Kanelbullens Dag

Yes, the 4th of October is Cinnamon Bun Day in Sweden. I'd completely forgotten about it, but my Mum kindly reminded me and so we made cinnamon buns the other day in preparation.

All the newspapers had published what they claimed to be the ultimate recipe, some more outrageous than others and my Mum had chosen one for us to try.

Ingredients

Dough
14 g instant yeast
13 dl strong white flour
1.5 tsp ground cardamom
5 dl lactose free semi-skimmed milk at 40 °C
1.5 dl white sugar syrup or glucose
150 g butter at room temperature

Filling
150 g butter at room temperature
1.5 dl granulated sugar
0.5 dl brown sugar
1.5 tbsp ground cinnamon
chopped walnuts (optional)

Topping
2 eggs
1 pinch salt
nib sugar

Method

1. Stir in the yeast into the flour along with the cardamom. Then add the syrup and milk and mix together into a dough, preferably in a machine and let knead until the dough is shiny but soft, about 7 - 10 minutes. You may need to vary the amount of flour.
2. Now add the butter in small pieces and incorporate well. Then cover and set aside to rise to double the volume.
3. In the mean time, mix together the butter, sugars and cinnamon to a smooth brown paste and set aside. Then lay out cup cakes on baking sheets, or butter deep baking pans. Finally whisk the eggs with the salt and set aside for later.
4. When the dough is ready, take out of the bowl and divide into two equal parts, then roll out one into a rectangle - about 0.5 cm if you want smaller buns, thicker if you want more bready ones.
5. Spread half of the filling over the rolled out dough, all the way out to the edges, then sprinkle with walnuts and roll it up into a sausage along it's longer side.
6. Cut the dough sausage like a Swiss roll and place the twirls into the cupcakes or the buttered pan, then allow to proof until double in size. Pre-heat the oven to 200 °C.
7. When the buns have risen, brush with the egg wash and sprinkle some nib sugar on top and bake for 15 - 18 minutes, until they go golden brown.
8. Take out and cover with a towel and allow to cool completely.

The recipe said it would give 40 buns, but I rolled out the dough very thin, so I ended up with 88 smallish ones. The brown sugar and walnuts gave it a very nice complexity to the flavour, the buns themselves were not too sweet. But I think if I do this recipe again, I won't roll so thinly and make them bigger, like they do in cafés. I'll probably use 50 g of fresh yeast instead of the two sachets of instant, I think it gives better results.

The interesting bit for me was using lactose free milk. This is because my Sister Bip has developed a sensitivity to lactose and has cut it out altogether from her diet. The milk behaved pretty much like regular milk and I certainly didn't notice any difference in flavour, but then I don't have a very sensitive tongue.

The down side of this is that now we have this massive amount of cinnamon buns, I won't be able to bake any other buns for a while, which is a bit annoying, I had some plans, which now have to be postponed for a few weeks.