Recipe: Brown Sugar Buns

About a week ago I had made an unsuccessful variant of this recipe- in fact the only thing that turned out that day was the sweet bread sticks that I made into cinnamon sugar pretzels. Last night I was a little short on a filling meal and made the following. I did the best I could to keep track of ingredients, so some leniency is to be expected. I'd advise that this be rolled out onto wax paper or a floured surface.

Makes approx. 16 2" rounds

3c self-rising flour (retain 1/2c extra)
2/3 c brown sugar
1c milk
5 T-1/3c honey
4T olive oil (retain extra to periodically keep the dough from sticking to surfaces and the bowl while getting desired consistency- may use up to 1/3c or 1/2c)

For filling - 1c brown sugar, and ground cinnamon shaker

The trick is to combine the ingredients into a dough the texture of kneaded bread- when a hank is pulled away it should form thick strings. At the very least it should be as dense as dumplings for soups. A workable mixture that can be rolled out and cut. I was able to put the dough into a 9x13 oiled pan with a 1c dough left over and cut into 12 pieces around a third to half of an inch thick.

Each piece is then worked into a ball or ravioli or turnover style. Its pretty adaptable. A ball then needs to have a deep depression that can hold 1t of the brown sugar filling and dashed with a bit of cinnamon. Pinch the dough from the sides over the top of the filling. Ravioli style should be a 1 1/2" wide by 1 1/2" bit of dough, deposit cinnamon/brown sugar, and cover with another square. I had only moderate success with this style since my dough was a bit more moist than allowed for closing the ravioli. I suppose that one could try making croissants this way as well. Turnover style, just take a general square of dough and place the filling in the middle. Take a corner of the dough to meet another side so the closed form is that of a triangle. Use a fork to pinch sides closed.

Don't worry if things get messy with any of these, the recipe is pretty forgiving. Just desposit whatever mess you have in a lump on the oiled pan and reapply the filling into a depression and work dough over the filling as best as possible. I had some buns that were the shape of cookies with brown sugar cores, on up to combined psuedo- round loaves of sweet bread with deep swirls of brown sugar and cinnamon. The goal is sweets and making a mess. When working with the dough, keep your hands and surfaces a combination of oiled or floured. Either works and won't harm the dough.

Bake for 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees.

EDIT: Also makes GREAT baked pretezels- roll the dough into thumb thick rods about a foot long and roll in sugar/cinnamon. Bake for no longer than 20 minutes.