Pantries and Preparedness. From learning one skill you get so much more! And the recipe for Sticky Buns.

Last week Cookie shared with us her easy one hour bread and we talked about being able to make basics from scratch and what an advantage this is... in both money savings and also being up to make meals from very simple ingredients.  Cookie's recipe can be found in last weeks post.

I am going to attempt a basic tutorial in sour dough another day.  It is thanks to Nanna Chel that I got started as she sent me some starter and instructions. She sent me to a blog called Gully Grove which helped me a lot as I found many instructions confusing but that blog made it much simpler!   Anyway, I am working on a tutorial to make it really easy for anyone interested.

Whether you are making bread with purchased yeast or sour dough starter it is like a lot of skills... it has many, many spin offs. You do not just get bread you get rolls, pizza bases, Calzones, focaccia and  fancy breads,  buns,  scrolls and sticky buns! (and many other things I haven't even tried yet.)

You can feed your family, fill lunch boxes, use for entertaining and gifts.

Then you have left overs. You get Bread and Butter pudding,  bread cases,  croutons, bread crumbs (for toppings, crumbed chops, meatloaf and more) and it goes on and on!  I wrote a post here about using up left over bread.  I make Bread and Butter pudding and it looks like a cake. It cuts like a cake and it is beautiful.  You can also make individual ones in a muffin tray.  This is also a great way to use up jam.

If you have a whole bunch of people to feed and they are always hungry all of this can really help! 

Anyway here is my Sticky Bun recipe. I adapted it from a very old recipe to my sour dough. I find really you can make any recipe calling for yeast. To do it I start with a cup or two of starter, make my sponge and go right ahead and use that instead of purchased yeast. Somewhere I will need to use less liquid than the recipe says or more flour (or both) to get the dough consistency but so far this has worked out with everything. 

For Sticky Buns (this makes 18)

Use about two cups of active sour dough starter and make your sponge with one cup of flour and one cup of water. Let it sit and become good and bubbly. I do this the night before. 

In the morning:

Heat up a cup of milk and add a large tablespoon of butter and a cup of sugar. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Let it cool down to warm.

I put my sour dough sponge in the mixer, add this melted mix, add 2 eggs and 4 cups flour.  (I used bread flour for everything)

Mix and keep adding flour until you have a nice soft dough, not dry but not wet! (I think I used about five cups overall)  Knead until lovely and smooth. I do this in my mixer with the dough hook.

Let this rise. I set it aside until mid afternoon. 

I use my largest baking dish and another smaller one. Line really well and up the sides with baking paper. 

Make a caramel sauce in a saucepan of 2 large tablespoons of butter, 2 cups of dark brown sugar, 1 cup of Golden Syrup.  (this is available in the Australian or British section in supermarkets overseas) 

Melt this all together and pour over your baking paper to cover the bottom of both tins.  You can make this anytime however I make it just before I fill the trays with my buns as this gives you warmth in your pans which will help the buns to rise. 

Sprinkle bits of pecans or walnuts over your toffee mix.

When your dough has risen to about double roll it out into a long section. 

Sprinkle this with 3 teaspoons of brown sugar and 3 teaspoons of cinnamon.  

Roll this like you would to make scrolls to form a giant long rolled up sausage.

Slice this into about 18 thick slices.  Then set each one onto your toffee base...

I got 12 in one tray and 6 in another. 

So it looks dismal at this point! Cover and let sit somewhere warm until at least double in size.  The warm toffee will help your pan be nice and warm. 

Once at least doubled you can bake them.  I used a medium oven for about 20 mins. Keep an eye on them. You want them to be golden but not get too dark...

Now for the good bits!  You want to let this cool down a bit as the toffee underneath is bubbly and would burn terribly if things went wrong. But you want it still nice and warm so it will tip out. 

Lay out a big baking tray or baking paper and tip the tray upside down so the whole thing comes out. 

Then carefully peel away the baking paper...

Underneath you will find oozy goozy sticky buns all golden and yum.

I served them warm at dinner when I had visitors....

They are really good! Later when they were cool I found microwaving them for 30 seconds made them like just out of the oven again.

I froze the whole tray of six and they freeze well.  

So that is it!  

Last week I worked on rotating some food items from our storage. I ordered a bike basket and seat cover for my bike.  I added large size batteries to my supplies.

Our power situation made international news and Elon Musk came out and said he can fix our problems.  This will be interesting!  I know he is a really smart guy and can only imagine him talking on the phone to our Premier and find this somehow hilarious.  However it would be amazing if good came from it! 

Did you add to your preparedness this week or learn a new skill that would be helpful?

Today is a public holiday for us. I am trying to get off to a good start! Have a wonderful week! xxx