A Day Worth Celebrating

Mary's Birthday

The day before her last birthday, in 2023, was the day mom found out her cancer was too far gone to be treated, it was terminal. I couldn’t bring myself to wish her a happy birthday, it felt like there was nothing happy about it. Last Spring, when it was mom’s first posthumous birthday, I did not celebrate. Her hometown had torrential rains and flooding, which felt appropriately miserable for the occasion.

Ever since I hit adulthood I haven’t celebrate my birthday, I didn’t see the point - I was just another day older and I saw no reason to dwell on it, much less celebrate.  Mom, on the other hand, would never let anyone’s birthday pass unnoticed, she was big on birthdays and she always had to let a person know she was thinking about them on their birthday. I never really understood why.

I never got it and I never thought about it. Recently, I asked my sisters about it and then everything clicked: mom wanted to let people know that they were worth celebrating, that their very existence was, in fact, a big deal.

I was dreading this month, dreading mom’s birthday, but then a big deal happened: mom has a new grand-baby. Just a few days ago Ophelia was born - it was her 0th birthday! I’m pretty sure she’s 80% cheeks and certain she’s 100% adorable.

It’s bittersweet, of course; mom should have been here to welcome her new granddaughter — but it’s a reminder that birthdays are meant to be celebrated.

I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to mark mom’s birthday this year, but I want it to be celebratory; yes, she’s dead, but the most important thing is that she lived — and the world is a better place for it.

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Cinnamon Rolls

I’m not a big on birthday cake, so for mom’s birthday I am going to make her unique cinnamon roll recipe - my favourite of all her baking recipes. It’s easier to have a food fight with cake and icing, or for a toddler to plant their face in a cake, but I like my rolls.

Most cinnamon rolls come with a layer of icing on top, but I’ve always preferred mom’s somewhat different recipe, which has an almost sugar-glass type of layer on the bottom.

We need to make both a cinnamon spread and a cinnamon glaze, but I’ve never really measured the exact amounts of the ingredients, it’s not very particular.

Prep:

Cinnamon spread: this is what will be spread on the rolled dough. You can lay it on as thick or thin as you like, as long as it’s spreadable with a butter knife. Use room temperature butter and cream it with brown sugar and cinnamon, then put it to one side.

Cinnamon glaze: melt butter in the baking dishes. Add a little cinnamon and some brown sugar. The mixture should be much thinner and glossier than the cinnamon spread.

Ingredients:

• 2 Cups of sifted flour
• 3 Tsps of baking powder
• 1/2 Tsp of salt
• 2 Tbsps of white sugar
• 2 Tbsp butter (can be melted)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 Cup milk
  

Method:

1. Mix flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl.
2. Cream white sugar, butter and egg together, then add it to the dry mixture.
3. Add milk and mix into a soft dough.
4. Roll out the dough into a rectangular shape and use a butter knife to cover it in a layer of cinnamon spread.
5. The roll up the dough into a spiral log and cut into 16 pieces. It helps to grease up the knife a little with butter, so the dough doesn’t stick to the knife.

Lay the rolls flat in the baking dishes so that one side is sitting in the cinnamon glaze.

Bake at 375F - 400F for between 12-15 minutes.

Everyone’s oven is a little different. It’s best to pull them out BEFORE they turn golden brown. It’s easy to accidentally overcook them, which causes them to be a little dry - so less is more.