Maple Syrup Walnut Buns

I fell upon Nigel's recipe for maple syrup walnut buns on Saturday morning while reading my backlog of blogs and finally getting to Ed's fantastic and ever-so-useful Supplemental from the previous weekend. I had a free afternoon, and a free Sunday morning. I knew that with a strong cup of tea, sun-dappled bed sheets, and a good book, this is what I would need to make that Sunday morning even more special.

No long, long rising time. Well, comparatively. I remember making brioche last year, but I wasn't in the same place for more than 12 hours at a time so the brioche did a lot of driving around the country with me. Miraculously, it survived. None of that business here. No complicated ingredients. No scary kneading technique. In fact, as long as the room was warm enough for the dough to rise, with my trusty KitchenAid working away, there was very little I could do wrong. 

The dough did rise. The butter was soft enough to spread over it without breaking. It rolled into swirls without a problem. Stress free. Slotted perfectly into the tin, rose again, and baked to a golden sheen. Only to be improved by a generous pouring of maple syrup. Ripped apart and eaten while warm. Or heated up the next day. And the next day too. And hopefully tomorrow morning as well. These trusty buns made for a perfect weekend morning, and are doing a great job at cheering up weekday breakfasts (or coffee breaks for B) too. Cancel all your plans for next Saturday afternoon to make sure you have time to make these. You won't regret it. Promise.