Cinnamon swirls

I made some cinnamon swirls yesterday, after seeing Bakerella's post on them from last year. (The original recipe is from Pioneer Woman). Needless to say mine were not very much like either of those talented ladies'. 

I never cooked milk and oil before and it looked pretty odd to start with, check out the bubbles of milk under the oil:

But once it was hot it looked a bit better. If a little bit weird.

Next is what it looked like after the addition of flour, but before the rising. And it rose really, really well, which was good, because my baking is normally quite flat. Obviously a whole packet of yeast is the way to go!

I haven't got any photos of the next few stages because once I got the dough out of the pan, it became obvious to me that what I had made was not in fact dough but glue. It stuck to everything. It's still stuck to my worktop in places now. So I didn't want to get my camera near it! But once they were done, the 'swirls' looked like this:

See what I mean? Not great. I was going to give Ed some to take into work, but I'm actually too embarrassed to. 

Their saving grace is that they taste awesome. This probably shouldn't be too much of a shock given all the goodies that went into them (I added some leftover choc chips for extra yumminess), but still. Yum yum yum. I'm slightly ashamed to say that I have eaten five - four as is and one re-warmed in the microwave with vanilla ice cream on, which if you can imagine it, was even yummier.

These were fiddly to make and took me most of the day, so I don't think they'll become regulars in my kitchen. But they were certainly worth the effort this time!