Cinnamon Raisin Sticky Buns

Wolf bait. I once had the cockamamie idea to set up a self-serve roadside bread stand as a hands-on home-school learning experience for the boys. I baked like mad and the kids counted money. The boys seemed to take special pleasure in observing the kinds of people who stopped at our bread stand. The stand was in plain view from our home school room and every now and then someone would shout, "somebody's buying bread!" with additional comments similar to, "What's she need bread for! She's FAT enough!" Oh my. Detentionable offenses no doubt, big time, had this happened in real school.

We hit the jackpot of sorts one afternoon when a hydro and construction crew pulled up in heavy trucks and began hauling out equipment and setting up roadsigns. An hour later all but one of the crew left, all of them having filled up at the bread stand. The remaining twenty-something finished tossing equipment into his truck, went into the cab and came back to the stand. We watched him buy a round of sticky buns, and standing half way between the bread stand and his truck, eat it, all of it. He then returned to his cab, came back to the stand, bought another round of sticky buns and standing right there, ate that one too. It was all too much even for my little wolves jumping up and down, hooting and howling at this fellow, "What a PIG!!" "Wolf, he's a wolf, not a pig," I corrected them. Not too long ago, I reminded them of this.
Other than a white beach...white with white sand...not snow...it doesn't get much better than a pan of Cinnamon Raisin Sticky Buns, and steaming hot coffee, whilst anchored deeply in the depths of a Canadian winter. In my book, it equals sitting atop a ladder picking sweet cherries on a blue July day...white puffy clouds...birds complaining it's you, not them. Notice I said, "a pan." Notice I didn't get up to hunt around for a thesaurus to eliminate repetitive language...deeply...depths. Wait a minute, that's alliteration, so that's okay. Okay, in that case I'll just sit here a little longer licking my fingers and picking stray raisins off my lap.

The amounts given here make a single 8-inch round pan of sticky buns. Go to Multi-Purpose White Bread recipe, for the dough recipe and how to do that. The amounts given there will make approximately 7 - 9 pounds of dough. So you will need to decide what to do with all that dough. On Fridays, I generally make 4 - 6 - 8 pizzas and 0 - 2 - 4 rounds of sticky buns or a dozen or so of lunch buns with one batch of the Multi-Purpose White Bread recipe. It just depends what kind of crowd I'm expecting for Friday night pizza. More often, it's easier after having made my pizzas, to divide the extra dough into 1 pound balls, ziploc them and refrigerate to use later in the week.

• 1 pound of basic boring white bread dough, my recipe or yours
  
• 2 1/2 Tbsp. soft butter or margarine
• 1/3 cup light brown sugar, 1st amount
• 1/4 - 1/3 cup light brown sugar, 2nd amount
  
• handful of light raisins
• cinnamon, sprinkled on as much as you like

Measure out the first amount of brown sugar and butter or margarine directly into the baking pan, mix it up and spread it evenly over the pan bottom. Set this aside.
Pat out 1 pound of dough to about an 8 x 10 rectangular shape - just use your hands. Spread second amount of brown sugar over this. Add raisins and sprinkle thickly with cinnamon powder.
Form a fat little roly-poly log, beginning from the top, short side. Lightly score the log into 8 equal pieces. Then cut and remove each piece to the prepared pan one by one. It helps to use a very sharp serrated knife and to not cut them all at once.
Place the pieces into the prepared pan. Yo, Uncle Ernie, there, in the middle!
Let them rise until just above the pan top. Place in preheated 400F oven for 12 -15 minutes turning the pan mid-way for even baking. Sayonara, Uncle Ernie.
Expect the syrup to bubble up and boil over. To deal with this, place the pans on a little bigger pan that won't interfere with the oven's air circulation. I use the bottoms from spring form pans and place foil on the oven bottom. Remove from oven when the tops are well browned and let stand 5 minutes in the pan on a cooling rack.
Loosen the edges with a knife and flip the pan upside down onto a cooling rack. If the hot syrup has not cooled quite enough, it will run rapidly out and pool on the counter top. If that happens, quickly flip the pan back over and let it sit a bit longer.
Remove the pan. Use a rubber spatula to scrape any remaining sticky stuff from the pan bottom and counter top back onto the buns. Wolf bait, every time.