Apple Butter Sticky Buns

As you know, we made a huge batch of apple butter. Surprisingly, we're already down to about 1/2 cup. I'm done making apple butter everything and will leave the rest for C to eat with toast. If I find that I absolutely have to make something else after he's finished it, we bought a backup jar at the farmers' market while we were in Madison that I'd be happy to open. The last thing on my list of things I had to make with apple butter this season was apple butter sticky buns. While I love cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting, I find that sticky buns are a lot more fail-proof. It can be hard to get just the right balance of sweet and tart when making cream cheese frosting. As soon as you add too much milk, you're stuck adding a mouth puckering amount of powdered sugar. Sticky buns, on the other hand, simply require adding the right amount of syrup and sugar and the baking process does the magic.

On Friday night, I started making dough as soon as I got home from work. By 7:30 p.m., the rolls were in the refrigerator for the final raise overnight. Saturday morning, they were out of the oven by 7:45 a.m.  so we could get on the road for a weekend trip to San Antonio.  Not 15 minutes after pulling them out of the oven, our roommate groggily walked to the kitchen and said "That is a wonderful smell to wake up to." I bet your loved ones would agree!

Objective
Make pecan sticky buns with apple butter filling. Finding apple butter recipes on the internet is easy. Finding recipes that use apple butter is a different story, let alone finding recipes for sticky buns that use apple butter. I found a few, but none of them  jumped out at me. I decided to use the dough from Orange Rolls on Pastry Affair (because it's so simple and very light and fluffy) and I improvised the filing and topping based on my sticky buns/cinnamon roll preferences.

Materials
(This recipe makes 8 rolls)
Dough:
1 tsp. yeast
1/4 cup warm water
2 tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
3 tbsp. butter, melted
1 egg
1/4 cup greek yogurt (or sour cream, light works fine)
1 1/2-2 1/2 cups bread flour (depending on the amount of moisture in your dough)

Filling:
1/2 cup apple butter
2 tbsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon

Topping:
1 tbsp. butter, melted
2 tbsp. honey*
2 tbsp. maple syrup*
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup pecans, chopped

*Note: this makes a fairly thin sticky topping. If you want a thick, caramel-like topping, use 1/4 cup light Karo syrup, 1 1/2 tbsp. butter, 1/2 cup brown sugar, and 1/2 cup chopped pecans.

Methods
1. To prepare the dough: Dissolve the yeast in the warm water (120º-130ºF) and let proof for 5 minutes. Stir in sugar, salt, butter, eggs, and sour cream. Gradually stir in 1 1/2 cups of bread flour, mixing well. If the dough is still very sticky (tacky is fine), add more flour (about 2 tbsp. at a time). You want the dough to be tacky, even a tiny bit sticky is ok. Knead it a few times to make a smooth ball. Move the dough to a lightly greased bowl. Cover and rise to double (about 1 1/2 - 2 hours). Punch the dough down and rise to double again (about 1 hour). Pat the dough out to a 16" by 12" rectangle.

2. To prepare the topping: During the final rise, prepare the topping. Stir together the melted butter and the honey/syrup. Pour into an ungreased 8" cake pan. Sprinkle with brown sugar and pecans. Set aside.

3. To make the rolls: Spread the dough with apple butter (leaving a 2 inch border along one long edge). Sprinkle with the cinnamon and sugar. Roll the dough, starting with the long apple buttery edge to the edge with the 2" border. Use a knife to mark where to cut for 8 rolls. Then, use dental floss to cut the rolls. Slide a long piece of dental floss (about 12" should work) under the roll at one of your division marks. Switch each end to the other hand to form a loop, and pull. You should have a nice clean edge. Place the roll with this clean edge up in your pan, spacing the 8 rolls evenly over the prepared topping. Cover the rolls and let rise 30 minutes (if you're planning to bake them right away) or 15 minutes (if you're planning to refrigerate overnight. If you're ready to bake, proceed to step 4. If not, place the rolls in the refrigerator overnight. Make sure to take them out at least 30 minutes prior to baking, but 1-2 hours is better (you want to get the chill off and let the yeast start working again).

4. To bake the rolls: Preheat the oven to 350º. Place the cake pan with risen rolls on a sheet pan to catch drips. Bake 25-30 minutes or until golden on top. Take the pan out of the oven, loosen the edge with a knife (you can skip this if you use a non-stick pan) and flip out onto a parchment paper-lined plate. Cool 15 minutes before serving.

Results
Sweet, but a little tart (like a good apple). The sticky topping is more earthy than caramely sweet. The rolls are soft and fluffy with a bit of a crunch from the pecans.

Discussion and Future Directions
These are very good and make a great fall breakfast treat (as do the orange rolls I linked to above). The bread is extremely light and fluffy. I think that's due to the greek yogurt (which surprised me since I used 0% fat greek yogurt instead of sour cream and I would have suspected that the added fat would have been the key). I was also surprised the recipe called for bread flour as it contains more gluten which would make a tougher bread if over-worked.  My usual cinnamon roll recipe uses all-purpose flour and potato starch flour. It also makes a nice light bread, but not nearly as light as this recipe. For that reason (and that it's simple to throw together), this might be my new go-to bread dough.

The sticky buns weren't quite as appley as I was hoping, so I think that next time, I'd stir a few tablespoons apple butter into the topping. If you want a spiced roll, add a pinch each ginger, allspice, and clove to the filling with the cinnamon. I chose to use a combination of maple syrup and honey for the topping to make it more natural and earthy in taste rather than sweet and caramely like Karo syrup. I am pleased with that decision though it would be great either way. While there is no such thing as a healthy sticky bun, I feel like there are a few things about these that make them less bad as some of the others (just pretend you don't use as much sugar as you do)!

Supplementary Materials