Aromatherapy Revisited

As you read the title of this post you probably are thinking of the sweet and tempting smell of caramel wafting through the air, but the aroma in our house today as I baked a test batch of caramel rolls was far from sweet and definitely not tempting. This day will go down in the records as the first day Elsa has set off a smoke alarm.

This is how it happened. As the rolls baked, caramel bubbled inside each cup of the jumbo muffin tins I use to make evenly shaped rolls. Soon the caramel didn't just bubble inside the tins but overflowed onto the bottom of my oven. This has happened before leaving a puddle of charred butter and sugar, but today the puddle turned into a lake. I think I'll name it Smoke Lake for smoke it did! First my face was engulfed in a cloud as I opened the oven door to take the baked rolls out, then the whole main floor of our house was in a haze. Soon the smoke alarm was sending off its shrill alert. Windows were opened. The furnace kicked on as the chilly outside air hit the thermostat. A piece of clothing waiting to be ironed that happened to be sitting directly below the boisterous alarm was flapped around violently to clear the air in front of the asthmatic contraption.

This evening eleven sweet and tempting caramel rolls lay in our freezer ready for a special Sunday morning breakfast. The twelfth is in our kitchen inside a little baggy waiting for the overnight freshness test to be completed. All's well that ends well.