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Thursday, December 19, 2019

Molly's Sticky Buns

Celebrate Christmas like the McIntires!

In a sharp contrast to Maryellen's Christmas story, Molly's Surprise is all about how traditions have changed for the McIntires because of the war. With Dad overseas - and no letters from him in weeks! - things were always going to be different, but Mom doesn't have time to decorate, and Molly's grandparents can't come thanks to a flat tire. With a little help from her siblings - and a surprise from Dad - Molly manages to find a way to make the holidays special even with things so different. 

A traditional holiday snack for the McIntires are sticky buns, a cinnamony treat usually smothered in caramel and pecans. As this Christmas was apparently the year I wanted to practice baking with yeast, and I wanted to revisit some of the American Girl books for baking inspiration, I thought these would be a fun thing to try.


Sticky buns are not exactly ration friendly, meaning the McIntires might not have been able to enjoy them during the war, and they're actually noticeably absent from most of my wartime cookbooks. I looked under cinnamon rolls, Schnecken, and finally just paged through the bread and pastry portions of my cookbooks looking for a good recipe. I finally found something that could pass for them in the same cookbook I got my coffee cake recipe from: The Modern Family Cookbook by Meta Given, which, as a reminder, was originally published in 1942 and enjoyed a reprinting in 1953. Although this recipe calls them pecan rolls, they do offer Schnecken as an alternate name. 

Somewhat ironically, sticky buns trace their history to German settlers to the United States. By the 1940's, they'd had a lot of time to settle as a staple of American pastries, dropping their Germanic sounding name, so it's possible Molly and her family wouldn't have been aware that their traditional snack had ties to one of the countries they were at war with. Molly's mystery books make it clear that she doesn't discriminate against German Americans, but it's still interesting to think how other families who did carry prejudices towards Germans would be enjoying these snacks without realizing their origins. 

Again, this is a fairly involved recipe because it relies on yeast to get the dough to rise, and again, I really feel for Mrs. McIntire thinking that this would be something she'd be slaving over in the kitchen in addition to making Christmas dinner, wrapping presents, going to church, and generally running the house while her kids make a mess. Hopefully Dr. McIntire and Mrs. Gilford help her out, or she makes these well in advance and keeps them in the fridge. 

To make sticky buns like the McIntires, activate two packets of yeast in 1 cup of lukewarm water with 1 teaspoon of sugar and let stand for five minutes. Scald 1 cup of milk and let it cool before adding the yeast. Cream 1/2 cup of shortening (or butter, but wartime rationing makes shortening an appealing option) and add 2/3 of a cup of sugar. Add 2 eggs, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of ground nutmeg and beat everything together. 

In a separate bowl, measure in 3 cups of flour and add the yeast mixture. Mix it together, then add your shortening mixture, beating it until smooth. Add 3 1/4 cups of flour, and mix in well. 

Turn out your bowl onto a floured surface and knead it until smooth. You can add up to 3/4 of a cup of additional flour if the dough is too sticky, and prepare to knead for a while if you're me and add too much packed flour in. Turns out, sifting does come in handy when working with bready recipes. 

Once the dough is smooth, roll it into a ball, place it in a greased bowl, cover it with a damp cloth, and put it somewhere warm to rise. After about two hours, it should have doubled in size, and be ready to get rolled out. 

Divide the ball in half, and roll into a 16 inch by 18 inch, 1/4 inch thick rectangle. Sprinkle each rectangle with a mixture of 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon. Roll the rectangle up like a jellyroll, and cut into twelve 1 inch slices. 

Grease two muffin tins and put one tablespoon of the following mixture into each cavity: 1 cup of brown sugar, 1/4 of a cup of melted butter, 2 tablespoons of white corn syrup, and 1/2 cup of whole or broken pecans. Place a slice on top of each, cover the trays, and let them rise a second time for about 45 minutes. 

Finally, place them in an 375 degree oven and let them bake for 25 minutes or until nicely browned. 

The results should look something like this...


But most of mine were kind of a disaster. They baked through and tasted great, but about 3/4 of the rolls I baked in the muffin tin ended up unspiraling as they baked. Instead of nice, tight rolls covered in gooey caramel and pecans, I had giant towers of pastry unfurling in the pan, with most of the caramel stuck on the bottom of the pan. I had some better luck with the rolls that I placed in a round cake pan, cramming them in the way you do with cinnamon rolls. The caramel stuck to them, but they did come out looking a little less pretty than the weird, Elsa's ice palace looking ones. 

Also, right out of the oven, the caramel felt like it might actually rip a tooth out if you weren't careful. It softened up considerably when you left the rolls out, covered overnight, and made for a much more enjoyable eating experience. There are a couple different reasons this could have happened, from my muffin tin being too small, to the dough having risen too aggressively, to this just being a bad recipe, but I think if I were to make them again, I'd try baking them in a round pan again instead of a muffin tin. 

Taste wise, these were very yummy. They were quite sweet, but not overwhelmingly so necessarily, and well spiced. It also made a lot of buns, so it's a good recipe if you have a lot of people to feed. They kept pretty well after being baked too, so you might be able to get away with making them in advance of serving them if you have a lot of other stuff on your plate. 

While I'm not sure this will become a Christmas classic in our household, I had a lot of fun making them and thinking about how excited Molly, Jill, Ricky and Brad would be to come downstairs on Christmas morning to dig into these tasty pastries. I hope you had fun reading about them!

What's your favorite Christmas food tradition?

3 comments:

  1. I love Mrs. McIntire's sticky buns especially in the illustration! Although I felt confused about the "American Flag instead of an angel or star" mostly because I come from that God Fearing background. I wonder if it was thought to be unpatriotic to put an angel on top?

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    1. Definitely not. Religion was a very important part of life in 1940's wartime America, and no one would have been policing their Christmas trees wanting more patriotic imagery on them. Many families probably did still put angels on their trees, while others like the McIntires decided to use more patriotic imagery because they wanted to show support to their country and loved ones overseas. It's not an indication of whether or not they still practiced or took reassurance from their faith.

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    2. Ah thanks, that cleared it up for my 10 year old inner child too :)

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