I hereby swear that this will be the last sweet thing I eat in 2011. Because of the holidays, I’m sweetened out. Are you?
Try these anyway, they’ll make you happy. 
Despite my sugar coma, I just HAD to post the recipe for these Tangerine-Pistachio Sticky Buns because they are marvelous. We made these Christmas Eve morning and they started the Christmas holiday off perfectly.
This recipe is adapted from one in the December issue of Everyday Food (that I can’t get to on the internet for some reason). They’re nice and fluffy with a balanced blend of sweet, tart and a touch of nutty flavors. The tiny bit of crunch the pistachios give these rolls is perfect.
The smell and taste of the citrus in this recipe takes me back to summer, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Why? Because we’re stuck in some kind of funky weather pattern that has left us with no snow and a lot of dark, dreary, gloomy days. This is Wisconsin for Pete’s sake, we’re supposed to have snow, and lots of it, by now. Instead we have muddy gloom. THAT’S why I’m loving the reminder of summer these precious little buns brought with them .
The printer-friendly PDF recipe for these delicious sticky buns is below.
To get started, put a 1/2 cup of shelled pistachios with a 1/2 cup of brown sugar in a food processor and pulse until you have a course ground mix.
Then sprinkle 3 tablespoons of the pistachio mix over the bottom of an 8 inch cake pan.
Next, drizzle 2 tablespoons of melted butter over the pistachio mixture….
…don’t worry about covering every pistachio with the butter, everything’s going to bake together perfectly in the end.
Martha’s original recipe in Everyday Food called for using frozen pizza dough. We couldn’t find that in our grocery store, so we used 2 of the refrigerated tubes of pizza dough. No worries! It worked fine! Better than fine.
Whichever dough you choose to use, you’ll need to roll it out on a lightly floured work surface into a rectangle that’s approximately 12 by 18 inches. Then, spread it with tangerine marmalade. I made our marmalade for this from another recipe in the same issue of Everyday Food, but a store-bought orange or tangerine marmalade will work just fine too. Make sure you leave about a 1 inch border around the rectangle.
This is my first time making a marmalade of any kind, and I must say, it was so much easier than I thought. Both hubby and I absolutely love it. Not only in these sticky buns, but on toast, an English muffin, Paula Deen’s biscuits, etc., etc. I guess I better post the recipe for that later…anyway…
Once the marmalade is spread over your dough, sprinkle the remaining pistachio mix right over the top of it, still leaving that 1 inch border (roughly) in tact.
Beginning with one of your long edges, start rolling the dough up. Kind of like you would with a jelly roll. Roll it up tight and cut it into 8 equal slices…..
….and place them into the cake pan over the pistachio mix like this.
Bake for 35 minutes or so at 350 degrees. Make sure you put your cake pan on a baking sheet before baking so you don’t have a mess in your oven – You can see how some of it will bubble over.
Don’t these look amazing? Incredible? Heavenly? All of the above? Wait until you smell them!
I thought they were perfect when they came out of the oven, but the proper thing to do now (according to the original recipe) is to run a knife around the edges of your sticky buns and invert them onto a serving plate. Still. Beautiful!
The only thing left to do is dive in and enjoy!
I’m so hungry after writing this post…I hope Hubby saved me one more of these wonderful things. THEN I’m done with sweets for 2011. Probably.
Have a great Tuesday!
xoxo
Tangerine-Pistachio Sticky Buns Recipe
Adapted from the December, 2011 issue of Everyday Food
Ingredients:
- ½ cup packed dark-brown sugar
- ½ cup shelled unsalted pistachio
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- All-purpose flour for work surface
- 1 ½ pounds (2 tubes) refrigerated pizza dough (or frozen)
- 1/3 cup tangerine marmalade
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
Directions:
In a food processor, pulse brown sugar and pistachios until coarsely ground. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons of the sugar mixture into an 8 inch round baking pan (2 inches deep). Drizzle with 2 tablespoons of the melted butter.
On a lightly floured work surface, roll and stretch dough into a 12 x 18 inch rectangle. Spread with marmalade, leaving a 1 inch border. Top with remaining sugar mixture, sprinkle with salt, and drizzle with remaining 3 tablespoons of melted butter.
Starting with long edge of rectangle, roll up dough like a jelly roll. Cut crosswise 8 pieces and place in pan. If using frozen pizza dough: cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until buns are puffed and begin to touch, about 1 hour. No need to let the dough rise if you’re using the refrigerated dough.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place pan on a rimmed baking sheet and bank until buns are golden brown, about 35 minutes. Immediately run a knife around the edge of pan and invert buns onto a serving platter. Serve warm.
