I have been in love with all manner of buns since I was about 6 and read about Paddington Bear getting into an awful mess with cream buns. As an American child, reading that book was eye-opening because the language was So Veddy British and it was the first time I realized that writing had a “voice.”

So I asked my mom what cream buns were, and she didn’t know. In those pre-internet days (when my dad was a library director), I went downtown and asked the children’s librarian, and we looked it up. It basically sounded like a cream puff but made with cinnamon roll dough. Somewhere in that research rabbit hole I also discovered that what my mother called “cinnamon rolls” were actually “sticky buns”—essentially, cinnamon rolls with a brown sugar caramel-ish glaze rather than a white icing.

This means sticky buns are associated in my mind with three great things: libraries, my mom, and pretty much every Christmas morning until I met my husband, when white cake and strawberries took over as the holiday breakfast.

In honor of that, here’s my family’s recipe for (not) cinnamon rolls:

For the dough:
¾ cup milk
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup butter
1 package yeast
1/4 cup warm water 105F – 115F
4 cups all-purpose flour

Also needed:
1 bag brown sugar
2 sticks butter (approx.)
Ground cinnamon

• In a small saucepan, stir milk, sugar, and butter together. Heat over low heat just until butter melts and sugar dissolves. Cool to about 100-105 F.
• While cooling, combine warm water and yeast to activate in a separate cup.
• When tepid, combine all wet ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer.
•  Add 2 cups flour and salt to wet ingredients. Using a dough hook, mix on low speed for about 1 minute.
• With the mixer still going, add remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time. Mix until dough starts to clean the sides of the bowl.
• Knead on low speed for about 2 more minutes, or until dough is smooth and elastic but slightly sticky to the touch.
• Place dough in a greased bowl, turning it to grease the top. Cover the dough with a clean, dry dish towel.
• Let it rise in a warm place, free from draft, for about 10 minutes.

While the dough is rising, prepare 2 pie pans and one 9×13 cake pan (glass is best, but you can use metal ones you don’t want to keep nice) as follows:  Dump 1/2″ layer of brown sugar in the bottom of each pan, sprinkle liberally with cinnamon, and daub small chips of butter on to brown sugar about 1/8″ apart. (You will use a lot of sugar and butter here.)

After letting dough rise once, roll flat, smear with more butter, coat with brown sugar 1/4’’ thick, and sprinkle liberally with cinnamon. Roll the dough up jelly-roll style, and cut into 1″ slices. Put slices into pans on top of sugar/butter/cinnamon. Let rise 1 hour. Bake 30 minutes at 350.

As soon as you take them out of the oven, flip the pans onto large platters or cookie sheets and use a rubber scraper to get as much glaze out of the pan and on to the rolls as possible. Let cool, and eat.