Macadamia and maple sticky cinnamon rolls

In one of the office morning tea a few weeks back, someone brought in sweets from the Bourke Street Bakery.  2 things shook my world – the macadamia honey caramel sticky buns and the chocolate tart and have never been the same since.  After that week, I’ve been obsessed with recreating the sticky buns (will settle the chocolate with raspberry tart later).   This created serious obsessions with buying packets of macadamia nuts, attempting to caramelize them. And along the way adapting the Pioneer Woman's fool proof recipe – cinnamon rolls.

 

This fool-proof cinnamon rolls is exactly that.  Simple and fool-proof and so the challenge left was to create the sticky sauce – where honey was substituted with real maple syrup. 

 Recipe for cinnamon rolls from here or Ree's hand-holding-step-step 101 on cinnamon rolls here or you can use whatever rolls or bun recipe you're familiar with.

 While your rolls are proving/rising, make this caramel macadamia topping inspired by a Sticky Buns recipe from the Taste of Home

60g butter

1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

63ml maple syrup

1 cup chopped macadamia nuts

Combine all ingredients except nuts, into a sauce pan and stir until sugar has melted.  Stir in macadamia.

Gently pour onto the prepared rolls. 

Bake in the preheated oven as you would the cinnamon rolls - 180*C 15-20 minutes or until golden.

*This sauce was good for three 8cm aluminum trays of cinnamon rolls.

The result – a gorgeous looking pan of cinnamon rolls with crisp macadamia topping.  The taste: ho-hum and definitely not mind blowing.    It tasted alright like a regular cinnamon rolls bun with some nutty macadamia, but it was a bit dry and not as sticky as it looked.   Although my work colleagues consumed the contents of the 2 pans in one sitting, I thought another attempt would be a worthy challenge.   Maybe after the silly season.  And maybe use that actual Sticky Buns recipe?!

Meanwhile, I’ve got heaps of macadamia nuts to caramelize.  The girls and hubby have been infected with my macadamia obsession, they’re raving and ranting for more.  The demand is just crazy!  I need to find a wholesale supplier!  Seriously!