Sticky buns

It's been raining. A lot. I'm not one to complain about the rain. Well not most of the time anyway. I love the sound of it dancing on the roof as I'm pottering about inside. More importantly, at The Shady Pine tank water is our only water source so the arrival of rain signifies the topping up of the water tank.

All good things, except it had been raining non stop for days and weeks. The water tank was in over flow and even the promise of long untimed showers were not enough to get me out of a funk. I was getting restless and the sound of the rain, which I usually find peaceful was starting to get annoying.


Even Coco the cat had had enough of being inside. The answer for her was to put herself to bed and sleep it off. When I went to find her, all I could see was this tail and a paw hanging out on the side of the bed. Hard life!

I had to do something to distract myself. So I dragged out my recipe file looking for something new to bake. I came across a recipe for pecan honey sticky buns which was part of an article for rainy day bakes so thought it was only fitting.

Having neither pecans or honey in stock, I figured walnuts and maple syrup would have to do. The making of the dough was really quite easy as all the ingredients came together in a food processer. The longest part of the recipe was leaving the dough once shaped in little balls to rest for an hour to rise. Then it was into a moderate oven for half an hour to bake.

Once out of the oven, you let the buns cool down a little before turning them out. This was the best part as the still warm maple syrup slowly oozed out over the buns leaving a golden brown nutty topping. It was hard to resist scooping the maple covered walnuts left stuck to the bottom of the pan so these bits were quickly scraped off and eaten. This was all the confirmation I needed that maple syrup and walnuts were an unbeatable combination!

With a bit of baking, a sticky bun and cup of coffee for afternoon tea, I forgot about the rain for a while.

Maple and walnut sticky buns
Adapted from recipe for Sticky honey pecan buns (August 2007 Super Food Ideas, Recipe by Julie Jensen)
Makes 12

Ingredients:
50gm butter
1/3 cup maple syrup
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup walnuts, chopped
½ cup milk
50gm butter, chopped
1 tsp sugar
8g instant dry yeast
2 ½ cups plain flour
¼ cup caster sugar

1. Grease 22cm cake tin and line base with baking paper. Preheat oven to 180 C.
2. In a small pot over low heat, melt 50gm butter, maple syrup and brown sugar. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Pour this mixture over the base on the cake tin. Sprinkle chopped walnuts over the top.
3. Heat the milk, butter and sugar in small pot until butter is melted. Add dry yeast to this mixture and stir well.
4. Using a food processor, add milk mixture, flour, eggs, caster sugar and process until a ball of dough forms.
5. Knead the dough for a few minutes until it becomes elastic.
6. Divide the dough into 12 even portions and shape into balls. Place the balls of dough on top of the maple and walnut syrup. Cover and leave in a warm spot to rise for 1 hour.
7. Bake buns for 25-30 minutes until golden and they sound hollow when tapped.
8. Allow the buns to cool for 10 minutes in the tin. Turn out onto a wire rack. (Make sure to soak the cake tin straight away to avoid that sticky syrup from remaining a permanent fixture).