ABBY L. VANDIVER Holidays are a time to get cooking on the old family recipes and
to try some new ones. I host a Thanksgiving brunch for my family at my house
every year. I try not to have any “Thanksgiving” food on the menu, you know
like turkey, dressing and macaroni and cheese. I know everyone will get enough
of that at dinner, second helpings and the days to follow with leftovers. I
always say I’m going to make something light, but then I get carried away with
my menu.
This year we had fish (or shrimp) and grits, baked spaghetti,
and French toast among two counter tops of aluminum pans full of food. But I also
tried a few new things. I love putting stuff together to see how it will come
out. My daughter once told some friends that I could make a seven-course meal
with a glass of water and two eggs. There’s always something in the kitchen
that you can put together and make something new, or take and old recipe and
make it taste even better.
For my brunch, among other things, I made a cinnamon apple upside-down cake and egg “muffins” with broccoli, or spinach (or both), red pepper and cheese baked inside (recipes to share another day!). But the “first time trying” recipe my granddaughter, Sydne, immediately asked me to make more of were the sticky buns.
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| My Sweet Sydne-Girl |
Puff Pastry (2 sheets)
8 tbsp. butter
Ground cinnamon
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans
1/3 cup brown sugar
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Next half each of the three sections of the puff pastry so that you have six slices.
Cut the butter into twelve (12) slices and place one pat in each well of a muffin tin. In my pictures I used a 6-muffin tin, but use a 12-muffin tin.
Evenly cover the butter with light brown sugar (not dark brown sugar!) Then add the nuts.
Hold the strips of cut puff pastry at the ends slightly twist it, then roll it to form the bun and place on top of the nuts.
Cook until the pastry is golden brown or about 20-22 minutes. Immediately coming out of the oven, flip the muffin tin onto your serving dish otherwise when it cools, the nuts will stick to the pan and not your sticky buns!
Then just enjoy!
My latest book, Soul of a Killer, has good recipes in the back, and murder all through it!
After years of cooking/baking, you have a sense of what works for your family and what may not. So yes, I do alter recipes quite often. Usually if I take something out because of someone's dislike, I figure out what would be good in its place. If it's something I'm not sure of, I may cook it the first time strictly by the recipe so if it's a no save I can't say it was because of my fiddling with it. Then I make notations of changes to make if it's a keeper.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the recipe. Sounds yummy and simple.
2clowns at arkansas dot net
Those sound wonderful Abby--and your granddaughter is beautiful!
ReplyDeleteThese look yummy. My sister makes something similar, but instead of nuts on the bottom, she thinly slices apples and puts a single layer of them on one side of the pastry, folds it in half, covering most of the apple, but allowing the red edge to show, rolls the pastry and puts it in the muffin pan, making apple roses...delicious! Best eaten warm!
ReplyDeleteOh, yum! Thanks, Abby.
ReplyDeleteYUMMY! Great to meet your granddaughter also...grandkids are such a treasure. She seems to really like the sticky buns, so I'm making them :-) Luis at ole dot travel
ReplyDeletePuff pastry is a miracle in the kitchen.
ReplyDeleteOh my! Looks so yummyly sweet!
ReplyDeleteI have a recipe for Hershey's Hot Fudge Cake. Once I printed it off from a different web site and it was wrong.
ReplyDeleteAfter comparing it to the original recipe on the Hershey's website, I discovered that the other recipe called for too much brown sugar. I think it tasted okay, just very brown sugary. So be careful of online recipes!