Cinnamon girl knows how to roll

The first thing that I had to understand was that this was pretty much just a test run.

I mean, when I first saw her post on Facebook a couple weeks ago announcing that she was back making cinnamon rolls to sell as special orders, I could hardly contain myself.

"Hmmm," I said to me. "Not a good time to be on a diet. I wonder if she'll come back to the Farmers' Market?"

Not so fast, Bucky.

Pam Spach sells me a dozen of her cinnamon rolls.

 "Not at this time," said Pam Spach, whose baked goods business, "'Tis So Sweet," was nearly legendary at the Farmers' Market (located in the restored railroad freight depot in Lexington) more than half a decade ago. Especially her cinnamon rolls, which just might be the best anywhere on the planet. Maybe even in the solar system. They are that good.

"But I am thinking about it," said Pam. "I went to the Farmers' Market on opening day this year to shop, and after being gone five years, I don't know how many people came up to me and said 'We miss you. We miss your cinnamon rolls.'"

Pam got out of the baking business after several years because it was getting to be too much like work and not enough like fun. Not only was she making cinnamon rolls, but breads, cookies, cakes, pies — the whole gamut. The baking was bumping heads with raising a young family, so she unloaded all her commercial kitchen supplies and became a fulltime teacher/tutor at Union Grove Christian School.

Then, earlier this year, her son volunteered her to make cinnamon rolls as part of a bake sale to help a fifth-grade classmate who is fighting cancer.

Turns out, the cinnamon rolls sold like hotcakes (so to speak).

"People started talking about them (the cinnamon rolls), saying 'Please, please, please come back,'" said Pam. "I said, 'Fine. How much will you pay?' So I decided to see what happens."

That's pretty much where we are right now. So far, Pam has been baking 20 to 24 dozen cinnamon rolls to sell as special order each Friday. It takes her about 10 hours of labor to make that many, and she sells them for $20 a dozen. She's currently lining up customers for the next four Fridays through July.

"Sometimes I think about the people I'm baking for," said Pam, "and what they're going to do with the cinnamon rolls. Are they gifts? Are they for birthdays? For neighbors, or for church? For somebody who is not feeling well?"

She is caught somewhat off guard by how much she enjoys being back in the baking business.

"I am a little surprised," said Pam. "I love what I do. I love pleasing people with the cinnamon rolls. I'm just amazed that after all these years people are still so excited about it."

So there is hope that she'll return to the Market one of these days. Only this time, it'll be exclusively cinnamon rolls.

And that will be more than enough.

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Interested in putting in an order? You can contact Pam at pamspach@gmail.com