Overnight Pecan Cinnamon Buns With Caramel Drizzle

I love overnight recipes. You have all the muss and fuss the night before so when you wake up you only have about 2 seconds of effort to exert and *voila* delicious breakfast treats. 

These amazing cinnamon rolls are one of my favorite overnight recipes. 

You don't even have to put the dough in the fridge! Weird right? It sits on the counter and rises all night so when you bake them in the morning they are sooooo light and fluffy. 

If you are not terribly familiar with baking with yeast then these are a great recipe to try. Read - SUPER easy. 

Overnight Pecan Cinnamon Buns With Caramel Drizzle

Ingredients

Buns

1 Tbsp active dry yeast

3 cups warm water

1 cup sugar

2 tsp salt

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup oil

5 cups flour + 4 (to 5) cups flour

Filling

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 1/2 cup brown sugar

2 Tbsp cinnamon

1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Drizzle

2 Tbsp brown sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 Tbsp milk

1/2 cup icing sugar

Directions

In a mixing bowl, combine the yeast, warm water, and 1 cup sugar. Let sit for 10 minutes - until yeast is foamy. After 10 minutes, add in the salt, eggs, oil, and first 5 cups of flour. Mix together for 5 full minutes. After 5 minutes, stir in the next 4 cups of flour. Mix for another 5 minutes. Your dough should be fairly stiff. If it still seems rather sticky add a bit more flour until it is no longer sticky. 

Place dough in an oiled bowl, cover, and let sit in a warm spot to rise for one hour. 

After an hour, cut dough in half and roll out half of the dough into a large rectangle (about 12 X 15)

Spread the dough with half of the melted butter, half of the brown sugar, half of the cinnamon, and half of the chopped pecans. 

Roll up jelly roll style, pinching edges to seal. Cut into approx 1 inch slices. (I believe I got 16 slices per half batch of dough.) 

Place slices, cut side down, into a 9 X 13 pan. (FYI - You will need 2 - 9 x 13's, and 1 - 9 X 9 pan)

Repeat with the other half of the dough.

Cover the pans with towels and leave on the counter overnight (8 hours give or take). In the morning the buns should have risen to fill up the space in the pans....

Now, simply preheat your oven to 350 and bake the buns for 15 - 20 minutes, until they are golden brown on top and sound hollow when tapped. (Note - you may have to leave them in up to 30 minutes, just keep an eye on them!) 

Remove the buns from the oven and prepare the caramel drizzle. 

Prepare caramel drizzle - In a small bowl, whisk together brown sugar, vanilla, milk, and icing sugar. You may need to add a tsp more milk or a pinch more icing sugar to get to drizzling consistency.

Drizzle over the buns while they are still a little warm. 

Serve the buns warm or room temp. You can also freeze them and reheat them later!

The caramel drizzle is not necessary BUT is so amazing you are definitely not going to want to leave it off. 

I always find yeast bread so pretty. 

These worked wonderfully for an office breakfast. All I had to do was pop them in the oven while I was eating my breakfast and they were hot and ready to go by the time I went to the office. 

NOTE - you will want to place these in pans with sides (and not a cookie sheet) so the buns rise in height and don't spread out to much.