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Anna Olsen

Anna Olson’s Blueberry Sticky Buns Recipe

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Over the weekend, I hosted our first YouCook Cooking Night at my place, and the featured dessert was Anna Olson’s Blueberry Sticky Buns. The recipe can be found in her newest cookbook, “Fresh”. They were warm and gooey, and soooooooooo satisfying!! I had never attempted to make anything that even resembled cinnamon rolls (NOT because I don’t love them!) because they look so complex. But I followed Anna’s instructions step-by-step and they turned out perfectly. And really, they’re not as difficult as they look. Try it for yourself!

Summary

Preparation Time: 30 min
Wait Time: 1.5 hours
Cook Time: 30 min
Servings: 12 Sticky Buns
Meal type: Dessert
Cost: $17.15 per batch, or $1.43 per sticky bun

Recipe Rating:

Ingredients for Dough

2 tsp instant dry yeast ~$1.00
1 egg, at room temperature ~$0.30
1/2 cup milk, at room temperature ~$0.35
2 tbsp sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour ~$1.00
1/2 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of ground nutmeg
1/2 cup of unsalted butter, at room temperature ~$1.25
1/2 cup of cream cheese, at room temperature ~$2.00

Ingredients for Sticky Bun Filling

1 cup packed brown sugar ~$1.00
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature ~$1.25
3 tbsp pure maple syrup ~$3.00
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries, thawed ~$6

Instructions for the Sticky Bun Dough

1. Dissolve the yeast in 1/4 cup (60 mL) of warm water in the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a dough hook (or with electric beaters fitted with dough hooks). Allow to sit for 5 minutes.

2. Add the egg, milk, and sugar and blend. (I used a whisk to blend these ingredients together by hand.)

3. Add the flour, salt, and nutmeg and mix for 1 minute, with stand mixer or electric beater, to combine.

4. Add the butter and cream cheese and knead for 5 minutes on medium speed.

5. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl; cover, and let rest for 1 hour.

This is how it looked after it rested:

Instructions for the Sticky Bun Filling

1. Combine the sugar, butter, maple syrup, and cinnamon.

Instructions for Assembling the Sticky Bun

1. Grease the cups of a 12-cup muffin tin.
2. Spoon a tablespoonful (15mL) of filling into the bottom of each cup of the prepared muffin tin.

3. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough into a rectangle 1/2-inch (1 cm) thick.

4. Spread the remaining filling over the dough, sprinkle with blueberries, and roll the dough up lengthwise.

5. Slice it into 12 equal portions and arrange 1 portion in each muffin cup. Allow the dough to rise for half an hour, loosely covered by a clean tea towel.

6. Preheat the oven to 350 F (180 C).

7. Bake the buns for 30 minutes, and turn out onto a plate while still warm.

Anna Olson’s “Fresh Take”

Anna Olson’s tips for all of us bakers at home:

“That little bit of nutmeg is my secret to a great sticky bun dough—it adds that familiar “donut” element that takes these to the next level.”

“To make these for breakfast or brunch without waking at five a.m., make the dough and assemble the sticky buns, filled and in the pan, and pop the pan in the fridge the night before. In the morning, pull them out while you preheat the oven and get the coffee going, and before you know it, the buns are baking.”

Variations

Anna Olson also recommends using different fruits to produce different flavour combinations:

“Don’t limit the fruit filling to mere blueberries. Raspberries, sliced peaches, apples, or even fresh or frozen cranberries make these sticky buns seasonal and delectable.”

I took this recommendation to heart and used a combination of frozen wild blueberries and mangoes. Since thawing frozen fruits produces a lot of extra liquid, I made sure to drain the liquid prior to spreading the fruits onto my dough. Even then, it was a bit wetter than I would have liked. This didn’t affect the results at all though!

Results

I was very surprised at how great these Sticky Buns tasted. Not because I didn’t trust the recipe (it IS Anna Olson’s, after all), but because I didn’t trust myself in the execution of this particular dessert. This is no more complex than making your own apple pie, so I really recommend this one for everyone out there. You will LOVE the results!

These sticky buns are perfect served fresh out of the oven. Just give them a chance to cool a little bit. I burned my tongue in my excitement to try my new creation… I am definitely going to be making these again at my next brunch party! Thanks Anna!!

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Anna Olsen — View Comments
28
Jan 10

YouCook Interviews Anna Olson – Part II

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After enjoying Part I of our interview with Anna, you will love reading through Part II. Here, Anna reveals more of her personal likes and dislikes; and even commentary on the recent movie, Julie and Julia!

YouCook: In your new cookbook, you mention how our “culinary identities are ever evolving”. At this moment, how would you describe your culinary identity? And what sort of influences helped you to shape it?

Anna: I am at a very fun place in my culinary identity. Kind of like your life experiences, I don’t know how strictly you can plot where it’s going to go, but what you can do is look back on who you are in the culinary world & take lessons from that. What a lot of people don’t realize that I became a chef first before I became a pastry chef.

In terms of the “ever evolving”, just this week, I am about to register for a nutrition class through Niagara college. Because as I started the show “Fresh” and the cookbook, it has opened up a lot of conversation with my viewers and readers as to nutritional considerations and food allergies and sensitivities; and feeding a family when you have a variety of tastes. And I realized that, as a chef, I know how to put the food together, but I worked recently on a project with a dietician and I learned SO much! …about how our bodies absorb vitamins & minerals through food. And I realized I need to do some learning. And that’s what’s great about our industry: you can never learn everything. So I’m looking forward to learning how to not just create dishes that taste good and make us feel good, but physically will actually make us feel good. Just learning and educating myself will help me do my job better.

The other thing is that I just love finding new treasures. Yesterday, I was in Toronto, and we went to Miga in Mississauga for Korean food, which is a fantastic barbecue place. Just after the dinner hour, we were driving along Dundas West and we see Starsky. Friends of ours with European backgrounds always go to this European deli before Christmas time to load up on their holiday staples. We had never been before, and we walked through this super-deli with all these beautiful meats. I didn’t know there were so many ways you can cure and smoke pork. We were completely blown away, and we bought so much stuff just to taste and try!

So there’s always something new to learn. I always want to follow the philosophy that Opportunity Does Not Wait For Convenience. You have to have your eyes open because something may come along… And if you’re so focused on Task X, you’ll turn down an opportunity that could lead to something exciting. I’d rather try and fail than not have tried at all.

YouCook: What is your favourite dish to make?

Anna: I can’t say that I can pick one thing because I am so craving motivated! You ask me that question now, I’ll tell you one thing; ask me next week, it’s another; you ask me in July, it’ll be completely different.

I’m going to make a spicy seafood gumbo for dinner tonight, I’ve decided. The other night, we were craving Swedish meatballs in that mushroom-y sauce that we built from scratch. It’s having the time to make the dishes that I like.

I actually crave, in the wintertime, a lot of Asian flavours. Quite often, my husband and I make things like Vietnamese pho at home; we’ll make Japanese soup, sushi; miso soup for lunch for the protein, but the comfort at the same time.

YouCook: Do you think that Canadian chefs are recognized outside of Canada? What do you think we can do to promote Canada as a nation of great food and chefs?

Anna: I think media is definitely one means to do so, and with the support of people like yourself and the blogs.

There’s been this sense of a quest for a national dish, and what is our culinary identity… I think what we have to do is step back and relax, because you can’t force something like that. Let it evolve and we’ll find our way. I think if we try to force our way into the international market with something that’s not naturally authentic, no one will believe it.

Though I have heard, there were news segments right after New Year’s, how poutine has become a hot thing in New York. There are a few Quebecois who have opened poutine shops down there and they’re really doing very well.

Anna: How did you respond to the movie Julie and Julia?

YouCook: I loved it! I love Julia Child… She has such a flair for things. And, like what you just said in your interview about how you should forgive yourself for mistakes… I saw that throughout the entire movie. Something wrong happens, but you try to get past it and you save your dish as best as you can. Just watching [the movie] made you want to be in the kitchen and made you want to cook. It actually made me want to go to France!

Anna: I find that everyone who liked the movie connects with a certain moment – a food moment, and it’s different for everyone. I can tell you MY moment was when, on Julia Child’s side of the story, finally after years and years of trying to get her book published, she has that New York City editor making her Beef Bourguignon in her own apartment… She’s looking at the paper and she’s got her pot on the stove, and she pours in the wine from the bottle… There’s just a close-up shot of the page of the recipe and the wine splatters just splashing across it. I went to go see the movie with my recipe tester, and at the same time, we both yelped, and that was our moment… Because I have boxes (I keep all my testing notes) of stained, wrinkled, scratched-on notes of the recipes. And we both related to that because that’s what we do. I have these pages all over the kitchen and they’re just everywhere.

And I love to see cookbooks that are used and battered, and well-loved. I have people that come to me at book signings and they’ll bring me, almost ashamedly, their copies of “Sugar” and they’ve got post-it notes in them and they’re sloppy. They think it’s shameful… Meanwhile, that’s the best compliment you could pay me! It means you’re using it and you’re loving it – you’re connected to it.

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27
Jan 10

YouCook Interviews Anna Olson – Part I

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Recently, YouCook had the extreme pleasure of chatting with Anna Olson, host of “Fresh” on the Food Network and the author of her new cookbook of the same name. Having been inspired by Anna since my University days, it was definitely a special treat for me to get to interview her. Since I discovered baking, my dream was to open my own pastry shop… I guess my own wedding cake business counts! Thanks Anna for showing me the basics!

After reading this post, I think that you will have a better sense of who you are in your own kitchen… Anna is truly inspirational in that she encourages everyone to discover themselves and to enjoy every moment of that journey.

YouCook: I really like how you categorized your new cookbook, “Fresh”, according to the seasons. Other than the season, where do you get inspiration for your recipes?

Anna: Outside of the common sense approach of using what’s available and at its best at that moment, it is more craving based than anything else. I find that that still ties in closely with the seasons. Because this is the time of year, when we’re looking at winter, that we’re craving the comfort foods.

The common sense approach of shopping with the season also extends to the common sense approach in recipe choices. In this time of year, you’ve got the oven on more & you’ve got the stoves on. You tend to be inside a little more, and the style of recipes you choose to make is based on what our mood tells us. I find also that the sort of tools & techniques you use suit the season too. So the oven’s on, and you’re doing some slow braising…

YouCook: I really like what you said in Fresh: “What grows together, goes together”. Do you have any other tips for our readers who are trying to cook at home?

Anna: I would say the simplest tip is forgive yourself any mistakes, because mistakes happen no matter who you are at what level. You can be a professional chef; you can be doing a recipe that you’ve been doing your whole life – and mistakes happen. I always like to remind people that you’re cooking because you love cooking; and you’re cooking for that love and for sharing. And remind yourself that you’re cooking for friends and family… And if a mistake happens, your friends are your friends; they’ll forgive you. And your family is your family, so they have to.

YouCook: You mention in your book that your shopping trips to St. Lawrence Market in Toronto was an inspiration for you to cook professionally. Were there other inspiring moments? And what was the final defining moment that motivated you to take the leap to become a chef?

Anna: I did really have an epiphany. There were a lot of building blocks along the way… Part of it was not being content in my position in banking in downtown Toronto and escaping to the St. Lawrence Market.

Growing up, like many young women, I had mentors in my mother and grandmother to share with me tricks and secrets. Sometimes you’re interested, sometimes you’re not. But I very much used cooking as a hobby. It was one of those things, baking particularly, that I would do after school and on weekends. I was sort of the house cook when I was in University.

Then there was a moment when I was working in banking when I was up in the middle of the night, stressed and I couldn’t sleep. And I found myself making banana muffins; not because I wanted to eat them but it was that act of making them that relaxed me. That was the moment when I said “What am I doing??”. Three months later, I had quit my job and was on my way to cooking school.

YouCook: How did you get selected to be on the Food Network show, Sugar?

Anna: It was in the early years of the network & the network knew they wanted to create a dessert show. So it was a product of a casting call, an open audition, and I was fortunate enough to have been short-listed and then selected. So it goes to show you that anyone has an opportunity.

Again, when I was in cooking school, I certainly had no sights on food television. There was no food network. Even at that point, it was post Julia child, but it was before Martha Stewart had any of her specials or TV programs.

STAY TUNED FOR PART II OF OUR INTERVIEW WITH ANNA OLSON!

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Anna Olsen