Brooke Mosley's Autumn Sticky Buns

Mosley looking tough in her San Francisco kitchen. Photo credit: Courtesy Brooke Mosley

Yahoo Food is a proud sponsor of Indie Chefs Week, a three-night dinner series in Costa Mesa, California celebrating America’s best up-and-coming chefs. Every day, until the first dinner on October 16, we’ll feature one chef and his or her favorite recipe. Oh, and tickets are still available!

Who: Brooke Mosley, chef at Outerlands in San Francisco, California.

Tool she can’t live without: “My hands!”

Ingredient she’s obsessed with: ”Browned butter with vanilla bean.”

Her recipe: Autumn Sticky Buns with seasonally appropriate “pumpkin goo” rolled into the middle and a sweet, sticky interior composed of molasses, brown sugar, cinnamon and, yes, more pumpkin-y stuff. It tastes like October.

Autumn Sticky Buns
by Brooke Mosley
Makes 10 buns

For dough
10 Tbsp. (1 stick plus 2 Tbsp.) unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
Zest of 1 orange
1 1/2 Tbsp. instant yeast
2 1/4 cups room-temperature milk
9 1/4 cups bread flour, plus more for rolling

For “pumpkin goo”
6 sticks unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
2 cups canned pumpkin purée
1 tsp. kosher salt
3/4 cup bourbon

For “sticky insides”
1/2 cup crème fraîche
1/2 cup pumpkin purée
1/4 cup molasses
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
Pinch cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
Pepitas, toasted, for garnish

THE DAY BEFORE

Dough: In an electric mixer, beat the butter, sugar, and salt until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs with the orange zest, then add to the creamed butter, mixing just until combined.

Add instant yeast to milk, whisk, then add that to butter mixture, too.

Add flour to the mixture and knead on low for 5 minutes, or until the dough is supple and smooth.

Cover tightly with plastic wrap in a large container (the dough will double in size). Let rise in the refrigerator overnight.

Goo: Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat until bubbling, stirring occasionally. Remove from the stove and pour into a heat-resistant container. Let cool and then store in the refrigerator until ready to use.

THE DAY OF

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Dough: On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough until it’s uniformly 1/4-inch thick.

Goo: Spread the goo evenly along the bottom of a baking dish (use a 9x13-inch rectangular dish or a 10-inch round).

Insides: Whisk together the first four ingredients and spread evenly across the dough, leaving yourself an inch clean at the bottom (the side closest to your tummy). Mix the remaining ingredients and sprinkle evenly over that.

Assembly: Starting with the edge furthest from you, roll the dough towards you as tightly as possible, until you have reached your clean edge. At this point, you can pinch the dough together, all the way across, creating a seam.

Slice the dough log crosswise every 2 inches. Place the buns, insides up, in the baking dish spread with “goo” leaving an inch between each bun.

Proof the buns by sticking them in a warm spot in your kitchen for an hour. Then bake for 30 minutes or until they are dark brown.

Remove buns from the pan as soon as they are finished baking. Garnish with toasted pepitas.