Huge cinnamon roll comforts UNC Hospitals patients, families at ‘home away from home’
At 3 feet across and roughly 35 pounds, it’s not the world’s biggest cinnamon roll ever made, but it might be the biggest in North Carolina, baker Donna Fehrenbach said.
If she’s proven wrong, she said at the SECU Family House in Chapel Hill, “I’d cross off ‘biggest,’ and I’d put ‘second biggest.’
And if another person did that, I’d cross that off and put ‘third biggest,’ and then I’d put ‘a really big bun,’ which I think would even be funnier.”
That was her goal: to bring a little fun and laughter into the lives of the UNC patients and their families staying at Family House on Old Mason Farm Road. National Cinnamon Roll Day — Oct. 4 — seemed like the best time to try something new.
About half of the pastry was gone when Cheryl Laughter and her husband, Don McNair, stopped by to see it. McNair, who just had surgery at UNC Hospitals related to his prostate cancer, briefly chatted with the volunteers but declined a treat.
“I’m afraid I’ll get diabetes just from looking at it,” he joked.
“I would love to eat it, but you’d be picking me off the floor,” his wife said.
The couple is staying at Family House a little longer after leaving their Asheville home Sept. 26 to avoid driving in Helene’s tropical storm winds. Laughter said she’s concerned about taking her husband home before there’s clean water and food available.
Water was already pooling Thursday in the basement utility room of their home, which sits on a hill and gets enough runoff when it rains that they installed a drainage system some years ago.
The storm knocked out the power, but a neighbor who checked on their house found the sump pump still working on its 24-hour battery backup, Laughter said. They’re not sure what they’ll find when they get back, she said.
“It’s heartbreaking to think about people that you don’t know” who are dead or are suffering after Helene, Laughter said. “You just can’t believe it. You couldn’t even make it up.”
Made with love, and butter and sugar
Fehrenbach, 79, has been a volunteer at Family House for 10 years, showing up every Tuesday with her sidekick Colette File and other volunteers to bake homemade bread and sweet treats.
Friday’s creation started with a week of figuring, measuring and sampling to get the recipe just right, Fehrenbach said.
On Tuesday, she perfected the cream-cheese frosting, and on Thursday, they made about 30 pounds of dough in their home mixers, chilling it in the refrigerator overnight to develop the flavor.
Around 7 a.m. Friday, Fehrenbach and four other women gathered in the kitchen at nearby St. Thomas More Catholic Church to roll out the dough, top it with butter, sugar and cinnamon, and form the four quarters of the giant roll on large sheet pans.
Pulling each pan from the church’s industrial-size ovens, Fehrenbach expertly checked for doneness with a thermometer. The finished pastry, still warm, was hurried across the street to Family House and assembled on a wooden platter crafted by the maintenance staff.
As the last slathering of gooey, cream-cheese icing melted into the crevices, people gathered, smiling as they got a piece. Some came back for seconds, or to get slices for a friend.
While not the world’s largest — that honor goes to a bakery in Medford, Oregon, for a roll weighing 1,149 pounds — the Family House cinnamon roll had more love between the layers.
A ‘safe place’ for families in medical crisis
Since 2008, the nonprofit SECU Family House has sheltered over 35,000 families and UNC Hospitals patients. The average stay is just over five days, and families have full run of the house, which has 75 guest rooms and is supported primarily by donations.
About 1,300 volunteers provide labor, working the front desk, doing laundry and other chores, and cooking dinner for 60 to 70 people each night. The activities, entertainment, and arts and crafts are a distraction from their worries.
They are grateful for the encouragement, the smiles, the hugs, and the laughter, Laughter said. Family House has been their “home away from home” more than once.
“Particularly when you feel like you’re walking that terrible path of health care by yourself, and we know we’re not alone. We see people here every day that my heart goes out to them,” she said.
Like many other guests, Laughter said she enjoys joining the volunteers in the kitchen. Fehrenbach, whose cookbook, “Rolling in the Dough,” helps buy chocolate chips, pecans and other special ingredients, said the pecan sticky buns are very popular, but she prefers a fresh loaf of sourdough bread.
“There’s something about a kitchen, baking, smells,” she said. “They come down here. They roll out dough, and then they talk about what they’re going through.”
Family House was her “safe place” when her husband died in 2022, Fehrenbach said. She used to teach baking at Chapel Hill’s specialty food store, A Southern Season, and still holds classes in people’s homes.
“It’s my test kitchen,” she said. “We probably do something new just about every week — just a different filling, the holidays are coming, we make bread that looks like a pumpkin, a Christmas tree. I love to bake, and I live alone. Who am I going to bake for?”
“It gives me a sense of purpose and community, and I love that.”
How to get involved
▪ Donate: One-time or monthly donations support SECU Family House in Chapel Hill, Winston-Salem and Wilmington. Donations can be made online at secufamilyhouse.org/donate.
▪ Fill the wish list: Family House relies on pantry donations from corporate and community partners, and individuals. Find a wish list at Amazon.com and secufamilyhouse.org/support/wish-list
▪ Volunteer: Visit secufamilyhouse.org/get-involved for a list of individual and group opportunities.
▪ Meals from the Heart: Help make weeknight dinners for Family House guests. Learn more: secufamilyhouse.org/get-involved/prepare-a-meal.
This story was originally published October 5, 2024 at 8:00 AM.
