Baking With Julia- Sticky buns Sans Pecans

sticky buns, a photo by Teckelcar on Flickr.

This week's challenge on Baking with Julia was Pecan Sticky buns. To get the full recipe (What, you haven't gotten the book yet?) head on over to either Eat Drink Man Woman Dogs Cat or Cookies on Friday.

I felt kind of bad blowing off the last challenge, Hungarian Shortbread. I just plain forgot, that an the unavailability of rhubarb this time of year. I am going to make it sometime this week, but with strawberries instead of the elusive rhubarb. So I vowed to be sure to make the pecan sticky buns for this week.

Which I did, sort of.

Instead of the full on pecan sticky buns I ended up making just sticky buns. I knew the kids wouldn't like the nuts and since they would be eating the bulk of the buns I thought it would be best to just give the pecans a miss.

Despite the lack of pecan goodness, they were glorious.

I ended up freezing half of the batch, it is a very rich treat and I wanted us to be able to savor them and not be overloaded. I started the brioche Saturday night and baked the rolls Sunday morning as a nice Mother's day treat for myself.

My only major complaint was all of the time spent rising, re-rising, and rising yet again. I employed my favorite cheat and set the rising dough in a warm oven. I just set it at 150, allow to warm, and then turn off the oven. My dough ended up rising in just a quarter of the time. I learned this from growing up in a cold house in northern New England. It's a good technique and the dough was just dandy.

I think these were worth making, but just for special occasions, it was pretty labor and butter intensive.