This recipe has four components: the dough that is shaped into buns, the filling that creates the swirl in the shaped buns, the caramel glaze that bakes in the bottom of the baking dish along with the buns, and the pecan topping that garnishes the buns once baked. To keep the sticky bun glaze from hardening into a taffylike shell, we added cream, which kept the glaze supple. To the dough’s basic mix of flour, yeast, and salt, we added buttermilk, which gave the buns a complex flavor and a little acidity that balanced the sweetness. Butter and eggs enriched the dough further. After the first rise, we spread the filling—brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and butter—over the dough, rolled it out, cut the individual buns, and laid them in the pan with the caramel to rise once more before being baked. We found that setting the pan on a baking stone in the oven ensured that the bottoms of the buns (which would end up on top) baked completely. To preserve the crispness of the nuts, we created one more layer: toasted nuts in a lightly sweetened glaze to crown the rolls just before serving.