A friend recently told me about a stall at her local market in W.A that sells frozen, bake-at-home pastries. She bought some maple walnut scrolls or some such delicacy, which she was then able to whisk out of the freezer and bake as a treat at a later date. I thought that was absolutely genius.
I also thought it was very achievable at home. Why not make a batch of buns some day when I was quietly at home, freeze them, and then bake them on a day with less time?
I made my usual sweet bun recipe (without dried fruit) filling it with a mixed spice butter. I'd planned to just do cinnamon, but there was less cinnamon in the jar than I'd thought, so I added 1/2 tsp nutmeg and 1/2 tsp ground cloves to the 1 tbs cinnamon I did have.
I put the buns in a foil baking tray, covered it tightly with foil and put it straight in the freezer.
Several days later, we had an "away day" for work. Some workplaces go paintballing, some do a day trip to Bruge. We go to David's house and actually spend most of the day working. I thought freshly baked sticky buns would facilitate the process. I took the frozen tray of buns with me, stuck them in the oven (his oven door is hinged at the side, which took me by surprise) and half an hour later we had elevenses.
So - given the distance between my freezer and David's house, the buns had 2 1/4 hours to thaw and have their second rise before they were baked. They didn't have quite as much ovenspring as normal, but I actually think that was the fault of the yeast - I ran out of instant dried yeast, and made up the quantity with regular dried yeast and I don't think it is as effective.
This was very successful. I think next time I'll make a bigger batch so I can have a few trays tucked away for those moments when a sticky bun would be a good thing.
8 comments:
I checked in to see if you'd posted a Meat-Free Monday treat, but sticky buns are good, very very good!
These look like sticky bun heaven!!
There is nothing like having things like this in the freezer for when you don't have the time of inclination to make them from scratch.
Oh my gosh, those look SO GOOD. What a treat to have tucked away in the freezer. I am going to try to do this this weekend. My inlaws are arriving a week from tomorrow, and it would be so nice to be able to bake these on-demand. Will report back if I get to them. Thanks for sharing!
I think this is brilliant- I often make double cookie dough and freeze a log of it to cut into coins when I want a quick hit- but had never thought of buns. Thank you!
Nothing more delicious in the morning than a sticky bun! Yours look fabulous...wish I could afford calorie-wise to eat one every morning.
I tried Ina's puff pastry sticky buns at Christmas. The kids thought they were too fattening! :)
Cranky - sorry! Meat free Monday hasn't contained anything interesting or bloggable for a while!
Joanne - thanks!
Kat - it definitely feels like something worth doing again.
Tori - I've been freezing bread dough for ages, I don't know why I hadn't thought of this!
Barbara - yes, there is so much butter in the filling, you really don't need it in the dough as well!
They look great and I love the idea of having them on standby in the freezer - yum!
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