Cinnamon buns

I just love our Scandinavian cinnamon buns. In Swedish we call them “kanelbullar”, Danish “kanelsnegle” and Norwegian “skillingsboller”. I can still remember when I was baking cinnamon buns with my mom as a little girl. When the cinnamon buns came out from the oven and I could eat the first one with a glas of cold milk – that was the best! Below you find my (and my mom’s) recipe. We always weight the ingredients, therefore also in gram from original recipe.

Ingredients (20-25 buns)

• 1 pack dry yeast (9g)
• 5-6 cups all purpose flour (all depending on flour, see my explanation below)
• 2 cups whole milk (470ml)
• 2/3 cup sugar (135g)
• 2 tsp cardamom (prefer whole cardamom that you ground yourself)
• 1 tsp salt
• 0.3 lb butter (room temperature) (150g)

Filling:

• 0.2 lb butter (100g)
• 1/2 cup sugar (90g)
• 2 tbs ground cinnamon

Glaze:

• 1 egg 
• 2 tsp water
• pearl sugar

Use a baking blender for best result when baking cinnamon buns. Mix the dry yeast with 1 cup of the flour in baking blender bowl and let it rest 10min. Heat, on low temperature, the milk in a sauce pan to approximately 98ºF. Add sugar, cardamon and salt into the bowl with the flour and yeast. Mix it together. Add the milk into the bowl and carefully mix together. Then successively add flour into the bowl while stirring. Stop adding flour when the dough is getting together but is still a bit wet (should not release from the bowl edges – you might need less than the given amount of flour). Add pieces of the soft room temperature butter while mixing. Knead the dough on low power in the blender for approximately 10-15 minutes. Let the dough rise in rooms temperature while covered with plastic wrap for minimum 30 minutes, preferred longer, until you see the dough has doubled in size.

Take the dough out of the bowl to a baking board. Add some flour onto the table and then start rolling out the dough with a rolling pin to a thickness of about 1/8 inches and 12 inches wide.

For the filling, spread the room-temperature butter so it cover the whole rolled out dough. Make a mixture of sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle it over the dough. Roll the dough together from the longer side and cut the roll into about 20-25 slices (depending how big buns you want). For each slice, place the edge underneath the bun (otherwise, the edge will come up and might be burned when being baked). Place them with the cut side upward on an oven tray covered with parchment paper and let rise under a baking towel for about 40-60 minutes or until the buns have doubled in size.

If you want to make twisted buns instead of rolled buns, follow this step: after added the sugar and cinnamon mixture, fold the dough so the long side goes to the other long side. Now cut 1/2″ strips. Take one stripe in your hands, twist it around itself. Then twist the twisted stripe around two of your fingers. The last round goes in between the two fingers before finishing the edge underneath and carefully pulling the bun of your fingers. Place them on an oven tray covered with parchment paper and let rise under a baking towel for about 40-60 minutes or until the buns have doubled in size.

Pre heat the oven to 425ºF.

Stir egg and water together. Brush the mixture carefully on the buns and sprinkle pearl sugar on top. Bake in the oven for 8-12 minutes (until they get a golden color). Allow them to cool down a bit on a rack before serving.

Smaklig måltid!

 

 

 

 

Plate from H&M Home (US online store).