Random Recipe Challenge 2 - American Sticky Buns

Dom announced on his blog Belleau Kitchen that for this months random recipe challenge, the lovely Beatrice, daughter of fab foodie blogger Cooking Manu, would be choosing all our cookbooks for us.  Dom asked Beatrice to choose a number between 1 and 20, she choose 18.

The idea was to go directly to your book shelf and count from left to right (or from top to bottom) to the eighteenth book and from this book randomly choose a recipe.

I did so immediately and the 18th book on my shelf was....drum roll please...

A Piece of Cake by Leila Lindholm

It was a couple of weeks before I randomly opened the book to this recipe but I knew as soon as I picked this book it was going to be something using dreaded yeast!  I have attempted many goodies that include yeast, pizza dough is the only thing I can seem to get right! Hot cross buns, breads and buns like these have always come out the oven looking perfect but tasting like yeast and nothing but yeast! I hate that yeasty taste so much that I fear I have developed a slight phobia.

I prayed these sticky buns wouldn't taste yeasty and thankfully and rather amazingly they didn't! Yes success! Well actually not quite success, no these buns didn't taste yeasty but they weren't perfect either.  They tasted lovely, sugary, cinnamony and just how you would expect, it was the texture that disapointed me a little.  My buns didn't have that almost doughnut like quality, they were too cakey and just not quite right.

The whole point of the Random Recipe Challenge is to bake/cook recipes you wouldn't usually choose to make and in that respect I'm really pleased, perhaps now that I have successfully made something that uses yeast, not taste like yeast I will be more inclined to try other similar recipes in the future.

American Sticky Buns -

Recipe adapted from A Piece of Cake by Leila Lindholm

Makes 20 Buns

For the Buns:

300ml (1/2 pint) milk

50g (2oz) fresh yeast

135g (4 3/4 oz) caster sugar

1/2 tsp salt

150g (5 oz) unsalted butter, softened

1 organic egg

660- 720g bread flour

Filling:

50g (2 oz) pecan nuts

50g (2 oz) walnuts

250g (9oz) unsalted butter, softened

110g (4 1/4 oz) brown sugar

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

100g (4 oz) raisins

Cream Cheese Glaze:

200g (7 oz) cream cheese

3 tbsp golden syrup

90g (3 1/2) oz icing sugar

zest of 2 limes

juice of 1 lime

For the Dough:

1.  Pour the milk into a saucepan and heat until 38 C (100F).

2. Sprinkle the yeast into a bowl and dissolve it in the milk, add sugar, salt, butter and egg.

3. Add some flour, a little at a time, and mix to a silky and elastic dough.

4. Cover with a tea towel and leave to prove for 45-60 minutes or until doubled in size.

Filling:

6.  Crush the nuts coarsely in a pestle and mortar and mix with the brown sugar, cinnamon, and raisins to a smooth paste.

7. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to a large rectangle.  Spread the filling evenly over the dough.  Roll up the dough like a Swiss roll and cut into slices about 1.5cm thick.

8. Place buns, seam side down, on a buttered baking tray.  Use your thumb to press down the centre of the buns.

9. Preheat oven to 200C/400F.

10. Leave the buns to prove under a tea towel for 45 - 60 minutes or until they have doubled in size.

11. Brush the buns with beaten egg and sprinkle with pecan nuts and demerara sugar.  Bake in the centre of the oven for about 10 minutes.

Cream Cheese Glaze:

12. Mix together the cream cheese, syrup and icing sugar and add the lime zest and juice.

13. Beat the mixture until fluffy. Drizzle the glaze over the buns once they have cooled a little.

14.  Leave to cool completely and then pull the buns apart.

I'm loving the Random Recipe Challenge and can't wait for next months.

x x x

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Random Recipe Challenge 2 - American Sticky Buns