For our second Barefoot Bloggers recipe of January, Melissa of Made by Melissa picked Easy Sticky Buns, from Ina Garten's book Back to Basics, page 240. Thanks, Melissa! I love cinnamon rolls but was not really familiar with sticky buns. Here is the recipe...
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 cup pecans, chopped in very large pieces
1 package (17.3 ounces/2 sheets) frozen puff pastry, defrosted
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup raisins
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place a 12-cup standard muffin tin on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the 12 tablespoons butter and 1/3 cup brown sugar. Place 1 rounded tablespoon of the mixture in each of the 12 muffin cups. Distribute the pecans evenly among the 12 muffin cups on top of the butter and sugar mixture.
Lightly flour a wooden board or stone surface. Unfold one sheet of puff pastry with the folds going left to right. Brush the whole sheet with half of the melted butter. Leaving a 1-inch border on the puff pastry, sprinkle each sheet with 1/3 cup of the brown sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons of the cinnamon, and 1/2 cup of the raisins.
Starting with the end nearest you, roll the pastry up snugly like a jelly roll around the filling, finishing the roll with the seam side down.
Trim the ends of the roll about 1/2 inch and discard. Slice the roll in 6 equal pieces, each about 1 1/2 inches wide. Place each piece, spiral side up, in 6 of the muffin cups. Repeat with the second sheet of puff pastry to make 12 sticky buns.
Bake for 30 minutes, until the sticky buns are golden to dark brown on top and firm to the touch. Allow to cool for 5 minutes only, invert the buns onto the parchment paper (ease the filling and pecans out onto the buns with a spoon), and cool completely.
I decided to do a half batch of these since I wasn't sure how well they would go over at our house. I used my Baker's Secret jumbo muffin pan instead of a regular muffin pan to prevent any overflow. I dropped the baking temperature to 375 which I have found through trial and error works best when baking with puff pastry. At 400 it seems that the outside gets overly brown and the inside does not cook as well and is kind of gummy. At 350 it seems that the other components of the dish get overdone and the puff pastry never fully puffs up or gets golden brown. I flipped these out into a small glass baking dish right after taking them out of the oven, I was a little nervous about them sticking if I had let them cool in the pan even for 5 minutes.
These were a fun pick and were indeed easy and sticky, but I hate to say it, I think I've had too much puff pastry lately! Is that possible? The kids liked them but were more interested in picking out the raisins and pecans and just eating those, while leaving the puff pastry behind. I am a huge fan of pillowy soft cinnamon rolls and after having this puff pastry version, I am feeling the need to make a batch of my favorite cinnamon rolls with gooey cream cheese frosting and tons of cinnamon sugar inside :) Oh so naughty, but oh so good.
