Cheese Buns with Gooey Pecan Filling

Food and Prop Styling by Goldie Stern
Food Prep and Consulting by Chaya Suri Goldberger
Photography by Felicia Perretti

Okay, so imagine a cinnamon bun with cream cheese frosting and then imagine the whole thing flipped inside out and upside down, and now we’re on the same page. This is not a quick recipe, but the dough is the softest and fluffiest I have ever made in real life, and IMHO that sometimes has to trump easy.

YIELDS 18

Buns

• 4 cups flour, divided
• 1¼ cups milk, divided
• ¼ cup sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• 4 Tbsp melted butter
• 1 Tbsp dry yeast
• 1 egg

Filling

• 2 8-oz (225-g) bars J&J Cream Cheese, softened
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 Tbsp vanilla bean paste or extract

Gooey Pecan Filling

• 1½ sticks butter
• 1½ cups brown sugar
• ½ cup light corn syrup
• pecans, roughly chopped

Take 3 Tbsp of the flour and ¹⁄₂ cup of the milk and heat them in a small pan or pot, stirring often, until you have a soft pudding consistency, about 7 minutes. Allow to cool.

Mix all but ¹⁄₂ cup of the remaining flour and the rest of the ingredients in a bowl, adding in the slurry. Mix by hand or with a dough hook in a mixer. If the dough is very sticky or tacky, add the remainder of the flour, 1 Tbsp at a time, until the dough comes together smoothly. Knead for 8–10 minutes or until smooth and soft. Place in a buttered bowl and cover. If your oven has a proof setting, proof there, or in any warm spot, until dough has doubled in size, 1¹⁄₂–2 hours.