Sticky bun

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sticky buns are a dessert or breakfast pastry that generally consist of rolled pieces of leavened dough—sometimes containing ingredients like brown sugar and/or cinnamon—which are then compressed together to form a kind of flat loaf corresponding to the size of the baking pan. Prior to placement of the dough within the pan, the latter is lined with the "sticky" ingredients like maple syrup, honey (or both), as well as nuts and perhaps more sugar and sometimes butter. After the buns are baked, they are inverted so that the pan lining then becomes a topping. Commercially produced sticky buns, however, are usually just baked in an aluminum loaf tin, which allows the topping to suffuse the buns, making them sticky throughout. The manner in which the buns were baked allows them to more or less be pulled off as individual servings, although it is often a futile effort.

Sticky buns appear to have a Germanic origin and were originally known as "Schnecken". Wherever 18th-Century German settlers (such as the Pennsylvania Dutch) went, sticky buns have remained long after many other cultural traits have disappeared. A web search for "sticky buns" might result in pages which proffer recipes for "genuine Berks County, Pennsylvania (home to a high concentration of Pennsylvania Dutch) sticky buns. Mennonite bakeries in Virginia, produce sticky buns and the related cinnamon roll as staple commodities.