TWD - Pecan Sticky Buns

Another Tuesday with Dorie recipe, my second time doing it gluten free.  Since the Hungarian Shortbread recipe we have decided to take our middle child off gluten along with me.  Actually he decided.  He was tired of the nightly stomach aches and since mine had gone away, along with my eczema, he thought it might be worth a try.  Low and behold, he hasn't had a stomach ache since.  Coincidence?  Maybe, but he isn't interested in having them back so he is keeping the gluten out of his diet. 

When it was just me I could easily say, 'Oh I'll make this one with wheat flour, it's only me that can't partake', but now I must make the effort to bake things that he can try as well, it seems cruel to bake something for everyone but him and I couldn't do that to him.  I have a LOT to learn when it comes to baking gluten free though!!

So after having a quick look at this weeks recipe, I was, uh to put it lightly.....terrified!  Not because of all of the steps and the time commitment, but because I knew it would be a challenge to make something that relies so heavily on the glutenous elasticity of wheat flour without wheat flour.  So I put it off, and put it off.  Put it off some more.  Finally Monday came around, the day before THE Tuesday :/  I still hadn't tried them.  I decided to get started and try the sponge and see if I even got anywhere with the first step.   It didn't look much like the picture but it resembled it 'slightly' so I went with it. 

The rising seemed to take longer and of course it didn't rise as much as a beautiful pillowy yeasty wheat dough would.  I wasn't quite sure how it was all going to turn out, but I kept going.  I followed the recipe pretty closely, making adjustments if my dough seemed to need me to.  I added more flour than called for, because the dough was so sticky and difficult to work with. 

I got up early this morning and pulled the dough out of the fridge, rolled it out. 

Quick break here for a plug for the JosephJoseph rolling pin.  I've had it for about a month but used it today for the first time.  I am not sure how I survived in my kitchen this long without it!!  It's amazing!! 

Everything was going fine, it was a bit stickier than I thought it should be but figured that was due to the flour.  I opted to leave off the pecans as the hubs and I are the only ones that would eat them.  I popped the dough into the freezer and then read on.  I have to admit, when it comes to reading recipes I must have cookbook ADD.  I rarely ever read every step (I know, that is a big no no) until I am in the middle of cooking.  That is when I usually realise I am missing something really important or have completely botched something.  This time however it was when I read that each pan was supposed to have an entire stick of butter spread on it.  Some expletives may or may have not left my mouth at that particular moment.   I was in shock at the sheer amount of butter, especially since it was essentially just going to be soaking into and around the buns.  I however trusted it and followed the instructions, but was quietly terrified. 

Since my dough had been having such a hard time rising I decided to pop it in the oven on the bread proof setting to give it some extra help.  When I came back to them they had risen quite nicely, well more than I had expected, still nothing like regular ones would, I was pleased though and went ahead and preheated the oven. 

The second log I added raisins

When they were done, I turned them out as suggested in the book and was not sure exactly why they looked the way they did, but I suspect it had to do with the lack of gluten. 

They certainly aren't the prettiest cinnamon/sticky buns :/ but they still had a little bit of the flakiness from layering them with butter.  You can sort of see the layers in the photo below.

As for the taste, it was entirely too much butter for me.  I couldn't taste much else.  I would have preferred them to be a little sweeter, maybe with more cinnamon sugar and much less buttery.  My family liked them, my gluten free kid really liked the ones without the raisins (he doesn't love raisins in baked goods, that was more for me ;) ).  

I doubt I will make them again, I like to make cinnamon buns for my family but it is much simpler to make them with a regular old sweet yeast bread dough.  I am now on a mission to find a good go to gluten free recipe.  Wish me luck.

If you would like the recipe you can find it on the blog posts of this weeks hosts Lynn of Eat Drink Man Woman Dogs Cat and Nicole of Cookies on Friday .  The recipe can also be found in Dorie Greenspan's book Baking with Julia.  Of course to see how everyone who participated this week did, go here to see all of the awesome variations of the recipe.