Once you’ve made the Honey Buns and the Wonder Buns for the hundredth time, you are going to look at your pastry dough and say, “You know, pastry dough, I bet there’s something else I can do to you.” I fully encourage this. Below are my contributions to your endeavors.
Ingredients
Preparation
Jelly Roll
Step 1
Replace the agave, cinnamon, and raisin mixture that the Wonder Buns call for with 3/4 cup of your favorite jam and spread it over the dough before rolling it. Here, in descending order, are my preferred jam flavors for this: raspberry, blackberry, strawberry.
Pain au Chocolat
Step 2
What’s that you say? Is this the delightfully insubordinate cousin-in-law of the Madeleine (page 61)? Yep! The BabyCakes NYC pain au chocolat works best using the Honey Bun recipe: All you do is sprinkle 2/3 cup of chocolate chips generously over the surface of the pastry dough before you roll it up. Sprinkle the top of your dough with a bit of vegan sugar and bake as usual.
Cinnamon Twists
Step 3
This one’s a tad more complicated, but do not be frightened. Take your Wonder Bun pastry dough and cut it into as many equal-width strips as you prefer (I generally go for 24). Twist and/or braid your pieces together and pinch on the ends. Sprinkle the top with cinnamon and vegan sugar and bake until golden brown. If you have kids, put them to work on this one.
