Pennsylvania · Breakfast
Sticky Buns
- Advanced
- 3 h 30 m
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with a sweet edge rounding the corners, richness that coats and comforts, fading in warm spice.
Ingredients
- For the dough: 500g flour, 7g instant yeast, 50g sugar, 1 tsp salt, 240ml warm milk, 2 eggs, 85g butter softened
- For the goo: 170g butter, 220g brown sugar, 120ml honey or corn syrup, 1/2 tsp salt, 200g pecan halves
- For the filling: 85g butter softened, 165g brown sugar, 2 tbsp cinnamon
Equipment
Sheet pan · Rolling pin
The skills inside
Sugar stages & caramelKneading doughProofing: the rise before the oven
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg · nuts
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Knead the dough ingredients 10 min to a soft, smooth dough; rise 90 min until doubled. 10 min
- Melt the goo ingredients together and pour into a 23x33cm pan; scatter the pecans over.
- Roll the dough to a 40x50cm rectangle, spread with the filling butter and cinnamon sugar, and roll up tightly from the long side.
- Cut into 12 and set cut-side up on the goo. Rise 45 min until puffed. 45 min
- Bake at 180C for 30-35 min until deep gold. Rest exactly 5 min, then invert onto a tray: any longer and the caramel sets in the pan. 35 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Sugar stages & caramel 53 recipes
- Nothing is stirred once it is boiling, and any crystals clinging to the side of the pan are brushed down rather than left to fall in.
- Judged by temperature or by a tested stage rather than by time: consecutive stages are a few degrees apart and look identical in the pan.
- Colour is read off the heat and in good light, remembering that sugar keeps darkening after the flame is out.
- Stopped decisively at the point wanted: off the heat and into the next liquid or onto a cold surface, rather than left to coast in a hot pan.
- The result is clear and smooth rather than grainy, cloudy, or seized into a solid mass.
Where it goes wrong It was stirred after coming to the boil, or a stray crystal from the side of the pan fell back in. One crystal seeds the whole pan and the syrup turns grainy within seconds, and once sugar has crystallised the only cure is more water and starting the whole thing again.
Kneading dough 57 recipes
- The work changed it: what began shaggy and rough is one smooth, cohesive mass, with nothing raggy hanging off it.
- The surface has gone satin and barely tacky, releasing cleanly from hands and board instead of leaving a trail.
- Worked to the point this dough asks for and no further: springy and elastic where structure is wanted, just brought together where tenderness is.
- Torn or cut open, the inside is uniform: no dry streaks, no unmixed pockets, no core of flour that never met the water.
- After its rest it rolls and shapes without snapping back. A dough that fights the pin needed more rest, not more force.
Where it goes wrong Sticking was fought with flour instead of technique or patience, stroke after stroke, until the dough had taken in far more than the formula asked; it turns tight and dry under the hands, and bakes dense however well everything else goes.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Mimosa (weekends only)
- Also Right
- Cava, straight
- From the Taps
- -
- Zero-Proof
- Fresh orange juice & café au lait
Morning food wants brightness and bubbles, or honest coffee: nothing that argues before noon.
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