For this month’s Pass the Cookbook Club, we had three fab recipes to play with – Loaded Puff Pastry Sticky Buns, Honey BBQ Short Ribs or a slap yourself silly Spicy Mac ‘n Cheese. How can one pick just one, right? I was at a loss.
This has been quite the month so I decided to challenge myself in the kitchen, work outside of my comfort zone, and go with the Loaded Sticky Buns. Easy peasy right? Remember my last dough drama– you already know that working with dough terrifies me. Whenever I break out the marble pastry board, I tend to overthink, over panic and am a hot mess. So, to be safe, I bought a couple boxes of puff pastry – “just in case”. My only attempt at a sticky bun of any kind has been out of refrigerated tube so this was going to be interesting.
I took one box out, left it in the fridge to thaw and then life kicked me in the behind and that attempt was thwarted. The second attempt – I forgot to thaw the puff pastry. A quick Google search essentially said “No worries Aly – just leave it on the counter for 30 minutes to thaw and you’re good to go“. I left it out for a bit while I prepped the filling (and snuck a couple bites of crunchy apple to a snorty sullen Sous Pug) and as I’m throwing a bit of flour on the marble to roll out the dough so it doesn’t stick to high heavens, I unfold it and guess what – IT’S STILL FROZEN! To top it off, as I unfolded the quasi-frozen sheets, one of the sheets starts to break off. Oh heavens -this is not pretty!
Finally, I actually did what I should have done from the get and read the daggone box – their instructions – leave the sheets SEPARATED out of the package on the counter for 40 minutes and everything should thaw fine. Fine then, I laid the sheets out on the marble, set the timer for 20 min. and walked away. What was I thinking – I had already left it on the counter for 30 minutes so you see where I’m going – at the end of the 20, it was over-thawed. I was a miffy little puppy but I knew what Sunny would say – fix it and forget it. So I did. I repaired the seams as best I could and went to town. I decided to make these “Rustic” because I have already done the damage, who cares how pretty they are as long as they taste divine. And divine they were – fully of sweetly spiced apples, raisins and dried cherries with a caramel crunch on the outside. I used my favorite glass bottom springform cake panand that worked out much better to remove them to a plate. Drizzle with a bit of the glaze and they were a hit!
Will I be making these again – most definitely. I just will be sure to thaw the puff the night before and tell life to not get in the way – Loaded Sticky Buns are on the menu.
On to the recipe:
Gather the ingredients
Resist the urge to nibble at the filling
Let’s Get Rolling
Rolled and ready to slice
Rolled and Rustic and Ready to Bake
MMMMM…. Glaze
Now – don’t you want one?
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