Rhubarb sticky buns

These are soooo delicious!

I made these very yummy rhubarb sticky buns the other day. And seeing as it IS rhubarb season, I thought I'd share this recipe with you. If you have rhubarb in your garden, and you like sticky buns, I urge you to give these a try!

For the dough, while you can use a biscuit dough, I like these with a yeast dough. Use any yeast dough that you would normally use to make a pan of a dozen cinnamon rolls (a recipe that uses about 2 cups of flour). I made these with some of my refrigerator roll dough.

You will need:

yeast dough enough for 1 dozen rolls (or biscuit dough, see notes at the bottom)

filling:
3 cups finely chopped, fresh rhubarb
scant 1 cup of sugar *
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

syrup:
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/8 cup boiling water
1  1/2 tablespoons butter

• Butter a 9 X 12-inch baking dish.
• On a lightly floured surface, roll out your dough to a large rectangle, about 12 inches long and 9 inches wide.
• Toss the finely chopped rhubarb with cinnamon and sugar. Sprinkle evenly over surface of rectangle of dough, leaving an unfilled inch along one of the long edges of dough. Roll up tightly, jelly roll-style. Pinch the seam closed.
• Cut into 1-inch slices and place in prepared baking dish. Allow to rise until doubled in  bulk.
• Meanwhile, make syrup. Stir together boiling water and sugar. Add butter. Allow to cool while rolls rise.
• When dough is about doubled, heat oven to 350 F degrees. Pour syrup over rolls. Bake for about 35-40 minutes, until rolls are golden on top.

*to reduce sugar in filling, you can add about 1/8 teaspoon baking soda to the fruit, and cut the sugar to about 2/3 cup. The baking soda will reduce some of the acidity in the rhubarb.

If you can keep your family from eating all of these, they do freeze well. I usually make a double-batch and freeze half.

Notes about dough

If you'd like to make these with a Basic Biscuit Dough:

Prepare your rhubarb filling and syrup before making the dough.

Make a dough of 2 cups flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon baking powder, with 1/2 cup butter or margarine cut in to flour mixture. Stir together with 3/4 cup milk. Gently roll out on a floured surface, into a rectangle of about 9 X 12 inches. Then fill and cut as above.

Instead of allowing to rise, right after placing biscuit-style rolls into buttered baking dish, pour the syrup over all, and bake at 350 F for about 35-40 minutes.


For a Basic Yeast Dough yielding 1 dozen sweet rolls:

1 1/2 teaspoons yeast
3/4 cup warm water
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
2 cups of flour, all-purpose or half all-purpose, half whole wheat

In a large mixing bowl pour water and sprinkle with yeast.

Stir in salt and sugar.

Mix in 1 cup of flour and the butter. Add remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time. In the last cup, the dough will become stiff. Knead right in the bowl, for about 4-6 minutes. Allow to sit for about 40 minutes.

Prepare your baking sheet/pan.

Punch down dough. Turn onto a floured surface. Turn and punch about 20 times. Dough is ready to roll out.

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Rolling in dough

Once every couple of weeks, I use a stand-mixer for making the dough for our sandwich and toast bread. The hook and bowl have to be washed by hand. So, while it's out and in use, I like to get it good and dirty with lots of dough.

Last Friday, I used the mixer to make whole wheat dough for 4 loaves of sandwich bread.

Then when that bread dough was out of the mixer, I started a batch of multi-purpose French bread dough, which can also be used for pizza crust and focaccia, in addition to laves of French bread. I make enough of this dough at one time for 4 loaves/uses of dough. I ball these up and place on a sheet of oiled plastic wrap, and freeze in a large zippered plastic bag.

And finally, I used the mixer for a batch of refrigerator, rich roll dough. This dough stays "good" for about 4 days in the fridge. Saturday morning, I used a portion for homemade donuts. Saturday evening I made crescent rolls to go with our dinner. Then on Monday, I took out the last of the refrigerator dough and made rhubarb sticky buns to have with breakfast on Tuesday (and yes, also for a snack for myself on Monday afternoon!)