Last night we used our Saturday night food experiment to revisit last weekend's sticky bun nightmare. During the week in between I got a tried and true recipe from the mother of a friend, and used that to make our dough (using all-purpose flour only).









SWEET YEAST DOUGH

2pk (1/4 oz. each) active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
3 Eggs
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup buttermilk or sour milk
1/2 cup melted butter or vegetable oil
3 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup wheat germ

Note: All-purpose flour can be substituted for wheat flour and germ, in roughly the same quantity--then you can skip the step of combining them in a separate bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water in a small bowl, stir, and let stand until soft, about 5 minutes. Reserve.

In a large bowl, combine eggs, sugar, salt, baking soda, buttermilk, and butter, and beat till smooth. Stir in reserved yeast. In a separate bowl, combine the flours and wheat germ. Then add 3 cups of the dry mixture to the wet ingredients, beating until well blended. Add 2 more cups of the dry ingredients and beat until the dough just holds together. Turn out onto a lightly floured board and knead for 1 minute. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes. Knead the dough again, sprinkling on the remainder of the flour mixture as needed, until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turn, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place until about doubled in bulk, about 60 minutes.

From this point on, we finished using Bobby Flay's filling and sticky bun goo, but that only accounted for half of the dough. The awesome thing about this dough recipe is that its versatile enough to make cinnamon rolls or sticky buns, you just need to decide for yourself how you finish once the dough has risen and has been rolled out.

These buns sticky buns are cartoonishly large, to the point that you might suspect they'd been stolen by a cartoon character from a window sill in the deep south. This recipe makes 12 rolls, so we used six last night to make sticky buns and saved six for Monday morning to make cinnamon rolls. All we'll need for that is to bake the rolls, take some softened cream cheese and mix it with a small amount of milk and confectioner's sugar to make a topping.

Thank you Rebecca and thank you Cindy for helping me out on this.

(By the way, here is the rest of that recipe:)

Punch the risen dough down and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll out into a 15x24-inch rectangle about 1/2-inch thick. Sprinkle the reserved filling over the dough, gently pressing the mixture into the dough with your fingers. Beginning with the short end, roll the dough up like a jelly roll. Slice crosswise into 12 equal pieces. Place the slices, cut side down and barely touching each other, on top of the glaze in the pan. Cover, and let rise in a warm place until puffy and almost doubled in bulk, about 25 minutes. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Bake the buns until golden brown on top, 25-30 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool in the pan to set the glaze, about 5 minutes. Invert onto a serving tray or another baking sheet and allow the glaze to dribble down the sides. Pull apart and serve warm.

CURRANT-PECAN FILLING FOR STICKY BUNS

1 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup dried currants
3/4 cup finely chopped pecans

combine all in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Reserve.

STICKY PECAN GLAZE FOR STICKY BUNS

1 cup butter, softened
1 3/4 cup [acked brown sugar
1/4 cup dark corn syrup
3/4 cup small pecan halves or coarsely chopped pecans