozens in those days. Some less imaginative bakers might have tossed those scrappy ends. Not I! I started baking them individually in a greased muffin tin.
At first these "ends" were given to my kids as treats. Can you imagine being a child in a house that constantly smells like a bakery wonderland and never getting to eat any of it? I did bake for them frequently, but for my family it was usually whole grain and nutritious. A little muffin shaped cinnamon roll brushed with butter and drizzled with cream cheese glaze was a real treat!
These "ends" were actually quite fabulous in their own rite. By default they had less filling and more dough. My batches made 4 dozen rolls each, so each batch gave me 8 ends. If I needed to make 3 batches in a day that was (mental math moment...) 24 ends. That was too many to feed my babies. Sometimes I gave them away, but for a while I was selling them. Some of my customers asked for them. I even gave them a name and a hefty price tag; Heavenly Ends for $2 each. I felt so business savvy!
Then one day my husband at the time, the children's father, filed a complaint. He was concerned that the kids were not being treated with the respect due my own offspring, that I was giving the best to strangers while my own children got the scraps. I was so confused and hurt by this. He did not see me carefully drizzling the Heavenly Ends and selling them at a higher price. Instead he saw me cutting the ends off the dough logs and throwing them in the old muffin tin and feeding that trash to our kids.
I can laugh about it now and, truth told, I can see where he was coming from. You can bet your sweet bippy that I was saving the roundest cookies, the tallest muffins, and the most beautiful ends for my paying customers. However, my kids were living large in the home baked treats department even with the scraps! I don't remember even once when one of my kids complained. Of course, I don't remember much from back then.
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