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Sticky buns are exactly what you need on a cold morning or for a special holiday breakfast. These Maple Pecan Sticky Buns are soft, sweet, and perfectly gooey, the kind of treat that makes your whole kitchen smell like heaven.
Is there anything better than sinking your teeth into a warm, buttery cinnamon roll? Yes! Sinking your teeth into a pecan sticky bun dripping with maple caramel and loaded with toasty pecans. Think of them as cinnamon rolls’ more indulgent cousin, irresistibly sticky, a little nutty, and completely unforgettable.
What Makes This Recipe So Good
These Maple Pecan Sticky Buns are everything you dream of in a breakfast treat: soft, pillowy dough swirled with buttery cinnamon sugar, topped with golden maple caramel and crunchy pecans. They’re rich, gooey, and made to be pulled apart with your fingers while they’re still warm from the oven.
What makes this pecan sticky bun recipe extra special is the balance of sweet maple flavor with the toasty, buttery crunch of pecans. It’s the kind of cozy bake that feels indulgent yet comforting, perfect for lazy weekends or festive mornings when you want something that tastes as good as it smells.
What Goes Into Maple Pecan Sticky Buns
These Maple Pecan Sticky Buns use simple ingredients that come together for soft, fluffy dough and a gooey maple pecan topping that melts in your mouth.
- Whole Milk: Creates a soft, tender dough with the perfect richness that keeps the buns moist and fluffy.
- Butter: Used throughout the dough, filling, and topping for that signature melt-in-your-mouth texture and buttery flavor.
- Brown Sugar: Adds a deep, caramel-like sweetness that pairs perfectly with the cinnamon and maple syrup.
- Maple Syrup: The star of the sticky topping, giving every bite a warm, comforting sweetness that makes these buns unforgettable.
Note: Please see recipe card at the bottom for a full list of ingredients with measurements.
How To Make Maple Pecan Sticky Buns
- Make Dough: Grease a bowl with oil and set aside. Warm the milk in a saucepan over medium, then pour it into your stand mixer. Stir in sugar and yeast and let it sit until foamy and fragrant.
- Mix the Ingredients: Add softened butter, eggs, and salt to the yeast mixture. Mix on low speed until combined, then gradually add the flour one cup at a time until a soft dough forms.
- Knead and Rest: Increase mixer speed to medium and knead for 5 minutes until smooth and elastic. Lightly flour your counter, knead by hand for another minute, and shape the dough into a ball.
- Let It Rise: Place the dough into the prepared bowl, cover loosely with plastic wrap and a clean towel, and let rise in a warm spot for about 2 hours or until doubled in size.
- Roll It Out: Once the dough has risen, turn it onto a lightly floured surface and roll into a rectangle, roughly 12×18 inches. Make sure the dough is even in thickness.
- Make Filling and Roll: Spread butter over dough, sprinkle sugar and cinnamon. Roll tightly from the top into an 18-inch log and slice into 12 even rolls.
- Make the Maple Pecan Topping: In a small saucepan, heat butter, brown sugar, maple syrup, and vanilla until smooth. Remove from heat, whisk in cream, then pour into a greased 9×13-inch baking dish. Sprinkle pecans evenly over the caramel.
- Rise and Bake: Arrange rolls on top, cover with foil, and let rise for 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 375°F, bake for about 25 minutes, and cover loosely with foil if browning too quickly. Cool for 10 minutes, invert onto a tray, and serve warm with extra caramel.
For a cozy breakfast spread, pair these Maple Pecan Sticky Buns with a slice of Banana Bread French Toast for that extra touch of warmth and indulgence. For a refreshing contrast, a glass of Strawberry-Raspberry Oatmeal Cheesecake Smoothie adds fruity sweetness that complements the sticky maple topping. And if you prefer something to sip slowly, a chilled White Peach Iced Tea brings just the right amount of lightness to balance the gooey, buttery richness of every bun.
Tips For Making Maple Pecan Sticky Buns
- Make sure your milk is warm, not hot. If it’s too hot, it’ll kill the yeast before the magic even begins. I like to test it with my finger; it should feel cozy, like bath water.
- Use softened butter for both the dough and the filling. Cold butter won’t mix in well, and melted butter can make the dough greasy. Room temperature is your best friend here.
- When rolling, go slow and steady. A tight roll gives you those beautiful spirals without all the filling escaping. Don’t worry if a little leaks out, it just makes for extra sticky caramel later.
- Flip the buns while they’re still warm so that glorious maple caramel drips down every roll instead of sticking to the pan. Trust me, this part smells incredible.
Recipe FAQ’s
Absolutely. Just dissolve the active dry yeast in the warm milk and sugar first, then let it sit for 10 minutes until foamy before continuing with the recipe.
The most common reason is that the milk was too hot and killed the yeast, or your yeast was old. Always make sure your yeast is fresh and your milk is warm, not hot.
The tops should be golden brown and firm to the touch. If you’re unsure, insert a toothpick into the center—it should come out clean or with just a few moist crumbs.
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Maple Pecan Sticky Buns
Ingredients
DOUGH
- 1 cup whole milk
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar
- 2 packets instant yeast or active dry, about 1 1/2 Tbsp
- 1/2 cup butter softened to room temperature and cut into bite sized pieces
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 4 1/2 cups all purpose flour
FILLING
- 1/3 – 1/2 cup butter softened to room temperature
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
TOPPING
- 6 Tbsp butter
- 1 1/4 cup light brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 3 Tbsp heavy cream
Instructions
MAKE THE DOUGH
- Lightly grease a large mixing bowl with a drizzle of vegetable oil and set aside. In a small saucepan, heat milk over MED heat until warmed. Pour warm milk into the bowl of a stand mixer and stir in the granulated sugar and yeast. Let mixture sit about 5 to 10 minutes. Yeast mixture should be foamy looking and smell “yeasty”.
- Mix on LOW speed and add butter, eggs and the salt. Gradually add in the flour, in about 1 cup increments. When all the flour has been added, increase mixer speed to about MED, and mix about 5 minutes, or until a soft dough forms.
- Lightly flour your counter or other flat surface and transfer dough onto it. Dust your hands with flour and knead by hand about a minute or so, or until the dough comes together. Form the dough into a ball and transfer to prepared mixing bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap, loosely, and a clean kitchen towel. Place in a warm spot for about 2 hours, or until doubled in size.
- Once dough has doubled in size, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and roll into a rectangle, roughly 12×18 inches in size. Use the rolling pin to make sure the dough is an even thickness.
MAKE THE FILLING AND ROLL THE BUNS
- Spread dough rectangle with softened butter, then top with brown sugar and cinnamon. Gently use your fingers to pat the sugar/cinnamon mixture to help it stay in place during the rolling process.
- Starting at the top, roll the dough tightly towards you. I find starting to roll at one side and rolling towards you once, then moving down the line slightly and doing the same thing, repeating until you’re all the way across gives you the most even rolling.Once you have an 18 inch long log, carefully slice the log in 12 evenly sized rolls.
MAKE THE TOPPING, RISE, AND BAKE
- In a small saucepan, heat butter, brown sugar, maple syrup and vanilla over MED heat until melted and smooth. Remove from heat and whisk in cream. Set aside.Butter or grease a 9×13 inch baking dish. Pour caramel sauce into bottom of baking dish, lifting and tilting dish to make sure caramel is evenly coating the bottom.Sprinkle pecans over the top of the caramel.
- Arrange rolls on top of the caramel and pecans, then cover tightly with foil and let rise again for about 45 minutes, or until large and puffy.
- Preheat oven to 375 F degrees, and once fully heated, bake sticky buns about 25 minutes. If you find the tops of the rolls are getting TOO golden brown, cover loosely with foil during the second half of baking.
- Remove pan from oven and let cool 7-10 minutes, then place a large serving tray or sheet pan over the top of the baking dish. Carefully, and using oven safe gloves, hold onto both the tray and the dish and flip it over to invert the rolls. Lift up the baking dish and set aside.
- Serve rolls warm with additional caramel sauce if desired.
Notes
- If you have a stand mixer, definitely use it! Kneading the dough can be tedious, and letting the mixer do the work for you is awesome. If you don’t have one, no worries, you can absolutely make it without one. You’ll just get an arm workout!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
PERFECT…I cut this recipe in half, followed the ingredients list and directions as written, the ONLY thing I did different was substitute the flour with sifted white SPELT flour as I am gluten intolerant but do use Spelt flour for my cooking and baking. Consequently I need to adjust flour versus liquids with any recipe so I ended up using a little more flour to get the correct dough consistency. In addition I placed my dough into a warmed oven with hot water beside the bowl and changed the hot water after one hour as well as turning the oven back on to the lowest temp on my oven which is 170 just until the oven came to temp and then turned it off and allowed the dough to finish rising… I also put the rolled buns back into this warmed oven for their final rise. I did have to place the foil on the top of the buns at the half way mark as they were getting brown…These turned out perfect…
Would love to make these for Christmas morning. Can these be put in the fridge before/for the final proof? If so, do I let them come to room temp befor baking?
Yes, that would work. Let me know how it turns out! Enjoy and happy holidays! XO
Quantity of pecans?
It is more of a preference but I like to use about a cup to 2 cups to cover the top.
Karina:
Since joining this site I have downloaded enough recipes to start a notebook. BUT, I have also made a number of them and told everyone about your fantastic site. Now they are also using these recipes. Love the basic mushroom cream sauces with spices from my garden. Several of us are cutting down on fats and using fat free half & half ( not sure how they make that). We love the one pan roasting everything in the oven. Will be great this winter as we live in the Northern Great Lakes Region with lots of snow. So far the very best is your moist and ooey gooey chocolate brownies. We agree they are the best yet. I am a scratch cook and have baked a lot of “best brownies” over the years. BUT – you win the prize.
Jill
AW! Thank you so much! You are so sweet and I am so glad that you have found so many recipes that you love and have saved. Thank you for sharing and following along with me! XO