Bread Baking: Sweet Buns

Combine the milk, yeast, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and about 1/3 third of the flour in the bowl of your stand mixer. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside until foamy, about 10 minutes.

Add another third of the flour and knead with the dough hook until the mixture gets stringy and elastic. It will be a very wet, gloppy mess, but you'll see the gluten developing.

Add the remaining dough ingredients and continue kneading until they are all incorporated and the dough is smooth and elastic. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside to rise until doubles, about 90 minutes.

Line an 8-inch or 9-inch square baking pan with parchment paper, covering the bottom and extending up two sides, for easy removal of the buns. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Divide the dough into nine equal pieces, and roll each into a ball and place them in the baking pan in three rows of three. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and set aside to rise until doubled, about 45 minutes. Meanwhile, combine the topping ingredients in a small bowl. Mash them together with a fork until the mixture resembles wet sand.

When the buns have risen, sprinkle the topping on the buns. If the buns aren't touching, you'll have some topping on the bottom of the buns after they bake, but that's fine. Try to get most of it on top of the buns, however.

Bake the buns at 350°F until they are nicely browned, about 30 minutes.

Remove them from the pan, peel the parchment off the bottom, and let them cool, at least a little bit. The topping is a little chewy when it's still warm, but after cooling it is very crumbly.