Pecan Honey Sticky Buns

Time for another Tuesdays with Dorie recipe! This week's recipe was Dorie Greenspan's Pecan Honey Sticky Buns, using brioche as the dough.

The making of the brioche did scare me a bit. Even with a professional KitchenAid stand mixer, I could hear that it was struggling to get everything kneaded together nicely. I'll take the advice of some of the other bakers and make the brioche by hand next time - I'll just sit down in front of the TV with a pound of butter next to me and slowly work it together (that sounds so fatty). The recipe for the Pecan Honey Sticky Buns calls for half of Dorie's brioche recipe, so I had to figure out something else to do with the other half. Earlier last week, I took half the dough that I had made and decided to play catch-up with the group, making some Brioche Raisin Snails.

After rolling out the dough, layering on the butter and cinnamon-sugar mix, rolling it all up and slicing it, my buns looked tiny. I was hopeful that they'd rise up and spread, but my baking tray was larger than suggested so I knew they wouldn't fill the pan. After warming them up a bit in the oven to get a quick rise out of them, I was a little more hopeful, but they still looked smaller than I was expecting.

Fast forward a half an hour of baking, and voila, sticky buns. As mentioned, my pan was larger than suggested, so not only did my buns not spread into each other, but the glaze didn't bubble up through everything.

As can be seen in the picture above, the glaze really did try to make an attempt at getting up...it tried bubbling its way, but just couldn't make it. Still, it didn't affect the buns too badly - they still came out nicely on the inside, pleasantly moist. I let the mass cool for about a minute before putting a piece of parchment paper on top, followed by a half-sized sheet pan, and inverting it all so the pecans would fall on top. Or rather, that was the idea. Since everything was loosely packed together (again, because the pan was too large), everything sort of fell all over the place, and the pecans all fell back underneath the buns. Simple solution is that I just spoon on some of the pecans when I'm serving it.

This is one I'll have to make next time I have a reason to put together a fancy breakfast. I'll either force myself to go out and get the right sized pan, or multiply the recipe by one and a half so I fill up the pan that I already have.

Recipe: Baking: From My Home to Yours, Dorie Greenspan, pp. 51 - 53.