'Sticky buns' were a staple of visits to my grandparents in the 1960s and 1970s. Over the years, usually at Christmas time, we have tried to replicate my grandmother's recipe or have sometimes made Chelsea buns or Joy of Cooking style sticky buns. They work best if you prepare the dough the evening before, leave the formed rolls in the fridge overnight for the final rise and then bake in the morning.
This recipe, gratefully adapted from Patrick Ryan at BBC Good Food, has been perhaps the most popular of our annual experiments. It's quite a straightforward dough, but the filling includes prunes soaked in orange juice and prune/orange notes in the sugar glaze brushed on at the end.
Ingredients
For the dough
500g baking flour
1tsp salt
50g light brown sugar
15g fresh yeasts or 1½ tsp dried yeast
75g softened butter
200ml whole fat milk
1 egg
flavourless oil or butter for greasing
For the filling
200g prunes (pitted)
one orange (zest & juice)
100g light brown sugar
1½ tsp ground cinnamon
100g softened butter
For the glaze
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
50g caster sugar
reserved liquid from the prune filling or a couple of extra tbls of orange juice and water
