Orange pecan crumble pull apart rolls

This one is great fun! Add some spices to your favorite sweet roll dough, let it rise, roll it out, spread with an orange zesty sugar/butter filling, cut it into squares and create your own pull-apart shapes. Top it off with a nutty pecan crumble and you’ll be happy you did!

The dough I used is easy to work with, soft and pillowy and quite delicious. The yield is either 7 or 9 rolls depending on how many squares of dough you use per roll to create your version (as you’ll see coming up). Note - the images below show ingredients and steps for my base recipe test batch with a 9 roll yield.

Base recipe: put 120 ml / 1/2 cup whole milk in a microwaveable container (a 2 cup Pyrex measurer works well here), heat just to boiling then add 56 g / 2 ounces cubed, unsalted butter to the milk. Stir to melt the butter and let the mixture cool to tepid ( ~105ºF).

Now add 1 lightly beaten large egg and 1 tablespoon vanilla extract to the milk/butter mixture and keep it on standby.

In the bowl of a stand mixer combine 130 g / 1 cup all purpose flour, 130 g / 1 cup bread flour, 50 g / 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar, 5 g active dry or instant yeast, 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander, 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger, a pinch (or more to taste) of cinnamon and, in my case, I threw in some vanilla powder that I had made by grinding down and sifting some dried vanilla beans. Even though there’s vanilla extract in the dough, I figured a dash or two of the powder would only enhance the flavor.

Stir in the milk mixture and mix with either the paddle or a large spatula or wooden spoon until combined.

Fit the mixer with the dough hook and knead on low speed for about 6-7 minutes until smooth and elastic. Or knead by hand for about 12-14 minutes.

Place the dough in a lightly buttered bowl . . . .

cover with plastic wrap and let rise for anywhere from 45 minutes to a couple of hours depending on the ambience of your room. You’re looking for about double in size.

While the dough is rising make the filling by blending 66 g / 1/3 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons orange zest, 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt and 42 g / 3 tablespoons soft unsalted butter.

For this test batch I wasn’t sure what pan/form would be best for what I had in mind, so I did some comparisons with standard muffin tin, individual cake pan and panettone paper.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, gently de-gas then roll it out to a 9”x9” square. Spread the filling over it then cut into thirty-six 1.5” squares.

Stack 4 squares together (for a yield of nine rolls) and tuck ‘em into buttered and sugared pans (FYI - no need to butter and sugar the panettone paper).

Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let them rise for about an hour. About 30 minutes before you plan to bake, heat the oven to 375ºF.

Top with pecan crumble before baking.

Note: for the crumble combine 60 g all purpose flour, 60 g sugar and 60 g cold, diced butter. Sand the butter into the dry ingredients to achieve coarse crumbs and add in anywhere from 30 - 60 g toasted, then chopped pecans, depending on how nutty you like your topping. I usually double or triple any crumble I make so I can stash the rest in the freezer for another time. Nothing like planning ahead.

Bake from 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

Each form yielded a slightly different end result. Not being rigid, the panettone paper roll skewed into an oblong pull apart, while the individual cake pan held the dough nicely in place.

The standard muffin tin, being more shallow than the cake pan, allowed for more rising and flaring out of the dough, kind of like one of those wide curved balloon-y kind of kites that billow out into a big, rippled rectangle.

Once out of the pan, they almost pulled themselves apart!

The taste test received a big thumbs up from both Steve and myself, and I knew I wanted to make these again.

This time I doubled the dough batch (here’s the recipe PDF) and rolled out each HALF of the dough into the 9”x9” square, spread on the filling and cut the thirty-six 1.5” squares. NOTE: I found it easier to work with the 9” square portions then a full double batch of dough.

I had done a bit of calculating and decided to use 5 pieces for each pull apart (for a yield of 7 rolls per dough half or a total of 14), arranging them more as a flower than a rectangular stack. I buttered and sugared my individual cake pans and tucked the pieces in an overlapping, rough swirl fashion. Having a couple of extra squares of dough, I tucked those in where they seemed to be most needed.

Since I own only 12 of the aluminum Fat Daddio cake pans (which I LOVE!), I used 2 ramekins to fill the bill.

After the rise they also received the pecan crumble top . . . .

and baked up like a dream.

After 5-10 minutes of cool time I gently loosened the edges with an offset spatula and popped them out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

Boy are these babies good! I made these as part of a pastry assortment for a neighbor’s Saturday morning gathering, and the followup reports were A+. Steve and I enjoyed some of the extras, plus a few went into the freezer for later. They kept well for a day or two in a covered container and were even better with a few minutes warm up in a 325º oven.

Love that pull-apart feature! I’m already planning another round soon.

In the meantime Steve and I are wishing everyone calm days and peaceful nights as we continue to try to understand what’s happening in our world day by day.