Sweet Potato Sticky Buns (They Have Vegetables in Them So They’re Healthy?)*

We occasionally make these ridiculously indulgent sticky buns as a Thanksgiving morning treat. If you’re on one of those diets where you have one day a week (or month… or year) where you can eat whatever you want, then you might as well go for broke that day and eat these.  And they have sweet potato so they’re healthy! This one takes a little bit of advance planning — if you’re making it for breakfast you’ll want to do most of the preparation the night before and you’ll want to wake up 45 minutes earlier than everyone else in the house.First I boil and mash up a sweet potato as so.

I take about 1.5 cups of the sweet potato and combine it with a cup of milk (dairy, that’s healthy), 1/3 cup of butter (also dairy!), 1/3 cup of maple syrup (from a tree!) and 1 teaspoon of salt and heat it up. I heat this somewhat slowly and stop it before the butter melts completely. Stir it up really good.

In the bowl of the Kitchen Aid mixer, I’ve got about 2 cups of flower and a package of active dry yeast that’s stirred together. I slowly pour that warm sweet potato milk mixture into the flour as well as two eggs.

I use the Kitchen Aid whisk attachment on low speed for about 30 or 40 seconds, pushing the sides down into the mixture, and then beat on high speed for 3 minutes. Then with a wooden spoon I stir in additional flour, about 3 cups of flour, until the dough looks like this:

Knead the dough for about three minutes, using additional flour. Shape it into a nice round ball, lightly grease the bowl, cover it with wax paper and leave it somewhere a little on the warm side. If the air temperature is too cold the yeast won’t make the dough rise enough. Allow it to rise for 45-60 minutes. If the dough doesn’t double in size, the yeast needs a little longer to work.

While that’s rising, we can go ahead and get the fillings ready. The first one will go on the bottom of the baking pan.

It’s 1/2 cup butter (from dairy), 1/4 cup maple syrup (also from trees), water (zero calories!) and 1 cup brown sugar. Cut it all together and stir it up until it looks like this.

Spread that mixture on the bottom of a very lightly greased 13×9 baking pan. Really grease it very likely. It’s easy to overdo the butter on this recipe.

Now sprinkle the crushed nuts on the bottom of the baking pan. I generally use pecans for this recipe, although it sure looks like walnuts in the picture above, so I guess sometimes I make it with walnuts. Punch down the dough and leave it sit for 10 minutes or so, covered with the wax paper still.

While the dough is sitting, make the filling which is 3/4 cup granulated sugar, 3/4 cup nuts, 1/3 cup melted butter, cinnamon and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon and 1 tablespoon of flour. Stir it all together really good.

Now go ahead and roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface until it’s about 18 x 12.

Spread the filling on top of the dough like this, and then roll the dough up into an 18-inch log. From here, you’ll slice the dough into 12 pieces.

I like to use this plastic knife to cut the log into 12 pieces. I think it’s actually like a plastic lettuce knife but it does a great job cutting the dough. Also, I’ve found it hard to eyeball the 12ths, so I cut the log into half. Then I cut each half into half again so that I’ve got 4 equally sized logs. From there, it’s much easier to eyeball cutting them all into equal sized thirds. They go into the baking pan. Now, cover the baking dish with plastic wrap, and let them rise a little bit. This is when they go into the fridge for overnight. The next morning, take them out of the fridge right away when y u wake up and let them return to room temperature for 30 minutes, uncover and cook for 25-30 minutes. If all has gone right it should look like this.

Slightly browned on the top and firm, not doughy, to the touch. The butter/syrup mixture at the bottom will be slightly bubbly.

Extreme closeup. Let the dish cool for five minutes and then flip it over so the nuts are on top.

These are ridiculously good, but I should caution that this is a dish that can go wrong a couple of ways. One is it’s not nearly as good if you kill the yeast. I think the yeast gets messed up if 1) the stovetop milk mixture gets too hot or 2) the room you’re cooking in gets too cold when the dough is rising. The step where you put the dough in the bowl and let it rise, if you did it right, the dough will really double in size until the bowl is almost completely full of dough. The dough will also expand in the baking pan to fill the dish if it’s done right.

The other thing you can get wrong is too much butter. There’s a lot of steps that call for lightly greasing baking pans or the bowl, but if you get too much butter in this recipe it pools at the bottom of the baking dish and you end up sort of frying the dough in boiling butter. That might sound appealing, and to be honest, the time I made this mistake it didn’t ruin the dish, but the dough didn’t cook the right way. It wasn’t nearly as good as if you stick closely to the right amount of butter and only grease the dishes very, very lightly.

Ingredients

• 1 peeled sweet potato, cut into 1 inch pieces or so
• 6 cups flour
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 cup milk
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs

Nut mixture:

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 3 tablespoons water
• 1 cup chopped nuts

For filling:

• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup chopped nuts
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon flour

Instructions

1. Boil sweet potato until you could mash it with a fork. Drain the water and mash. About 1 or 1.5 cups of sweet potato is the right amount.
2. In the Kitchen Aid mixing bowl, combine 2 cups of flour and the yeast packet. Stir together really well.
3. In a saucepan on medium low heat add 1 cup milk, 1/3 cup syrup, the mashed potato, 1/3 cup butter and 1 teaspoon salt. Stir it together and stop heating it once the butter is almost completely melted.
4. Add two beaten eggs to the flour mix, and then pour the contents of the saucepan in too. Beat on low for 30 seconds, pushing the sides of the bowl back into the mix. Then beat on high for 3 minutes. With a wooden spoon, stir in 3 more cups of flour.
5. Remove it from the bowl, and knead in about 1/2 cup more of flour. Knead for about 5 minutes into a bowl. Put the dough in a very very lightly greased bowl. Cover, and leave it in a warm place for 45 to 60 minutes until it’s risen so much that it nearly bursts from the bowl.
6. Punch the dough back down, and then prepare the fillings.
7. Stir together 1 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup softened butter, the 1/4 cup maple syrup and 3 tbsp water. Spread at the bottom of a very lightly greased 9 x 13 inch pan. Sprinkle with 1 cup nuts.
8. In a small bowl, combine 3/4 cup white sugar, 3/4 cup nuts, 1/3 cup melted butter, 1 tbsp cinnamon and 1 tbsp flour.
9. Roll dough into an 18×12-inch rectangle. Put dough on filling and roll up rectangle into an 18 inch log. Cut into 12 pieces and place in baking pan. Cover with buttered plastic wrap and let rise a bit. Refrigerate overnight.
10. In the morning, wake up forty-five minutes before before everybody else. Remove the rolls from the fridge, uncover, and let return to room temperature for 30 minutes. Heat oven to 375. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown and no longer doughy to the touch. Remove from oven and cool the baking pan for 5 minutes on a wire rack. Flip the baking pan (keep your Ove’ Gloves on, it will still be hot!) and you’ll have 12 immaculate sticky buns.

* This recipe is not healthy.

• ← Homemade Apple Sauce
• Three-Buck Chuck Pot Roast →