Thursday, January 22, 2009

Barefoot Bloggers: Easy Sticky Buns


This week on Barefoot Bloggers, we made Ina Garten's Easy Sticky Buns, as chosen by Melissa of Made by Melissa. This recipe was so fun, and so easy, and so tasty, I'm surprised it never occurred to me to try it before. This recipe and method is a natural for any kind of breakfast pastry. I can easily see substituting dried cherries and crushed almonds for Cherry Almond Pastry, or perhaps Maple Butter and Pecans. The varieties you can use are numerous.

As with all Ina Garten recipe, butter figures prominently. I didn't follow any of the recommendations for amounts. Because the *base* for this recipe is puff pastry, which by itself is quite fatty enough, I just used the *idea* of her recipe, and adapted accordingly as I went along, using far less butter.

These rolls were superb! I was particularly happy that the butter melded with the dough to create a more traditional feeling dough, rather than a shattery-flakey roll that disentigrates when you bite it. These held together nicely. It would be very easy to make these rolls, cut, and freeze the cut rounds for baking off on rushed mornings.

Butter and brown sugar is combined to make a loose slurry.

A dollop of the sugar butter is placed in the well of a cupcake tin. I only used six wells, because I only used one square sheet of pastry from Trader Joe's. Pecans are sprinkled over the dollops of sugar butter, and the pan is then set aside.

One sheet of puff pastry is spread thinly with melted butter, onto which cinnamon and sugar are sprinkled. I also added a bit more brown sugar, as well as more pecans.

The pastry is rolled up, jelly roll style, to make a log.


Ina's recipe calls for cutting off the ends and discarding them. How silly and wasteful is that? (said in her own style). Puff pastry melts, spreads and puffs, so trimming uneven ends is completely unnecessary. Cut the log into six equal pieces.


Place one roll on each dollop of sugar butter, in the cupcake pan. Bake for 30 minutes until the roll are well browned and caramelized.
Cool for a few minutes, and turn the rolls out onto a sheet pan lined with parchment. Serve while still warm.


Devour!

About this challenge: The Barefoot Bloggers join forces and cook or bake recipes by Barefoot Contessa Ina Garten each month, chosen in order by members, and present them for discussion on two Thursdays each month. Hungry? Please join us at the table!

13 comments:

  1. Oh, drool. Is there anything better than a delicious homemade sticky bun?

    I think not!

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  2. Kate these look fantastic! What a nice looking recipe. We are so cold here that something like this would be perfect with coffee or tea!

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  3. Yours look great. Did not know TJ's sold puff pastry dough but thanks for the info. I will get some next time I'm there.

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  4. Yummy.

    This was just so simple, so easy, and so tasty.

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  5. Weren't these just delicious? Love your photos! Great job.

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  6. thank you for giving me the almond idea. I loved the ease of this recipe.

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  7. So glad you liked this recipe! You are right on about the infinite possibilites you could make with this basic recipe.

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  8. these look fabulous. beautiful pictures!

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  9. ooh, that almond and cherry idea is a good one. love your process pictures, i wish i could do that but my lighting in the kitchen is just horrendous.

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  10. Oh Karen, I share your pain. I live in a big open loft type structure and at night, the ilghting is just HORRIBLE because it's up on the ceiling 18 feet away, and all my task-level lighting is too hard, or too yellow. The problems go on and on. I've tried light boxes without much success. I'm just not a photographer. With these photos, which I'm glad you like, I just admit I use Picasa (Google's image program). I upload from my camera, click on the photo, and click on the "fix it for me" button, which tends to do its own thing -- lighten or sharpen it adequately to upload. Were it not for that, my photos would be even worse!

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  11. Yours look fabulous. I especially love your top photo. Makes me want more!

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