Lamination Nation: Cinnamon Sticky Buns
Buttery Layers and Sugary Glaze, A Recipe for Challah, Remembering Chelsea Buns
I’m sticking to the sweet category for Issue #41, and I mean sticky and sweet. I will be traveling during the next few weeks. My intention is to keep to my weekly schedule, with new issues published every Wednesday morning. But if I can’t, you’ll know why.
If you have signed up for free and were thinking of paying for a subscription, and even if you’ve already paid for one, thank you, but please instead consider taking an equivalent amount of money or more and donating it to World Central Kitchen, chef José Andrés’ amazing humanitarian aid organization that is feeding refugees escaping Putin’s horrific invasion of Ukraine and other communities all over the world in need of fresh, hot food to provide both nourishment and dignity. —Mitchell
Last week, in the preamble to my Aunt Josephine’s Chocolate Cake recipe, I explained that my husband Nate was a dyed-in-the-wool chocolate person. In a previous issue, I told you that by far his preferred breakfast is pancakes, to the point that he often plays “The Pancake Song” to get me out of bed to make them.
So, I was a little surprised when for his birthday breakfast (last Friday), he requested cinnamon sticky buns. Not that my sticky buns aren’t special and delicious. But they aren’t chocolate or pancakes. What’s more, they are studded with nuts and raisins, which Nate doesn’t always love in baked goods. Still, that’s what he wanted so that’s what I made. We were both glad I did.
I’ve been making these cinnamon sticky buns for years, usually when we have a full house for breakfast or have invited folks over for brunch. I save them for special occasions because they require some advance planning and they are just too rich and caloric for us to consume by ourselves—we can’t resist them, so a whole batch is too much temptation for two people. That’s why they are so good, of course. I was happy to make them for Nate’s birthday, a milestone, and thankfully, a couple of friends surprised us by coming over for breakfast to help us eat them.
When I was a kid growing up in Toronto, this style of cinnamon sticky bun—baked as a loaf and inverted to bring the glazed bottom to the top—was known as “Chelsea buns,” a holdover from Toronto’s British roots, no doubt. I’ve seen Chelsea buns make a couple of appearances on The Great British Bake Off, but I’ve never seen them in New York. Maybe it’s time they become a trend. We used to buy Chelsea buns at a local Jewish bakery, where they would slice them like a loaf of bread. The slices we didn’t eat from the bag on the way home we toasted and smeared with cream cheese. Mmmn.
My cinnamon sticky buns are a little more involved because I go to the trouble of laminating the dough before I assemble them. This produces flavorful, light, crisp layers as you can see in the first photo above. (Also see note above about calories.) Lamination—the process of folding and rolling out dough sandwiched with butter to make multiple layers that puff as they bake and the butter melts—is an extra effort that I think is worth the result.
Lamination (feuilletage in French) used to be reserved for puff pastry, croissants, and Danish doughs. But these days it seems to be trendy to apply it more broadly. When we were in Paris in December every bakery seemed to have a “brioche feuilletée” in their selection of Viennoiserie. To be honest, layering butter into buttery brioche seems a bit like gilding the lily to me, but that didn’t stop me from sampling several of them just to be sure. Chefs in America have been laminating “ordinary” dinner rolls for some time. It’s even common now to laminate southern biscuits to make them flakier. I love laminated biscuits because they pull apart into neat layers ready to receive additional butter and jam.
For these sticky buns, because you are going to be filling the dough and baking the buns in a loaf, the lamination process can be kind of casual. You don’t have to worry about being precise the way you do with puff pastry and croissants, which will be judged by the quality, number, and evenness of their layers. Thus, I think this is a good way to practice your lamination skills.
As for the dough, I always use my challah, made with a neutral oil (peanut, avocado or vegetable instead of olive). Sometimes I add a dollop or two of sour cream or Greek yogurt to it for added richness and flavor. Historically, I’ve use ordinary yeast-raised challah dough, but since I’ve been baking sourdough challah lately, I use that. You can use any enriched yeast dough for these buns. I’ll give you my challah dough recipe this week, and will save the sourdough version for a future newsletter.
The filling requires additional butter, as well as brown sugar, cinnamon, pecans and raisins. I recently upped the quality of my cinnamon by purchasing Burlap & Barrel’s special Royal Cinnamon. Consider this a recommendation. I also add a drizzle of honey, which keeps the sugar from hardening once it’s melted and cooled. Don’t be put off by all the extra butter and sugar you are adding to these buns. As I said above, these shouldn’t be a daily snack. Save them for a special time.
The timing for making these sticky buns is key because the rising and lamination require ample resting time, which also enhances the flavor. It’s best if you start about two days in advance. If you want to eat the sticky buns Sunday morning for brunch, begin the dough Friday afternoon or evening.
RECIPE: Cinnamon Sticky Buns
(Yields 12 buns)
For the challah dough:
2 large eggs
¾ cup lukewarm water
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup peanut, avocado or vegetable oil, plus a teaspoon more for greasing the bowl
1/3 cup sour cream or full-fat Greek yogurt (optional; increase the water to 1 cup if not using)
4 ½ cups bread flour
1 tablespoon instant yeast
For the sticky buns:
3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2/3 cup brown sugar
½ to ¾ cup pecans
½ to ¾ cup raisins
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/3 cup honey
To make the dough, place the eggs, water, sugar, oil, sour cream, if using, 4 cups of the flour and the yeast in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook. Turn the mixer on low and let run for about 8 minutes, until the gluten is developed, the dough is smooth, and it pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Lightly flour a work surface and your hands with some of the remaining flour. Turn out the dough onto the floured surface and knead for a few minutes until it comes together into a smooth elastic mass, adding more flour sparingly, if necessary, to keep it from sticking too much. Shape into a ball. Place a teaspoon of oil in a large, clean bowl, invert the dough into the bowl to coat with oil, and invert again. Cover with plastic wrap and a dish towel and set in a warm place to rise until double in bulk. Mine usually takes 2 to 3 hours. Punch the dough down, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and place in the refrigerator to chill for a few hours, or preferably, overnight. (To make a challah, braid the dough after it is chilled and let it proof before baking.)
To make the sticky buns, once the dough is chilled, you are ready to laminate it. Take about a stick and a half (6 ounces) of the softened butter (not too soft) and with your fingertips, mash it together with the 2 tablespoons of flour to make a kind of paste. Use a bench scraper of knife to get the butter mixgure off the counter and shape it into a small rectangle on a plate. Pazlace in the refrigerator to chill. Clean the counter and lightly dust with flour. Turn the chilled dough out onto the floured surface and using a rolling pin, roll out to a long, narrow rectangle, roughly the size of a sheet of legal paper (foolscap). Take the butter and flour rectangle out of the fridge and place it toward one end of the dough rectangle. Fold the dough in thirds like a letter to envelope the butter. This is called a “turn.” Roll it out again into a similarly sized rectangle, being careful to roll to the edge of the dough without rolling off it. It will be harder to roll as the gluten becomes more elastic. Fold the dough like a letter again. Place on a plate, cover with plastic wrap, and let sit and chill in the fridge for a couple of hours to allow the gluten to relax. Once the dough has sat, repeat the folds two more times (“two turns”). Wrap and chill two hours or even overnight.
Now you are ready to finish the buns. Prepare an 8” by 12” baking dish. Using about half a stick’s worth of the remaining softened butter (2 ounces), generously grease the pan. Sprinkle the bottom of the pan with an even layer of brown sugar and scatter some of the pecans and raisins across the bottom. Drizzle with some of the honey. Set aside.
Remove the rested, laminated dough from the fridge. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to a large rectangle, about 12” by 18” and ¼ inch thick. Spread the remaining stick (4 ounces) of softened butter over the entire surface of the dough. Sprinkle evenly with the remaining brown sugar, pecans and raisins. Dust evenly with the ground cinnamon and drizzle with the remaining honey. Stating along the long edge, roll the dough up tightly to form a log. Using a sharp serrated knife, slice the log straight down in half and then slice each half in half again to make quarters. Slice each quarter into thirds so you have 12 equal spiraled buns, about an 1 ½ inches thick. Lay them cut side down in the prepare pan in four rows of three buns each. You can proof them now until they have doubled in size, about 2 hours, or you can cover the pan with plastic wrap and refrigerate them for up to a day. Once laminated, it’s best to proof them in cool-ish area so the butter doesn’t melt out of dough. Going them to a cool room temperature and proof before baking, which can take up to about 5 hours total. (When I use my sourdough version I let them proof on the counter overnight.)
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Place the pan in the hot oven and bake for about 40 minutes, until the buns have risen and browned. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the dough of one of the buns in the middle of the pan should reach at least 200°F. before you remove them from the oven. They may need more time, just pay attention to the smell: you don’t want to smell burnt sugar. If they are deeply browned but not yet done, reduce the oven temperature to 350°F. and continue baking. When done, remove the pan to a wire rack and let cool for 20 minutes. Carefully invert the buns onto a platter or large cutting board, watching out for any stray molten sugar, which can cause a nasty burn. Allow to cool completely before serving. These buns do not need any additional glaze.
