A sticky situation

Most of you probably agree with me, but I love eating breakfast! Breakfast anytime! Not that I don't love lunch or dinner, but remember how fun it was when you realized you could order breakfast ALL DAY at Denny's? Or Mom didn't feel like "cooking" so we'd have breakfast for dinner?

Instead of dessert, I'd be perfectly happy to down coffee cakes; or French Toast; or crepes with powdered sugar and lemon juice; or Dutch babies; or a bowl of Lucky Charms; or.... sticky buns:

I LOVE sticky buns...

I made this round to take to my cousins when we stayed
with them too. Way better than paying for a hotel!

Mom has a great sticky bun recipe but I surprisingly haven't made it before. And this recipe is not actually Mom's but Peter Reinhart's. Not that I would opt for Peter over Mom in any given situation, but this is a tried and true recipe since the Daring Bakers made sticky buns in September of 2007; 8 months before I joined. Marce of Pip in the City hosted and selected the recipe for the DBs to tackle.

Now that is DEFINITELY doubling in size!

Cinnamon, sugar and cardamom --- Sprinkle LIBERALLY over the dough

This was back when I was merely stalking the Daring Bakers and hadn't committed myself to joining. It was silly fun for me to check blogs near the end of each month to discover what they'd done this time. So while I remember reading about the buns, I didn't make them for myself - until recently.

Place the rolled up buns on the butter, sugar,
corn-syrup topping sprinkled with pecans

After they rise again they'll be so big they'll fill in all that "empty" space between the buns

Instead of making these for breakfast I made them for dessert, after dinner. I took them to a friend's potluck and baked them at his house so that the entire house smelled like cinnamon. Even though I served them on the late side (on a Sunday and thus, a school night) most everyone stuck around to sample.

After the second rise - they bump into each other

The recipe called for cinnamon and sugar to be spread all over the dough, but I added a little cardamom which I actually had trouble tasting even though I could smell it. Also worth noting, DO NOT over-bake these buns. If baked too long, the corn syrup and sugar in the "topping" (on the bottom) will reach what's known as soft-crack stage in sugar cooking and will make for a sticky, almost hard topping, instead of gooey and soft. Recipe says 30-40 minutes but I think 30 would be fine, assuming your oven is at the correct temperature (always keep an oven thermometer in your oven to be absolutely sure!)

Ready to invert, pull apart and gobble up!

Making breads is always time consuming, not so much due to complication but to actual time; the time needed for the dough to rise. Whenever I have plans to spend an entire day at home, bread is typically on tap. These buns can even sit in the fridge overnight (or for a couple days) after the first rise. So if you want them fresh from the oven for breakfast - totally doable.

I wouldn't complain about starting my Sunday this way, would you?