Cinnamon-Sugar Pull Apart Bread
I don’t have much to report, food-wise, this particular weekend. Friday we ate pizza. Saturday night we ate braised pulled pork sandwiches (made smoky with smoked paprika in the spice rub) and rented a movie. Halfway through said movie Lou expressed particular interest in going outside to investigate whatever was scurrying around under our back deck. Yes, it was a skunk. Yes, he bolted back inside, leaving the skunk to continue defending itself directly outside our sliding glass doors, which yes do open directly into the dining room/living room/kitchen of our small house. Yes, our niece ran out the front door with a pillow over her face.
Now, if you have not yet experienced direct, unadulterated, undiffused skunk spray, it’s nothing like the cloud of rotten egg smell you may have driven through on the highway, when everyone unanimously goes ew! a skunk! and plugs their noses and rolls up their windows. No. In its pure, straight-from-the-skunk form, it’s a smell of burning tires with the acridity of onions that crawls down your throat and into your eyes, and seeps into anything in its path that will hold onto smell. Including glass and stainless steel.
And so it came to be that at midnight I wrestled a reluctant 100 lb dog into the shower to wash him with dishsoap and vinegar, then drove to the late-night drugstore in a PigPenlike cloud of skunk to buy hydrogen peroxide (vet advice: mix with baking soda + dishsoap for dog cure) and extra-strength Febreeze. (Tomato juice, it turns out, is a myth. Thankfully, as I’m not sure I’m prepared to buy several dozen gallons of it to then bathe a large dog in. After seeing what Lou + water did to the bathroom, I can’t imagine what Lou + tomato juice would do.)
Have you smelled wet dog? How about skunked wet dog? Word on the street is we’ll have to now keep him out of the rain for, like, ever.
Today, the house smells of truck stop bathroom (all that Febreeze) with notes of skunk and vinegar. (So do we.) And so I baked a cinnamon pull-apart bread – what else could I do? – to offset the smell. It’s something I made last week that for some reason smelled more divine as it baked than cinnamon buns or scones or even a fully stuffed turkey. Nevermind incense or potpourri – I needed to bring out the big guns. It helped, and the warm cinnamon-sugar bread was a good consolation prize for those of us kept up all night by a smelly dog whining to go outside and play with his new BFF again. (Lesson not learned.)
Because I posted the over at the Family Kitchen I can’t post it here, but I thought you should know about it. It’s worth a click.
June 26 2011 04:12 pm | bread and Family Kitchen
Ali on 26 Jun 2011 at 4:24 pm #
I’ve seen this recipe going around on the blogs and it always turns out so beautiful! Wonderful picture, it looks like a delicious bread for breakfast or dessert.
Anonymous on 26 Jun 2011 at 5:09 pm #
Julie — I felt so awful for you all when I read your Tweets last night. And while this bread sounds divine I doubt it really was much consolation. Hope the smell dissipates quickly. Along with Lou’s fondness for Mr. Skunk.
suchalab on 26 Jun 2011 at 5:29 pm #
Julie, I feel for you. I know that smell first hand and it is so different than the dead-by-the-side of the road smell! Our dog met the neighbourhood skunk face on in our hedge last August. The smell does go away(recommend another bath or two in the solution if you can manage it) tho you are right, when it rains and the dog is wet, you’ll smell it a bit
Erin K. on 26 Jun 2011 at 5:37 pm #
Looks amazing! What a beautiful loaf to make when having company for brunch!
Sorry to hear about the skunk situation-how frustrating! Wish I had some great advice for you, but all I can say is best of luck!
Jen Sorenson on 26 Jun 2011 at 5:50 pm #
This post made me giggle as I envisioned and en-olfactory-ened the horror. I think I will make that bread too.
Carolyn on 26 Jun 2011 at 6:58 pm #
I read this out loud to my spouse, and we both giggled. You’ve painted quite the picture and smell with this…. thanks so much! Someone at work came into the office after her dog had been sprayed with a skunk the day before. We ended up having to have the office carpets cleaned because we couldn’t get rid of the smell!
Kathryn on 26 Jun 2011 at 8:16 pm #
Oh yes. I know that smell. On a hot afternoon after Grade 4, as we rounded the corner of the house, the dog ran in front of me and cornered a trapped skunk. We both were sprayed and in my panic, I LET THE DOG IN THE HOUSE. He spent the next little while racing wildly around my mother’s living room, scooting his face along the carpet and on all the upholstered furniture, down the carpeted hallway, and of course on all the beds, trying to scrub the skunk juice from his eyes. We could not let him back out as the skunk continued to loiter around our yard. I think we managed to corral the dog in the bathroom.
We had friends over, so my poor Mom loaded all four of us up and we went downtown to the OK Economy to purchase about 4 gigantic tins of tomato juice. I think she phoned the home economist for advice. I’ll never forget the hot stink of wet dog and tomato juice as we helped her rinse the dog as he stood in our old baby bathtub on the picnic table outside.
White dog + tomato juice = pink stinky dog
lovetocook on 26 Jun 2011 at 8:47 pm #
Even with a good nights sleep I don’t make cinnamon bread or buns. You are amazing. But then I don’t have Lucky Lou either…
Lauren O. on 26 Jun 2011 at 9:22 pm #
A few years ago we had a skunk trapped in our backyard (he tried to become a resident of our garden shed, so we had him live-trapped and relocated). The guy who trapped him ended up getting sprayed and said not to worry it happens all the time – he just has a shower and uses a little Mr. Clean to scrub himself off, and adds some to the washer for his clothes. We tried it a little while ago on our dog and it worked GREAT. Just in case you still need a solution …
Anonymous on 26 Jun 2011 at 9:53 pm #
Our dog has gotten skunked twice in the last two months, the second time last week. This time we were smart enough not to let the dog back in the house until we’d bathed her. But even so, we got the most intense and horrible odor inside – like burning electrical equipment – and it takes hours to dissipate.
Julie on 27 Jun 2011 at 12:48 pm #
Oh my goodness….wet skunk dog! Can’t even imagine. You definitely deserved this delicious looking bread
Kristy on 27 Jun 2011 at 4:41 pm #
my dog never learns his lesson either and will go after skunks when ever given the chance. time is the only thing that will get the smell away. good luck and thanks or the story.
Merry120 on 27 Jun 2011 at 10:53 pm #
This post made me laugh. I won’t tell Dewey about it though because he will say it is one more reason we can’t have a dog….and I want a dog!
Jennifer on 28 Jun 2011 at 6:58 am #
Two stories re: skunk. First, we had a skunk family living under our house (this was when we lived in the South during hot summer months). Each time the air conditioner came on, they all started spraying, stinking up the place to no end. We had to have professionals come in and take the critters out and then had to basically wash the entire house from top to bottom, clothing included. A. Stinking. Mess.
Second story, a male friend of mine used to roam the back woods as a child with his friends on bicycles (imagine that, kids outside). This one particular day, his friends were playing “war” or some such nonsense and as he was trying to dive away from his stone-throwing friends, he landed right at the rear end of a skunk. He jumped to his feet to run away yet, his speed was no match for that of a frightened skunk. As most skunks have fiercely accurate aim, my friend got it right in the chest. His mother made him sleep in a tent in the back yard that night, even after his 10 tomato juice baths.
Manon from Ontario on 29 Jun 2011 at 8:39 am #
That looks way too fancy for moi!
But I have the same problem with my dog Bella, and she’s going on 11….never learns!
MFO
Joan Murray on 29 Jun 2011 at 7:41 pm #
The smell of warm cinnamon is a powerful air cleaner. Whenever I cook fish, I also take my big saucepan half full with water, add several cinnamon sticks, a big handful of cloves, bring to a boil, and walk around the house with the steaming wonderful smelling water. It helps immensely, so I’m not surprised it helped with the residual skunk smell.
Nisha on 01 Jul 2011 at 10:15 pm #
This looks like it would be a fun treat for the kids!