Sticky Buns (Mom's recipe)

This is the recipe for sticky buns that Mom used to make once in a blue moon.  I just made some for Father's Day, per dad's request at Christmas when he learned that I had made Nana's rolls.

Dough Ingredients:

1.5 C milk
1/2 C sugar
1.5 t salt

1/2 C warm water (no more than 110 degrees)

2 pkg yeast
4.5-5 C flour
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk

3 T veg. oil

4 T softened butter (for spreading on dough)

Caramel Sauce Ingredients:  (See my modifications below)
3/4 C syrup

1/4 brown sugar

6 T butter

Nuts, optional

Method:

Heat milk.  Stir in sugar and salt.  Pour into large bowl.  Sprinkle yeast over warm water in small bowl.  Stand 5 min.

Add yeast to milk, 3 C flour (mix). Whisk egg, yolk, oil in small bowl.  Add.  Continue to add flour until stiff dough. 

Cover, let rest for 20 min.

On generously floured surface, knead dough until smooth and elastic (~ 10 min).  Dough will be slightly sticky.  Place in greased bowl, turning to grease top.  Cover and let rise in warm place until double in size, ~1 hr.

Punch dough down.  Roll on floured surface into 15"x8" rectangle.  Spread with 4 T softened butter. Sprinkle with 2-1 sugar cin mix.  Roll up the long side, leaving a 15" roll to slice into 12  1.25 inch rolls.  Arrange in big greased lasagna pan on caramel mix.  Cover, let rise 30 min.

Bake at 375 for 25-30 min.  Invert immediately.

Sarah's notes:

First , I changed the carmel sauce because I assume "syrup" means corn syrup which I don't have in my pantry and I didn't want to buy some just for this recipe so I looked up a bunch of other sticky bun recipes and came up with this caramel sauce recipe:

6 T butter,

6 T brown sugar

4 T honey

2 T maple syrup

There's no instructions for the caramel sauce, but I put everything in to a small saucepan then heated it up till it boiled and thickened a little, stirring with a fork to combine.  I might try 2 T honey next time.  But increase the recipe if you do two pans.

If you're going to fit these all in one pan, it must be at least 11"x14".  The largest I have is 9x13, and I only fit eight buns in there.  Be sure to butter your pan all the way up the sides so that the buns fall out easily.  I melted the butter before spreading it on the dough, but I'd recommend going with the softened butter, b/c as I was rolling the dough up, the liquid butter was sort of sloshing around and oozed out the ends a little bit. 

Seeing as how large these buns are, I think the dough could easily be divided in half to make two 15" rolls that would make smaller, tighter buns.  Also, the dough is pretty soft and floobity (is that a Rachel word?), so they kinda want to come apart as they are being transferred to the baking dish.

Anyways, they are delicious!  It's hard to go wrong when you take white bread and slather it with butter, sugar and cinnamon.  :)  I don't remember exactly what they were like when Mom made them, but I know we all loved them.  The caramel sauce hardens a bit after it cools and becomes sort of chewy.  Not necessarily a bad thing, just FYI. 

Before going in the oven

Baking sticky buns