Weekend breakfast pastry: Toffee Schnecken

Toffee Schnecken -- gooey, chocolate-y and warm from the oven

Do you have a sweet tooth? I sure do!

Friday morning I begin to think about Saturday breakfast treats. (Okay, I'm stretching it a bit to say Friday morning. This week I was thinking about Saturday's treat on Thursday evening. Yep! I've got a sweet tooth!)

Many weekends it's whole wheat cinnamon buns. A fresh-from-the-oven cinnamon bun with coffee, now that's my idea of a Saturday breakfast that is tempting enough to get the troops out of bed in a hurry!

This week, I was in the mood for something a little different. I perused several cooking sites, then I remembered my mom's recipe for Toffee Schnecken. I hadn't made this in a while, so it seemed the perfect treat-y item. (Treat-y -- is that even a word? We'll just say it is!)

Scnecken (or schnecke), by the way, is German for snail, often used to refer to sticky buns made in the rolled up and sliced fashion. Toffee Schnecken is a rolled and sliced sticky bun pastry, filled with toffee bits, chocolate pieces and nuts. It's baked in muffin tins, so the bun grows up, instead of expanding sideways, and looks a bit like a snail, but in a good way!

As luck would have it, I still had a package of toffee bits in the pantry. I bought these on sale, and never got around to using them. I like my Toffee Schnecken with chocolate pieces added. But they're entirely optional. My mom's recipe did not call for the addition of chocolate. So, it's up to you -- chocolate, yes, or chocolate, no.

Toffee Schnecken

2 packages active dry yeast, or 5  1/2 teaspoons (27.5 mL)
1/2 cup (120 mL) lukewarm water
1 cup (240 mL) lukewarm milk
1/2 cup (120 g) butter or margarine (I used margarine)
1/4 cup (50 g) granulated sugar
2  1/2 teaspoons (12.5 mL) salt
1 large egg, beaten
4  3/4 (570 g) to 5  1/4 cups (630 g) flour (I used about 3  3/4 cups white flour and 1 cup whole wheat -- so that it's healthy-like, ya know?)
1/3 cup (80 g) butter, softened (nothing but the real thing here in the filling, the flavor matters most here, but you could use margarine)
1/4 cup (50 g) granulated sugar
1  1/4 cups (185 g) toffee candy bits (sold in the baking section, often next to the chocolate chips, otherwise, you could take a few Heath Toffee bars, and smash them up)
1/2 cup (84 g) chocolate chips (optional, but oh, so yummy!)
1/2 cup (75 g) chopped pecans, walnuts or almonds (optional, when I'm out of nuts, I don't sweat it, they're quite good without the nuts, even)
corn syrup

The dough:

• In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the water. Add milk, 1/2 cup butter or margarine, 1/4 cup sugar, salt, egg and 2 cups of flour. Beat well.
• Mix in enough flour to form a stiff dough. Turn out onto a floured surface, add more flour as needed, and knead until smooth and satiny (about 7-8 minutes).

• Cover with plastic and a towel. Allow to rest on the counter for 20 minutes.

• Butter well,  2  12-count muffin tins. Spoon 1 teaspoon (5 mL) of corn syrup into each muffin tin section (this forms a gooey underside to each pastry).
• Punch down the dough, divide into 2 portions, and make your filling.
• On a floured surface, roll each portion of dough out to 12 X 9 inch rectangles.

• Spread half of the filling onto one rectangle. Roll up, jelly roll style, beginning at the wide end of the rectangle. Slice the roll into 12 pieces, and place into prepared muffin tins.
• Repeat with the other portion of the dough.

The filling:

• Cream the butter and 1/4 cup sugar together. 
• Stir in the toffee bits, chocolate chips and nuts.

Cover the filled muffin tins with plastic, and refrigerate for 2 to 24 hours. These can be prepared the day before baking, up to this point, for a fresh schnecken in the morning, if desired. They don't require additional rising time -- just set on the counter for 10 minutes and bake.

Just before baking, remove from the refrigerator, uncover and allow to stand at room temperature, while the oven preheats to 350 degrees F (176 C).

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. 

Quickly turn the pastries out of the pan, immediately after baking, onto a rack to cool briefly before serving. If any stick to the pan, slide a table knife around the edges. As the syrupy bottom of the schnecken cools, it will harden. The last couple of pastries may need to be popped back into a warm oven, to remove them from the pan. Makes 24 pastries. 

I freeze half of the pastries, for grab-and-go breakfasts during the work week. I just do a double wrap in plastic, and I am good to go.

Grabbing a cup of coffee and pastry at Starbucks can become an expensive habit, over $4 just for one person. I make pastries at home, as a way to treat my family to something special, in an affordable way. This recipe (made without nuts -- I was out of nuts), cost me about $4 for the batch of 24 pastries, or 17 cents per pastry. A home-brewed cup of coffee and 2 Toffee Schnecken will run about 50 cents. Not bad at all for a Saturday morning treat!