Barefoot Contessa's Easy Sticky Buns

If you don't have Barefoot Contessa's Back To Basics you need to get it tout de suite. Two of the pages in my copy are practically stuck together with goop from making her Easy Sticky Buns so many times for Babe. They made their cool weather comeback this past Saturday morning and will pretty much be a weekend staple til it gets dangerously close to bikini season...

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 cup pecans, chopped in very large pieces
1 package (17.3 ounces/2 sheets) frozen puff pastry, defrosted
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup raisins

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place a 12-cup standard muffin tin on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the 12 tablespoons butter and 1/3 cup brown sugar. Place 1 rounded tablespoon of the mixture in each of the 12 muffin cups. Distribute the pecans evenly among the 12 muffin cups on top of the butter and sugar mixture.

Lightly flour a wooden board or stone surface. Unfold one sheet of puff pastry with the folds going left to right. Brush the whole sheet with half of the melted butter. Leaving a 1-inch border on the puff pastry, sprinkle each sheet with 1/3 cup of the brown sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons of the cinnamon, and 1/2 cup of the raisins. Starting with the end nearest you, roll the pastry up snugly like a jelly roll around the filling, finishing the roll with the seam side down.

Trim the ends of the roll about 1/2 inch and discard. Slice the roll in 6 equal pieces, each about 1 1/2 inches wide. Place each piece, spiral side up, in 6 of the muffin cups. Repeat with the second sheet of puff pastry to make 12 sticky buns.

Bake for 30 minutes, until the sticky buns are golden to dark brown on top and firm to the touch. Allow to cool for 5 minutes only, invert the buns onto the parchment paper (ease the filling and pecans out onto the buns with a spoon), and cool completely.

Now, Ina uses Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry but, I prefer Dufours which can be found at Whole Foods. There's only one sheet per box which is perfect for me since I usually cut the recipe in half. If I was making 12 of these a pop there would be no bikini season pour moi...

ps...I can not emphasize enough how easy these are to make the hardest part being to remember to take the butter out to soften the night before. Click here to watch the queen in action with her buns...

Kindness of Babe who scarfed them up last weekend even though they were a smidgie burned cuz I wasn't used to Julie's oven at the beach...XXOO