Cinnamon Snails

Whenever my mum and I get together for a little mother-daughter baking sesh’, we can’t help but reminisce on all of our past baking expeditions. It’s so much fun for us to remember all of the Lazy Saturdays, Sunday afternoons, Christmas mornings, and after-school evenings we spent cramped together in our tiny –albeit very dysfunctional – kitchen, baking up a storm and laughing the time away.

We shared so many special moments in that kitchen, so nowadays whenever we get to spend precious time together in her kitchen, it’s hard for all of them to not come rushing back to us. Like the time our broken oven door collapsed on my moms arm just as she was pulling a bubbling homemade blueberry pie out of the oven, which subsequently let her to drop the pie flat on the floor? (okay – so this is funny to think about now, but at the time it was just plain devastating) Or how about the time we tried to make a model of Neptune for my science project out of homemade blue Rice Krispie squares and ended up absolutely covering the kitchen. (and ourselves) in blue, sticky, marshmallowy mess? By the end of this Neptune, Rice Krispie debacle we were laughing so hard at ourselves we could barely stand.

As our time together in her kitchen grows less and less frequent due to our diverging schedules, we always make sure to basque in the memories whenever we do get the chance to bake together these days. However, I think these next few months are going to be particularly full of baking nostalgia because my parents recently sold my childhood home, and come January 2016, they will be officially moved out and we will no longer be baking in her old little kitchen. I know it seems silly to have such an emotional attachment to something like a dysfunctional kitchen, but that cramped little kitchen is home to some of the memories that I cherish the most about my childhood. I would be totally lying if I said I wasn’t completely heartbroken that we will now have to say goodbye to our little kitchen – it’s not going to be an easy goodbye for my mum and I.

All of that sadness aside, I do have to say that I couldn’t be happier that my parents will finally be moving into the most gorgeous house, which they have been dreaming about for years and years now. So even though they are sad to be leaving the house that they turned into our family home over the past 25 years, they are super excited to be taking the next steps into the land of empty-nester freedom. So despite my claims to immense sadness over losing my childhood home – I am very, very happy for them. If there was ever a couple of parents who deserved to have a brand new dream house, it would be my wonderful parents. They sacrificed so much to give us the most wonderful childhood, so they deserve to have whatever they want as far as I’m concerned.

Not to mention said house is actually just a few blocks up from where Cole and I live, which would mean I will be once again living just a few minutes away from my loving parents – which for me, is seriously exciting. I know some of you must be thinking that I am some sort of crazy person for wanting to live exceptionally close to  my parents even though I only just left the comfort of their next a few short years ago, but I really couldn’t be more excited for them to be closer to us.

So where exactly am I going with this long winded story? Well, recently when my mum and I were baking a strawberry cream pie for one of our Sunday family dinners, we found ourselves with a handful of pie dough scraps, that we didn’t have any particular use for, and we couldn’t help but be reminded of  past pie baking en devours that led also to leftover pie dough scraps.

My mom was never a woman to waste anything – and you certainly wouldn’t catch her wasting perfectly good pieces of leftover pie dough. So when we were kids, she would mix together some butter, brown sugar and a little cinnamon in a bowl, spread the cinnamon sugar mixture over the pie dough scraps and roll them to create these little cheater cinnamon buns – or “Cinnamon Snails” as she called them.

We would bake them in the oven, until they were crisp and golden, and they would be the most delicious little bite-sized pre-pie snack ever. I swear, half the time we were more excited for the Cinnamon Snails, than we were for the actual pie itself. There was just something so precious and special about those darn Cinnamon Snails.

So we couldn’t resist rolling up a few with our pie dough scraps the other day, and I really wanted to share them with you all because they really are such a special little treat that anyone can share with their little ones. They really are as simple as they sound to make, but I put a little recipe here just in case you need some direction.

I hope you and your family enjoy these as much as we always did and I would also like to pose a question to those of you living in the Vancouver / tri-city area. Would any of you be up for some little mother-daughter themed baking classes? If so, please let me know, because I have been pondering on this idea for a while and am really interested to know if this would be something that would actually spark your interest.

Until next time… Happy Baking!

KP xoxo

Cinnamon Snails
Makes: 6-8 snails

Things you need… 
6-8 Pie Scrap pieces (anywhere between 1-2 inches wide)
1/4 cup butter, room temp
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg

Egg wash (if you have)

How to make…
Preheat oven to 375 degrees & line a baking sheet with some parchment paper; set aside.

In a small bowl, mix together butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg into a thick paste.

If your pie scraps are large enough to create individual cinnamon snails already, just leave them as is – however, if your pie scraps are smaller than 1 inch wide and not long enough to role, stack your pie dough scraps, one on top of the other and gently pat together to combine and use a rolling pin to roll the dough out to about 1/4 inch thickness.

Spread the filling evenly on top of your pie scraps leaving 1/2 inch border at the bottom. Roll the dough up jelly roll style (like you would for cinnamon buns) and gently pinch the end together to seal. Brush them with any left over egg wash and dust with sugar.

Depending on how large your snails are, you will bake them in the preheated oven for anywhere between 15-25 minutes or until they are golden brown and the filling is bubbling. Remove from oven and allow to cool for a couple minutes before eating.

We usually couldn’t wait to eat these little guys and pretty much always gobbled them up once they were cool enough to touch without burning our tongues, but while they were still warm from the oven.