I stumbled across this recipe last Easter, posted on one of my favorite blogs. If you're into food and recipes, you've probably heard of her: The Pioneer Woman.

I know, the name sounds a bit…country, but seriously, everything she posts is amazing! There hasn't been a single recipe that I've tried from her that I haven't liked. Granted, most of the recipes I've tried involve mass amounts of butter, sugar and all things magical and amazing.

These were something new, though. I should've sensed trouble when I saw that the prep time was listed at "2 hours". However, I ignored all of my instincts, drooled over the pictures, wrote down a list and bought the ingredients.

All I can say is this: baking yeast breads will definitely test your patience.

There's a lot of sitting around waiting for things to cool down, or rise, and rise again. Luckily, there's an app for that. Or rather, a TV show.

Outside of the waiting, there's not a lot to do. It's actually pretty simple!

First, you bring the milk, oil and sugar to an almost-boil. Once I see the thing bubble even just a teensy bit, I turn off the heat and stir it around. Trust me, watching for bubbles is a safer way to test the heat than sticking your finger in.

In fancy cooking terms, this process is called scalding the milk. Back in the day, they did this to kill bacteria and enzymes (which is now accomplished during pasteurization), these days, it's mostly used to encourage the growth of yeast.

Once the milk is scalded, patience test number one: let cool until warm. Warm like you can stick your finger in it, but not "cool" to the touch at all. This took almost an hour for me, but I doubled the batch, so you can expect a nice 30 minute break.

Next up, sprinkle the yeast over the mixture and add some flour. Mix it all up, you'll be left with a suuuuper sticky and thick oatmeal-looking dough.

Here's where patience kicks in again. Cover it with a towel and let it sit for at least an hour. Wait for the magic to happen! My dough practically doubled in size!

Then add in more flour, and the baking soda, salt and baking powder. Mix it up, roll up your sleeves, and get your bread making arms ready!

First, stir the sugar and cinnamon together, then lightly flour your surface. You're going to flatten out your dough, sprinkle a teaspoon of the sugar mixture and a third of the raisins on it, then fold in half and do it two more times.

Now the fun part, I pinched off portions of the dough and formed balls using the "mochi making method". You know, fold the edges under and pinch them together, so the top is nice and smooth!

Put the dough on lightly buttered cookie sheet, cover with a towel and bust out your ipad. Another hour of waiting!

These are worth it, I promise.

You also want to make sure that they're in a warm place to rise. Since we're in Hawaii, it's not really a problem, but if you're somewhere chilly, you might want to try the Pioneer Woman's method: heating up a griddle, turning it off, covering it with tea towels and then putting the covered baking sheet on the warm towels.

An hour later, brush each bun with a mixture of 1 egg white and a splash of milk. It'll help with the browning process.

Bake until golden.

The final step: frosting! I used cookie frosting that I had in my cabinet. I woke up at 6am to bake these guys and I didn't have enough time to make icing from scratch. If you're into that, though, I've included the recipe below.

Just be sure to wait until the buns are completely cooled! Or you'll have icing running all over the place!

It may not be Easter, but these lightly sweet buns are delicious any time of year! I brought them into the office and they vanished in record time!

Recipe as adapted from The Pioneer Woman:

Buns

• 2 cups Whole Milk
• ½ cups Canola Oil
• ½ cups Sugar
• 1 package (2 1/4 Teaspoons) Active Dry Yeast
• 4 cups All-purpose Flour
• ½ cups (additional) Flour
• ½ teaspoons (heaping) Baking Powder
• ½ teaspoons (scant) Baking Soda
• 2 teaspoons Salt
• ¼ cups Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
• Spices: Cardamom, Nutmeg, Allspice (optional)
• ½ cups Raisins

Glaze

• 1 whole Egg White
• Splash Of Milk

Icing

• 1 whole Egg White
• Powdered Sugar
• Splash Of Milk

Instructions:

1. Combine milk, canola oil, and 1/2 cup sugar in a saucepan. Scald by heating until very warm, but not boiling. Turn off heat and allow to cool until mixture is warm.
    
2. Sprinkle yeast over mixture and add 4 cups of flour. Combine and cover with a towel, let rise for approximately 1 hour.
    
3. Add 1/2 cup flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir until combined and press dough out on a lightly floured surface.
    
4. Sprinkle about 1/3 of the raisins and a teaspoon of the cinnamon sugar onto the dough. Fold over on itself and flatten again. Repeat twice.
    
5. Pinch of ping pong sized balls of dough and roll into a ball, tucking edges under themselves.
    
6. Place on a lightly greased cookie sheet and let rise another hour or more.
    
7. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
    
8. Mix 1 egg white with a splash of milk and bursh onto the rolls.
    
9. Bake for about 20 minutes, until buns are golden brown.
    
10. Let buns cool completely before icing.
     
11. Optional: Icing: Mix 1 egg white with enough powdered sugar to make a thick icing. Splash milk as needed for consistency. Squeeze crosses onto buns using a plastic bag with the end snipped off.
    

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