Weekend Cooking...Pillsbury Orange Rolls

I am sure many of us have traditions for Christmas morning. Santa hats, Christmas PJs, waking pre-dawn to see if Santa has arrived, maybe a dawn religious service. For my family it is Pillsbury Orange Rolls!

We always attend Mass on Christmas Eve..and the niece is way to old to be getting up before sunrise to check on Santa. But one is never too old for Orange Rolls.
As I remember, we had them when I was a child. I am not sure why. Were they available all year or did they only make their appearance when the weather turned cold and the decorations went up in the department stores and malls? So, like October.

But regardless, they are one of our Christmas morning food traditions to this day. I arrive at the bro and sil's early, and preheat the oven. Give the can a good whack on the edge of the counter to pop it open.
Now there is a decision to be made. You can bake them on a sheet pan, each free standing, in which case they get crispier edges. Or you can bake them in a cake pan so that most of the edges are still soft. The perfect one is the one roll in the middle that never touched the pan edge and is all soft. That one is mine if I can grab it first.

I will tell you a very scary story.
A few years ago I went off to the local supermarket to buy my can of Orange Rolls...and there were none to be found! Not even a label on the shelf. The slack jawed store employee had no idea why. So, I went to another store...and no, they had none either!! The niece and I scoured every store in the area..and went far afield to search other areas. Not a Pillsbury Orange Roll to be found. Oh, the tragedy, oh, the dilemma. Christmas would be ruined! Was there some sort of nationwide Orange Rolls shortage, maybe caused by one of those freak Florida frosts?

Now, some of you might say, "Well, you could have baked something." True, I guess that I could have, but honestly the thought never entered my mind. First, I am scared of yeast. Second, it is all about hitting the tube on the edge of the counter, taking the lid off the little can of icing. It is TRADITION!

So, I bought a can of Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls and topped them with my own orange icing, a simple mix of fresh orange juice and powered sugar. You will notice from the can in the picture above that they say they have Cinnabon cinnamon in them now. That is not something I remember from my childhood. Maybe it was so. Or is someone fooling with my Orange Rolls? But regardless, at the time I thought it was a clever solution.
And to tell you the truth, they may have been better than the original. The icing was for sure.

But the next year, the Orange Rolls were back in the store and I went back to the old favorite. Just because.
Christmas is about traditions, even if they don't make a lot of sense.

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This is my contribution this to this week's Weekend Cooking.
"Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend."
Be sure to check out the other entries this week. As always, hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

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