Sticky Buns and Cinnamon Rolls :)

Sticky Buns.. a-ma-zing.

I've moved from artisan breads which are mostly lean, meaning they don't have any, or very little, fats and/or sugars, to viennoiserie... which is essentially baking with doughs that are made of butter, butter, and more butter (and maybe some sugar too). Although I certainly can't eat anything I made yesterday, I can definitely admire the products and enjoy giving them to people who can eat them (and love to!)

Really though, these doughs, known as enriched or sweet doughs, have a lot of butter... our laminated dough formula (used to make croissants and danishes) contains 20% butter of the final dough weight. And not just any butter, mind you, but butter that has at least 82% fat. Our chef (who is awesome! he's been a vegetarian for 32 years for health reasons, and can deliver hilarious one liners without cracking a smile, plus he is great at challenging us to challenge ourselves).. anyway.. our chef prefers to use "plugra" butter.. which is a play on the French words for "more fat" (plus gras). 

So for my first day, which was the longest by far at 12 and a half hours, we were going non-stop all day... and I LOVED it! First, we made some laminated dough, which would later be used for croissants. The process is crazy, and let me tell you, those "crescent rolls" that pop out of a can have nothing on real croissants. Without telling you every single step... the basics are: you use a sheeter (a manually-directed machine that rolls dough back and forth, making it thinner with each pass) to create layers of butter and dough. By the time you get to the last step, you essentially have a dough that is layer upon layer upon layer of dough and butter- which makes for beautifully flaky pastries. See what I mean...

Check out these layers!

Chocolate croissants

Notice how these are darker than you typically see in grocery stores, etc. 

Chef says that many American pastries and baked goods are underbaked, 

because we see darker coloring and think- burned!!! But, this isn't the case. 

These croissants have perfect coloring (they've been egg washed twice). 

One step of the lamination process- the tri-fold.

Dough on the sheeter.

Chocolate croissants ready to proof.

Rolling up a chocolate croissant. 

We also made sticky buns and cinnamon rolls... which again, are much darker than we typically see them. Also, chef noted that he puts the glaze on the rolls while they are still hot, so that the glaze seals in over the roll combining with and complementing the other flavors and textures of the roll, rather than waiting until the roll is cool, so there is a layer of white sugar on top. Sticky buns start out as cinnamon rolls, but they get a special home in a muffin tin coated with a brown sugar, honey & butter smear with pecans. The bottom of each bun then becomes the top. 

Rolling up cinnamon rolls

Making sticky buns.

Our cinnamon rolls (pre-glaze)

Sticky buns!! 

Cinnamon rolls!

I brought home a HUGE box full of cinnamon rolls, sticky buns, croissants and brioche. HUGE. I have no room left in my freezer. Stay tuned to see what yummy treats I get to make next week!