A few years ago, I went on a pumpkin rampage. I made everything from homemade pumpkin ravioli to pumpkin chili. I must have overdone it, because I hardly used any pumpkin at all for the next few years. This year, I’m ready to tiptoe back into the world of pumpkin.

I’ve been in the mood to bake lately, and have spent the past few weekend in the kitchen perfecting some new pastry recipes. These pumpkin pie sticky buns were an immediate favorite – they’re perfect as an easy breakfast along with a cup of steaming hot coffee.

When I first started dreaming up this recipe, I thought I would use pumpkin in the sweet dough and fill them with a classic cinnamon roll filling. After giving it some more thought, though, I decided to keep the dough plain and make an easy pumpkin pie filling for the rolls instead. I couldn’t be happier with my choice! The custardy filling gives the buns loads of pumpkin flavor and eliminates the need for any butter in the filling.

I topped the pumpkin pie sticky buns with chopped hazelnuts and Amoretti Crema di Pumpkin Pie syrup. I love the way the sweet, buttery hazelnuts pair with the pumpkin-pie flavor but, if you prefer, you can also use pecans for a more traditional sticky bun. Whichever you choose, be sure to completely cover the bottom of your pan with chopped nuts – they’ll form a barrier between the syrup and the dough, ensuring you’ll get that nice, sticky topping that’s so important in a sticky bun.

Amoretti Crema di Pumpkin Pie Syrup made the perfect sticky topping without having to mess around with boiling sugar.It has a great pumpkin pie flavor – I can really taste the nutmeg in it – and I love that it’s made from all natural ingredients. It’s richer and more concentrated than other flavored syrups, without being as cloyingly sweet. You can buy it on Amazon here.

I’ve been enjoying the syrup in my coffee for the past few weeks (it’s delicious in hazelnut coffee, which is where I got the idea to use them instead of pecans on these buns) but since a little goes a long way, there’s plenty in the bottle to use in culinary experiments, too (call me crazy, but I really want to try it in baked beans. I think it would be fantastic!)

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Pumpkin Pie Sticky Buns

Prep Time 1 hour hour

Cook Time 25 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 25 minutes minutes

Servings 12

Author Lauren Keating

Ingredients

• 1 cup milk or unsweetened nondairy milk of your choice
• 3 Tablespoons butter
• 1 packet 0.75 ounces instant yeast
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 3 cups all purpose flour

For the filling:

• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 Tablespoon milk or nondairy milk of your choice
• 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
• 1 Tablespoon sugar

For the topping:

• 12 pumps Amoretti® Crema di Pumpkin Pie syrup
• 2 tablespoon butters cut into 12 pats
• 1 cup hazelnuts roughly chopped

Instructions

• Add the milk and butter to a medium saucepan set over low heat. Cook until the butter is melted and the milk is very warm, but not hot (about 120ºF.)
• Transfer to a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle the yeast into the warm milk; let sit 10 minutes. Stir in the sugar and salt. Add the flour little by little, stirring to form a thick dough. When the dough gets too thick to stir, turn it out onto the counter and knead it a few times to work in the lats of the flour. Shape the dough into a ball.
• Lightly grease your mixing bowl, then add the dough. Cover loosely and let rest in a warm place until doubled in size – about 40 minutes.
• Heat your oven to 350ºF.
• While the dough rests, prepare the filling by mixing together the pumpkin, milk, cinnamon, and sugar. Prepare two 6-cup cupcake tins by adding 1 pump of syrup and 1 pat of butter to each cup. Divide the hazelnuts among each cup.
• Roll the dough into a large rectangle (about 9x13 inches). Spread the dough with a thin, even layer of the pumpkin filling. Working from a long side, tightly roll the dough.
• Use a serrated knife to cut the dough into 12 rolls. Place 1 roll into each prepared cup.
• Bake 20-25 minutes, until the buns are puffed and golden brown. Remove from the oven and let rest 5 minutes, then run a knife along the edge of each roll to help loosen it and invert onto a baking sheet. If any topping remains in the pan, spoon it back onto the sticky buns.

Notes

I've made these sticky buns with unsweetened coconut milk, since that's usually what I have in my fridge, and they're delicious. Please note, however, that the syrup itself does contain dairy so the recipe in it's entirety isn't dairy free.

Back to real life… but that doesn’t mean back to boring food! This salmon and polenta could easily pass for a dish at a fancy restaurant, but it can be on your kitchen table in no time at all!

I’m already starting to get tired of pumpkin and other squash so I thought that I should lay off it for a little bit – at least in the forms that I’ve been eating. I decided that I wanted to try something with pumpkin seeds – pepitas – and thought that a pesto would be nice. I encrusted some salmon filets in a mixture of sun dried tomatoes, spicy pepitas, and cilantro and then cooked it until it was crispy on the outside and coked to about medium inside. The rich and spicy flavor of the salmon paired perfectly with a soft, creamy polenta. The completed dish had a Mexican/ South American feel to it, while still seeming very upscale.

The pepitas that I used were pre-seasoned and came from the bulk bin at the co-op. Id you can’t find pre-seasoned spicy pepitas, you can toss some regular ones with 1 Tbs of chili powder and cayenne to taste.

I typically cook with dry-packed sun dried tomatoes, but for some reason I was having trouble finding them this time around. I ended up using ones that were packed in oil – I think it actually worked out better because the tomatoes pureed into a paste very easily and I didn’t have to add any additional oil. If you want to use the dried kind, rehydrate them in boiling water for several minutes before adding them to the food processor. You may need to add some olive oil to get the ingredients to come together.