Pecan Sticky Buns - TWD: Baking with Julia

Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia - Eighth Installment.  The recipe is Pecan Sticky Buns.

Wow - these were very yummy, and although they took some time, fun to make and not too difficult.  

• Love the layers formed by the folding and butter!
• It's hard to imagine how one would do this recipe for a breakfast...the overnight rise of the dough works, but once you start rolling, filling, and rising,  it's 3+ hours until they're ready to eat. That means getting up at 6 if you want to eat the rolls at 9.  I guess if you are getting this decadent with your menu, it's really brunch where you should be serving the rolls, at 10:30 or later :-)  Those who are up at 9:00 can have some oatmeal....
• The (Kitchen Aid) mixer did get hot, but held up.  
• I messed up the sponge step - I misread, and stirred all the flour in at once, instead of half in the sponge and half sprinkled on top.  It was lumpy and took some extra beating in the next step to get it smooth, but it worked.  
• I added extra flour (1/2 cup in all) to get the dough to be firm enough to slap the side of the mixer bowl.
• I left the rolls rising longer than specified, but the room was cool and it was just fine.  

One striking aspect of this recipe was the amount of butter (over a pound).  

In the dough

On the dough

In the pan for the caramel layer - one
stick per 9" round!

Spread in the pan

I found the rolling process easier than the Rugelach.  I baked one roll and froze the other roll for later.

Rolls ready to go into the pan

I didn't put the butter dish on the table, and no one asked for it :-)

Hungarian Shortbread - TWD: Baking with Julia

Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia - Seventh Installment.  The recipe is Hungarian Shortbread.

First, I want to say (or rather ask) - "Shortbread"?!

 With all my past experience with Scottish Shortbread, this seems more like a buttery cake with filling than shortbread.  It reminded us a bit of the Butterküchen we've eaten in Germany.  You can see from the empty space in the pan that it has been popular in the household :-)

The rhubarb filling makes a nice contrast with the sugary, buttery cake.  I find this shortbread to be very intensely sweet - good as a small slice with a cup of coffee.

The method was definitely interesting (freezing the dough and then grating it!).  It looked more like grated cheese than cookie dough:

Spreading rhubarb filling on lower layer of grated dough