I went for another round of Tartine Morning Buns this weekend, again using the Joanne Chang croissant dough. Here’s what I changed this time:

• I used a different muffin pan that pushes the buns closer together (I wanted the square-ish shape that the Tartine ones have). It’s a behind-the-scenes benefit that this pan, in addition to being sturdy and inexpensive, is far easier to clean because it doesn’t have any seams (yay!).

• The recipe calls for melting a stick of butter (8 Tablespoons) to brush on the pastry before spreading the filling and rolling up the spiral. As I noted in my prior post, I think the recipe omits the instruction to put some of the melted butter into the filling mix (sugar, cinnamon, orange zest). So, I went ahead and put half of the melted butter into the filling. I also swapped out a quarter of the white sugar for dark brown sugar and amped up the cinnamon a wee bit. The result was a darker filling, resembling wet sand, and matching better the photo from the recipe (in prior post).

• The Tartine recipe calls for too much filling for the amount of croissant dough that I’m making, so I cut everything by about 30%.

• I reduced the oven temperature to 375°F from 400°F, and did some relatively active (read = fussy) foil tenting to try to stave off burning the tops.

Overall, this batch was an improvement over my first attempt. It was good to not have the burnt tops, but I definitely haven’t solved this. The issue is that I tried too hard to darken the bottoms. What I mean is: I left the buns in the oven too long (yes, shocking) because I was concerned about the bottoms being somewhat pale last time. However, the lower heat plus the extended bake time caused the melted sugar that intentionally pools in each muffin well to go too far in the cooking process, producing a little bit of chewy candy at the bottom of each bun. Ick.

One of the people I enjoyed these with said, “but, what’s the downside of having chewy candy on the bottom?”. She makes an excellent point, but I think even she agreed that it wasn’t quite the right texture for this particular bun. 🙂 My thinking for next time is to go back to 400°F, but very loosely tent the tops for the last 10-15 minutes to avoid burning, and take the buns out as soon as the tops are well done (“bien cuit”).

i think I’m getting better at the croissant dough part. It just felt easier, and the lamination in this batch just seemed more consistent and flakier.

I also made changes to the icing. I again started with a half portion of this recipe, but I reduced the vanilla further in half and I chose the heavy cream option (rather than milk or half-and-half). I was much happier with this result and feel like this is now my preferred morning bun icing.

Just in case anyone is wondering: These buns are incredibly yummy! Yes, there are things I want to tweak in order to optimize them, but that’s just how I roll (🙄 🤣). Much enjoyment was experienced, too!