Easy Sticky Buns

Every year on my younger sister Brittany's birthday I surprise her with a birthday breakfast baked good. Something like cinnamon rolls, or blueberry muffins. This year I thought I'd use her birthday as an excuse to try out a Barefoot Contessa recipe I've had printed out forever. (Plus I'm going to her book signing on Friday at South Coast Plaza on Friday, so I thought I'd brush up on her stuff! I am so excited, but more on that Friday.)

The recipe I tried was for sticky buns that I thought looked like a quick and easy way to make cinnamon rolls using puff pastry. This was my first time working with puff pastry and I must say I'm a huge fan. That stuff is amazing. I actually tried to make this recipe a few months ago, but when I got home from the store I had bought phyllo dough instead of puff pastry, needless to say I didn't make the recipe. I loved the texture of the sticky buns. They aren't as doughy as a cinnamon roll, more like a pastry, makes sense, right? They have the same ooey gooey center as a cinnamon roll, made with butter, cinnamon and brown sugar. These took all of about ten minutes to prepare and taste best warm. The brown sugar turns into a hard caramel when they cool, but still a tasty treat. I had a few the next morning and they were just a good cold! I made some with nuts and some with out. I preferred the ones with nuts. I used walnuts instead of pecans, like the recipe calls for, and I omitted the raisins. While I do love natures candy, I don't enjoy them in my cinnamon rolls!

All in all I think the birthday girl was pleased with her breakfast goodies. And I know she enjoyed her cake, same one as last year!

Easy Sticky Buns Recipe

Cinnamon Roll Thank You

Brian took a week off of work last week to finish up his masters thesis. He presented it on Saturday, and he is officially done! We are so excited. To say thank you to a couple of coworkers and his boss for giving him time off and picking up the slack at work he wanted to make cinnamon rolls. He said that is one of the best things I make. (Thanks love) He helped me whip up a batch last night, and they turned our ooey, gooey, and delicious.

Last week I organized all my boxes, ribbon, paper, cards, etc, because it was a mess, which made it super helpful when I was deciding how to package up the cinnamon rolls. Brian was happy to put them on a paper plate and cover them with saran wrap, but I told him no way! I put four rolls on a thin piece of cardboard, wrapped them up in parchment paper and tied them with a piece of yarn. I had Brian write "Thank You" on a sticky tag that I affixed to the yarn. This all worked out and looked great, but I was surprised to find out that scotch tape does not stick to parchment paper. I had planned to wrap them up like a present, using tape to attach the lose ends, but that was not working. So I just tucked it all under and used the yarn to hold it all together. Simple, easy, and looked great.

Etsy Store

I decided to follow in my younger sisters footsteps and start an Etsy store. People really are selling all kinds of things on there. Brittany sold Christmas stockings, wreaths, and garland. People are also selling all kinds of home baked goodies. I figure if they can do it I can definitely do it, and this week I made my second sale! I know it doesn't seem like much, but it's a start. The first item I put up for sale were my cinnamon rolls, which I have totally perfected. I mentioned in the post about them that I had all those extra boxes, so I individually wrapped them up and sold them in groups of four. I needed to sell them by the half dozen, but I've yet to find anything to package them in, so those are soon to come. I sold the first order (of two) to a lady in Florida who wrote very nice things about me in my ratings section. The second gal was a local here in Newport Beach, so I hand delivered to her and she says she'll most likely be a repeat customer. (I'm looking forward to that!)

I've added to the rolls with a Valentine's Day collection of two types of cookies packaged and wrapped up all cute! A lot of people are checking them out, but no sales on the cookies just yet. Perhaps it's still early. I'd like to get a wide variety of items on there because, like I said, people are selling everything, and making a lot of sales too. Etsy is fun, a little side hobby. It was such a blast making the rolls and packaging them up for shipping. I'd love to do that full time. Visit my shop, if only to check it out, and you can heart me if you'd like!

Cinnamon Roll Packaging

It's the Christmas season, which is so perfect for baking! I can give away all my goodies and not eat them all myself. My husband went to the gym tonight, but I passed. Probably shouldn't have, but I'd rather bake and package up my goodies in cute, festive wrappings. I came up with this packaging to individually wrap my cinnamon rolls because I already had 200 of these boxes lying around. Last June when I was doing my wedding favors I accidentally ordered up the wrong size box for my favors. I didn't want to pay a restocking fee to return them, so I just keep them thinking I'd find something to do with them. I dare say they're coming in handy now! I'm so excited to give these away to neighbors and friends.

Cinnamon Rolls

A long time staple in our home has always been homemade rolls and cinnamon rolls. It started with my Grandma Payne, and then my mom took over. They were always asked to bake their rolls for special occasions and family get togethers. Walking into the house when the rolls were baking is definitely my ultimate comfort food smell. I decided that I should probably learn how to make them so that I can keep the tradition alive!

This summer I tried my very first batch of cinnamon rolls, and they turned out so, so good! And then Friday night Brian and I made two batches for him to take to his Saturday morning class. They were a big hit, and felt so proud.

My mom was telling me that anyone can follow the recipe, but unless you know what the dough should feel like, they wouldn’t turn out as good as they could. It’s an art form, bread making, and it just takes practice, trial and error. The two batches I made on Friday, and one more today, gave me the opportunity to try a few different tweaks and figure out what works a little better.

When you’re done mixing the dough, my mom says that it should be sticky, but not a wet sticky. It shouldn’t look like wallpaper paste, but should stick to your hands when you touch it. After it rises it won’t be as sticky. Remember that you can always add more flour, but too much will make your dough tough. A stand mixer works best for this, as the dough gets hard to mix with a hand mixer. If you don’t have a stand mixer, you can use your hand mixer until it starts to get hard to mix, and then finish mixing with your hands. (My mom, and I have both blown up our hand mixers mixing the dough!)

This is such a good recipe and I have yet to find a soul who could say no to one of these cinnamon rolls.

Grandma Payne’s Roll Recipe:
Sprinkle 2 Tbs of yeast into 1/2 C. warm water (Test water on wrist and don’t set bowl directly on counter, put on a towel underneath it.)

Heat in microwave for 3 minutes (stir half way in between):
1 cube of butter
2 Cups of Milk
1/2 Cup sugar
1/2 tsp Salt

Pour the warm mixture into mixing bowl, add 3 Cups of flour and mix until pasty.
Add 2 eggs, mix again
Add yeast, mix again
Slowly add 3 1/3 cups of sifted flour (you may need a little more or less)

Cover and let rise for 1 and 1/2 hours. When dough has risen to double it’s original size, punch down with fist and then you have two options:

1) Make into delicious dinner rolls: make dough balls, place on greased cookie sheet 1/2 inch apart, let rise again for another 45 minutes or so, or until dough is touching on sheet.


2) Make into cinnamon rolls: Roll out dough on floured counter until it makes a nice, big, even rectangle. Spread a cube of room temperature butter on the dough. Cover with a mixture of sugar and cinnamon. Cover again with a second layer of brown sugar. Adding raising, nuts and anything else you’d like will taste amazing too! Roll up the dough and cut into one and a half inch slices. Place 1/2 inch apart on greased cookie sheet. Let rise again until touching. These will also rise more in the over.


Cooke either of these for 12-15 minutes at 375 degrees. (We’ve been known to do half and half with a batch. One batch will make about 20 or so cinnamon rolls) One thing my mom and I have noticed is that the tops usually get done before the bottom of the rolls. I have found that non-stick pans help the bottoms to cook better.

Edit: I had a request for the icing. Here is the one I've been using lately, but any icing will work. And we love a cream cheese icing on these too! So good!

1 pound box of powdered sugar
6 TBS of butter (room temperature)
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream (or any type of milk)
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
Mix together-add more milk or powdered sugar to thin or thicken