TBB - Caramel Buns
Patricia @ ButterYum
Welcome to week 15 of the Alpha Bakers bake-a-long, an online project where a group of food bloggers bake our way through The Baking Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. Most of the recipes made during this project will not be shared, but I will post my commentary followed by a full photo tutorial.
This week's selection - Caramel Buns. A brioche dough filled with cinnamon sugar and rum soaked raisins, brushed with a rum glaze, and drizzled with a scrumptious sticky caramel sauce. The recipe calls for pecans as well, but I omitted them because they were made for a family with nut allergies.
Special ingredients and/or equipment needed - two 9-inch round cake pans, stand mixer or bread machine, two 16-ounce glass canning jars or 3-inch diameter ramekins, pastry brush.
Optional ingredients and/or equipment suggested - digital scale, pastry cloth.
How do they taste - One of my daughters loved them, but me and my other daughter thought they were "ok". Honestly, I really wasn't thrilled with the flavor of the brioche part of the caramel buns - I found it flavorless. But I really liked the rum soaked raisins and sticky caramel sauce so that helped.
How do they look - Beautiful served in ring form, but individually they are shaped like trapezoids. Not a big deal for some perhaps, but I've always preferred the symmetry of a round swirled bun.
Level of difficulty - Intermediate.
Were the directions clear - Not entirely. There are 8 pages of written directions for these buns. EIGHT! Do yourself a favor and read them over a few times before you make this recipe.
There is a paragraph about serving these buns for brunch that seemed to stump a lot of the Alpha Bakers. I wasn't stumped by it, but I felt like the paragraph was out of place - seems to me like it would have been better as a sidebar note.
And let me say this, I'm really starting to get annoyed with the fact that the recipes in this book do not include a timeline. I fully expected to start this recipe in the afternoon and bake it off the next morning, but the dough wasn't ready to bake until later that evening. I guess I could have figured that out if I had read the directions more carefully, but honestly, with EIGHT pages of directions, I tend to focus my concentration on the various procedures and techniques rather than the rest and chill times.
What would I do differently next time - Bake the buns individually in muffin tins or something similar that would result in a round shape. Also, rather than use a beaten egg to adhere the brown sugar/raisin filling, I think melted butter would taste much, much better.
Next up - Sour Cherry Pie. Sour cherries are hard to find, especially this time of year so I make no promises.
Okay, here's my photo tutorial.
links to more alpha baker photo tutorials
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2016
- Dec 7, 2016 TBB - Luxury Chocolate Buttercrunch Toffee
- Sep 26, 2016 TBB - Bourbon (Whiskey) Pecan Butter Balls
- May 11, 2016 TBB - Blueberry Buckle
- Apr 5, 2016 TBB - Meringue Birch Twigs
- Jan 26, 2016 TBB - Lemon Almond Cheesecake
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2015
- Nov 19, 2015 The Hazelnut Praline Cookies that Never Were
- Sep 1, 2015 TBB - Flaky Cream Cheese Scones
- Aug 23, 2015 TBB - Woody's Black and White Brownies
- Jul 1, 2015 TBB - Praline Meringue Ice Cream Sandwiches
- Jun 23, 2015 Ricotta Loaf - The Bread Bible
- Jun 4, 2015 TBB - French Orange Cream Tart
- May 19, 2015 TBB - Double Chocolate Oriolos
- May 15, 2015 Touch of Grace Biscuits - The Bread Bible
- May 7, 2015 TBB - Blu-Rhu Mini Pies
- Apr 27, 2015 TBB - Lemon Jammies
- Apr 2, 2015 Pita Pizzas - The Bread Bible
- Mar 22, 2015 TBB - Luxury Oatmeal Cookies
- Mar 15, 2015 TBB - Sour Cherry Pie (Pi Day)
- Mar 9, 2015 TBB - Caramel Buns
- Mar 4, 2015 TBB - Hamantaschen (Purim)
- Feb 23, 2015 TBB - Lemon Posset Alma
- Feb 15, 2015 TBB - Chocolate Pavarotti with Wicked Good Ganache
- Feb 11, 2015 TBB - Golden Orange Panettone with Chocolate Sauce
- Feb 9, 2015 Panettone Delay
- Feb 2, 2015 TBB - Swedish Apricot Walnut Bread
- Jan 26, 2015 TBB - Gingersnaps
- Jan 19, 2015 Biga Fail
- Jan 12, 2015 TBB - Black and Blueberry Pie
- Jan 5, 2015 TBB - Chocolate Cuddle Cake
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2014
- Dec 29, 2014 TBB - Frozen Pecan Tart
- Dec 22, 2014 TBB - Almond Coffee Crisps
- Dec 15, 2014 TBB - The Ischler
- Dec 8, 2014 TBB - English Dried Fruit Cake
- Dec 1, 2014 TBB - Kouigns Amann (kween ah-mahn)
- Nov 5, 2014 Rose's Alpha Bakers - Intro