These honey butter buns are inspired by Japanese honey butter toast, but in sticky bun form. Honey butter toast is made by spreading a paste of honey, brown sugar, and butter around a piece of bread, and toasting that until the sugars caramelize, and you get this almost creme brulee-like exterior to the toast itself. In this case, I wanted to take that filling, spread it into brioche dough, roll that into buns, and get a breakfast pastry that has a lot more surface area to take on that delicious honey-butter filling. The end result was surprisingly great, actually! The tops of the buns have a caramelized sugar layer, while the interior of the buns are more reminiscent of a sticky bun, with that soft, tender brioche and the sugary, honey filling. Just because these buns could eat a bit sweet, I paired my buns with a vanilla bean creme fraiche, just to add some tartness to cut through the cloying sweetness of the honey – I always loved the combination of creme fraiche and honey because it felt very sophisticated.

For the recipe, we are using a brioche, enriched with eggs and butter, just to give the body of the buns a soft, tender crumb. Since the dough itself uses yeast, expect a decent amount of wait time when preparing these buns, and trust me, you want to wait, because the more time a yeasted dough has to sit, the lighter, airier, and generally more enjoyable the baked product will be. I took about 4 hours from start to finish on this recipe, because of how much time the brioche dough needed to rest, but it was worthwhile for how light the bread portion of the buns actually were. With the filling, it is made from honey, brown sugar, brown butter, and salt. I used brown butter in this case to make the filling a little more spreadable, but also to add nuttier notes give the filling a more toffee-like taste to it. I HIGHLY recommend measuring out the filling using a scale, because trying to pour honey into a measuring cup sounds like a sticky waste and mess. Overall, this recipe is only three components, with just the brioche being the time-suck, but outside of that, you get 8 glorious honey buns that you will never get sick of.

Makes 8 buns:
For the brioche:
1 packet active-dry yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1/2 cup whole milk
1 tsp granulated sugar
1/2 stick unsalted butter
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 eggs

In a bowl, mix together the yeast with water and sugar and allow that mixture to sit for 10 minutes. Transfer to a stand mixer with a dough hook and combine the yeast with unsalted butter, flour, and the eggs. Mix on medium-high speed for 10 minutes, or until the dough is fully combined and elastic. Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl and cover. Leave to sit for 1 hour at room temperature before transferring to the fridge. Allow the dough to refrigerate for another 2 hours before rolling out into a rectangle. Keep cold for the assembly.

For the honey-butter filling:
4oz clover honey
3oz dark brown butter
3oz brown butter
a pinch of salt

Mix everything together until a paste forms. Spread the paste onto the brioche rectangle, and roll up the dough into a coil. Cut the coil along the width into 8 even parts – I recommend using dental floss to get clean, quick cuts on the dough. Arrange the dough into a sheet pan and allow the buns to sit at room temperature for 1 hour. Bake at 375 degrees F for 35 minutes.

For the vanilla bean creme fraiche:
4oz creme fraiche
1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste
a pinch of salt

Mix the ingredients together using a rubber spatula. Quenelle the creme fraiche and garnish the buns with these when ready to serve.