Sweet Sticky, Sticky Buns

The brioche dough in progress.

So, if you know me and you know the amount that I bake, you realize that I have fallen grossly behind on reporting my baking adventures.  As a PhD student, I've found that I have way too many things to do and not enough hours in the day.  If I took the time to write this blog, I wouldn't have time to check facebook every hour :).

The buns ready to

However, I've come up with a plan to get my blog reporting back on track.  No more baking until I catch up on my writing.  Also, I now have more time since my presidential duties have finished.  So, here's my attempt to get closer to baking again.
Back in March, I decided to make one of the most popular items at Flour, their sticky buns.  These are so famous that they landed the owner of Flour on the Food Network.  The first step in making the sticky buns, is to make up a batch of the brioche dough on page 73.  I have never seen sooo much butter go into a batch of dough in my life and unfortunately, I was kneading the dough by hand. The dough definitely looked questionable for a while, but Joanne (the author of the Flour cookbook) told me what to expect and the dough turned out beautifully.

The buns have risen!

After the dough had enough time to chill (overnight), I started making the sticky buns for my Sunday morning breakfast.  This part of the process actually turned out to be way easier than anticipated.  In no time, I had beautiful sticky buns ready to rise.  I let the yeast work it's magic for about 2 hours and then popped it in the oven.  In 40 mins, I had delicious, golden sticky buns. 

Finally!  Sticky Buns!

These were actually really good warm.  A caution to anyone trying this at home, more than one of these might cause diabetes.  They are super sweet!  Overall, it was a great recipe, not my favorite so far, but definitely well worth the effort. 

Mmmmm.... Cheddar Scallion Scones

Scones ready for the oven.

There is no better way to relax after a long day in the lab/office than baking.  That's exactly what I thought when I came home and decided to make cheddar scallion scones.  This actually happened about 1 month ago on a cold winter day, let's hope my posting frequency increases once my classes and presidential duties are over.  Yeah right. :)

It had been a long day and I was craving a warm bowl of soup and a scone seemed like the perfect treat to accompany it.  As an added bonus, baking this recipe would mean I could check another Flour recipe off my long list.

The completed scones cooling on a wire rack

The scones were actually remarkably easy to make, either that or my baking skills are improving.  No, it must be the latter.  The results were good, but a bit saltier than I would have liked.  Nevertheless, they still miraculously disappeared in 3 days and it wasn't my little tassie devil oven mitt that did the job :).