Brioche Sticky Buns

In this house we have huge affection for breakfast rolls. Cinnamon rolls, sticky buns, sweet rolls, orange rolls... Is there anything better with your morning coffee than a fresh from the oven bun? Of course there is! A fresh from the oven bun with a tall glass of cold milk any time of the day! I have my favorite go to for Cinnamon Rolls covered in Cream Cheese frosting (which I will share at some point) but sticky buns have been a favorite of ours long before the cinnamon rolls came into rotation. For years I used a simple scalded milk dough recipe from the 1800s. It was simple and good and fail proof. When we lived in Las Vegas I made more sticky buns that I can remember because baked goods like that didn't exist in any of the shops out there, either did real bagels if you can believe that. The smell that emanated from our apartment brought company by (no matter the hour) wondering what the delicious aroma you could smell on the other side of the complex was. I never thought I would replace that recipe until one night a few months ago when I got it into my head to make them out of brioche.

For those of you who have never experienced the bliss that is brioche it's a yeasted bread that masquerades as a pastry. It is buttery and rich and sweet and flaky when made right. It's also one of those doughs that requires patience. I was pleasantly surprised by the brioche dough recipe I used. Looking at the recipe I wasn't 100% convinced that it was going to work, be enough or taste all that great, boy was I wrong! The starter actually sat in the fridge for over 24 hours with no problem. I'm not gonna re-post the dough recipe here because Joe Pastry does an awesome job, complete with much better photos than I can produce, walking you through the whole recipe. I used King Arthur all purpose flour and lightly salted butter because that is what I had on hand. I only left the finished dough rest in the fridge for 2 hours before I formed the rolls.



While the dough sat in the fridge chillin' I made the sticky part of the Sticky buns. I melted 1, 4oz. stick of lightly salted butter together with 1 C light brown sugar. Once the mixture melted I added 2.5 oz of light corn syrup (I was out of honey & golden syrup) and set the mixture aside to cool. About 20 minutes later I whisked in 1/4 C half & half and 1/4 C water and stashed the mixture in the fridge until I was ready to form the rolls. The brioche dough really was a treat to work with. Nice and firm, it rolled easily into a 12"x12" square that I sprinkled with 1 C of dark brown sugar and about 2 t of cinnamon before rolling up, slicing into 12 pieces and placing in a 9"x13" glass pan that I had already poured the sticky sauce into.

I left the covered pan on my counter for 90 minutes before placing them uncovered in a cold oven next to a saucepan of boiling water for another 20-30 minutes. I took the rolls out, preheated to 350* and baked them for 40 minutes. Once they were done I left them in the pan for ten minutes, removed them to a serving platter and spooned the remaining sticky sauce on them. They are good and completely worth the time and effort! Plus, when is the last time you had a really good sticky bun that didn't taste like chemicals or cost you $5.00 a piece?