Pecan Sticky Buns

Since coming home from Europe, I have become interested once again in baking yeasted doughs. I forgot the magic involved in rising something up from scratch, and after a bit of time, seeing and tasting the beauty you have created! I recently made some killer rosemary raisin pecan parker house rolls, but wanted to try something a bit more challenging, so I decided on Pecan Sticky Buns. When I used to work at Whole Foods Market, I remember the pecan sticky buns coming out of the oven and delightedly picking the caramely, ooey, gooey buttery pecan goodness left over at the bottom of the tin. I settled on a recipe, and spent a laborious day (including rising, kneading, preparing ingredients, etc) in the kitchen. The end result was so worth it, and gone almost instantly! That is generally the way it is when I bake, I have noticed! I made one batch for home and another to bring to a potluck. I look forward to trying new yeasted recipes, who knows, maybe I will move on to croissants. Here is the recipe I used, with my own personal tweaks included:

Dough

• 1 cup warm water (105°F to 115°F)
• 4 teaspoons dry yeast
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup warm milk
  
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 2 large eggs
• 4 1/4 cups (or more) all purpose flour

Glaze

• 1 1/4 cups (packed) golden brown sugar
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
  
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 3 cups pecans, coarsely chopped
  

• 4 teaspoons sugar
• 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preparation

For Dough:
Mix 1/4 cup warm water, yeast, and pinch of sugar in small bowl. Let stand until foamy, about 8 minutes. Using electric mixer, beat remaining sugar, butter, milk, and salt in large bowl until well blended. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Mix in remaining 3/4 cup warm water and yeast mixture, then 3 cups flour, 1 cup at a time. Using rubber spatula, mix in 1 cup flour, scraping down sides of bowl frequently (dough will be soft and sticky). Sprinkle 1/4 cup flour onto work surface and knead until smooth and elastic, adding more flour if sticky, about 8 minutes.

Butter another large bowl. Add dough; turn to coat. Cover bowl with cloth and let dough rise in warm area until doubled, about 2 1/2 hours.

For Glaze:
Butter two 10-inch round cake pans with 2-inch high sides. Beat brown sugar, 1/2 cup butter, maple syrup, and 1/4 cup water in medium bowl to blend. Spread half of glaze in bottom of each prepared pan. Sprinkle 1 1/2 cups pecans over each.

Punch down dough. Divide dough in half. Roll each dough piece out on floured work surface to 12x9-inch rectangle. Brush any excess flour off dough. Spread remaining butter over dough rectangles, dividing equally. Mix 4 teaspoons sugar and cinnamon in small bowl. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar over rectangles. Starting at 1 long side, tightly roll up each rectangle into log. Cut each log into 12 rounds. Place 12 rounds, cut side down, in each prepared pan, spacing evenly. Cover with cloth. Let buns rise in warm area until almost doubled, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 375°F. Bake buns until deep golden brown, about 30 minutes. Turn heat up to 400 and cook for 10 more minutes. Run small knife around pan sides to loosen sticky buns. Turn hot buns out onto platter. Cool about 30 minutes and serve.

Thanksgiving photos (desserts)

If the link will work, here's a link to a rather extensive photo set of the über baking we did at Bobbie's house for T-day '08.  We made an awesome team and Bobbie's great kitchen made it a pleasure.  Here's to 2010!!

Holiday baking at Bobbie's house, Thanksgiving, 2008

Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving~  For me, the most food centric holiday of the year, followed only by Christmas. There's a million ways to do the crucial yams for the holiday, but my favorite has become a yam lightened with pineapple and accented with pomegranate.  This incarnation is mashed red garnets (boiled first, then peeled), with butter, a bit of 1/2 & 1/2, salt, pepper and some crushed pineapple, served warm with freshly culled pomegranate seeds as a garnish.  It's light and delicious and really showcase all the individual flavors.  For the holiday, I will slice the yams, rather than mash them, glaze them with the pineapple, butter and probably a bit of maple syrup and them bake them till they are a little bit caramelized and a lot a bit yum.  Then sprinkle the pom seeds, just before serving.

Cupcakes!

Again, working with my computer camera here but I wanted to share these delightful little cakes that I made for a going away part yesterday. I must have made about 36 of them, and they were consumed within hours by a group of about 18! The chocolate cake is a simple classic recipe, but the real magic is in the frosting. It is essentially a white chocolate ganach with whipped cream, very fluffy and light like mousse. Hands down, one of my favorite frosting recipes and it is so easy to prepare.

white-chocolate whipped cream frosting

4 cups heavy cream, chilled
9 ounces white chocolate, coarsely chopped (I use super high quality stuff, you can see the vanilla bean flecks in it)
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt

Chill bowl of stand mixer and whisk attachment or large metal bowl and beaters for at least 15 minutes.

In small saucepan over moderate heat, bring 1 cup cream to simmer. Transfer white chocolate to medium heatproof bowl, pour hot cream over, and whisk until smooth. Whisk in vanilla and salt. Let cool at room temperature until thickened slightly, about 1 hour.

In chilled bowl of electric mixer fitted with whisk attachment, beat remaining 3 cups cream at moderately high speed until whisk leaves marks but cream does not quite hold soft peaks. Turn mixer off, then add white chocolate mixture and beat just until stiff peaks begin to form. Refrigerate until firm, about 3 hours.

Tuna Melt, A Classic Revived!

So....I don't have a camera, guys. That means the photos that I upload will not truly show you just how delectable and tasty my offerings are, as I am using my built in computer camera to showcase them! However, it will have to suffice until I work something else out. So, onto this evenings dinner. Ravenously hungry, I decided to prepare myself an old stand by that even my mom would make for us growing up (at least in the formative teenage years): tuna melt! I started with a delicious wheat free rye bread, that I discovered at my favorite natural foods store, Rainbow Grocery. This dense but thin bread becomes perfectly crispy when toasted. The tuna salad itself, was a combination of both sweet and savory ingredients and to top it off, I melted a yummy Spanish Sheep's Milk Manchego cheese on top. Garnished with avocado, I enjoyed every crumb. As per my usual cooking style, I didn't use measurments but here is the gist of the tuna salad recipe (to serve one person):

1 can tuna, salt added
large dash pepper
juice from 1/2 lemon
1-2 Tbs mayonnaise
1 Tbs raw sunflower seeds
1 Tbs yellow bell pepper, finely diced
2 tsp red onion, finely diced
1 Tbs raisins, minced
1 tsp dried dill

I toasted the bread, slathered on the tuna, grated my preferential amount of cheese and threw it under the broiler on a baking sheet until it was golden and bubbly. So good!

This is what Klown's eat...

MMmmmmmMMmMmmm!!!  Nummy yummmy nummy yum Gummy Bear Jello Jigglers!!  Only take 1 hour, 10 minutes to make (plus 6 hours in the fridgerator.)  10 minutes for the preparation, and 1 hour to get out of the pan.  Make sure you do it with an audience, it's much funner that way, and they can help....  *<};-D

Well... I'm experimenting with how to get images to be loaded quickly into the blog, and I'm still sorting it out. This one has been done really easily using Picasa, a Google image server, but you have to sign up for their service to use it. Not hard, but you have to be willing.

We'll see how using this blog goes and, if it's too tricky, maybe we'll switch to a different server. In the meantime... these are Holiday Cakes I made while at Bobbie's for Thanksgiving, 2008!!