Pecan Sticky Buns - Tuesdays With Dorie

My sticky buns rose too much for my pan [2 new 2" pans are on my batterie de cuisine list], but the color is great and the layers are flaky and tender. This «Tuesday With Dorie» we were making Nancy Silverton's brioche and pecan sticky buns from Baking With Julia.

Once the buns were flipped over and the caramel ran down over them, it proved not to be enough. Although the flavor was okay and the color was just right, the effort required to make this recipe of brioche did not produce a good enough result to warrant repeating it.

I was impressed with how painting the dough with egg wash helped to hold the nuts into the layers, but there was not enough cinnamon or sugar for flavor--and believe it or not, it could have used butter combined with the sugar/cinnamon. All that butter in the dough did not impart flavor [maybe salted butter would have worked better] and the dough itself seemed flat in taste. I have half a recipe of the brioche left in the freezer and I plan to make a savory product at week's end--maybe the savory filling will make up for the flat taste of the dough itself.

Provençal Olive Fougasse

Finally, a bread with lots and lots of crust! Recipe is from Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table, p. 48, and is my first attempt at fougasse and French Fridays With Dorie. I did not use olives nor fresh rosemary, but the taste is still very good. Broken chunks would be wonderful spread with rillettes or paté and eaten with cornichons.