Holiday cinnamon buns with prune filling

'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

Method

1. Mix the flour, salt and light brown sugar in a large bowl. Then crumble in the fresh yeast or simply add the dry yeast.
2. Cut in the soften butter with a pastry blender or your fingers; the mixture does not need to be especially fine, just break-up any large lumps of butter.
3. Make a well in the flour mixture and add the milk and the egg. I generally use a spatula or wooden spoon to bring the dough together.
4. Knead the dough either by machine (we love our Kitchen Aid!) or by hand,  until smooth and elastic.
5. Remembering to oil or flour your hands, transfer the dough to a second bowl for the first first rise. It should take at least 90 minutes to roughly double in size, but may be longer if you are using dry yeast.
6. While the dough is rising, chop or mash or even puree the pitted prunes in a small bowl and combine with the zest and juice of the orange.
7. In another small mixing bowl, combine the sugar, cinnamon and butter completely, using the fork or the cleaned pastry blender.
8. Once the dough has roughly doubled in size, roll out on a floured surface or silicon mat. The original recipe calls for a rectangle about 30cm long and 3mm thick, but our rectangles are always rather longer and bit less rectangular in order to get the necessary thin-ness of the dough.
9. Using a spatula or palette knife spread the cinnamon/sugar/butter mixture over the entire surface of the rectangle; do not leave any margins around the edges of the rectangle.
10. Again using a spatula or palette knife, try to evenly distribute the prune mixture over the surface of the rectangle. Reserve any remaining liquid.
11. Starting from the long edge, roll up the dough rectangle into a sausage shape. Take care to roll both the middle and at the ends of the 'sausage' [I always need help with this part].
12. Using a knife or dough cutter, divide the rolled up dough into twelve even sized pieces.
13. Place the pieces, spiral side up, into a lined baking tin. I use a 23 x 30cm brownie pan. If possible, allow to rise in the fridge over night.
14. Pre-heat the oven to 200C.
15. Beat together one egg and one egg yolk, and apply with brush to glaze the tops of the buns.
16. Bake buns at 200C for 10 minutes and reduce heat to 180C and bake for another 20 minutes.
17. Prior to the baking or during it, prepare a sugar glaze using any reserved liquid from the prunes soaked in orange juice (step #10) and 50g caster sugar. If there is insufficient liquid, add additional orange juice and water as required. Heat the mixture until the sugar dissolves and then cook for five minutes.
18. Brush buns with the syrup when they come out of the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack.

Notes

1. Ideally the milk and eggs should be at room temperature before mixing into the dough.
2. The recipe works well with either fresh or dry yeast, but allow extra time for the first rise if using the latter. If you wish to activate the yeast in advance, reserve a ½ cup of the milk and warm slightly before adding the dried yeast and allowing to stand for 5-10 minutes.
3. I usually prepare the filling well in advance of starting the dough. My preference is for a pureed prune filling -- you might even want to simmer it briefly in the orange juice -- but you are unlikely to have any leftover juice, and will will need extra (see #17 above0.
4. With the 23 x 30cm brownie pan, there's quite a bit of space for pieces. They may not rise enough to fill the tin by the time they go in the oven. Don't worry, they will have completely filled the tin by the time they have finished baking.
5. If opting for the overnight rise, remember to remove from the oven a couple of hours in advance and allow to warm up to room temperature prior to baking.