4th of October - one of our favourite days of the year - Yes, it is Cinnamon Bun Day in Sweden (but probably also in the rest of the world). We celebrate this by baking a big batch.
Nicoline has for years been perfecting the 'Kanel boller' (cinnamon rolls/buns) recipe and happiness is sometimes something as simple as experimenting and discovering the perfect recipes…and it often translates into hygge too.
This recipe came about because I had no plain flour and no fresh yeast and bingo the best cinnamon rolls is have ever made was created.
What better way to welcome in the New Year than a cold walk followed with warm sticky and gooey cinnamon rolls and these are exactly that!
Usually I would say… ‘also perfect for welcoming friends into your home, so very easy and quick to make but this, as we all know, is not the case at this point in time. Instead, you could share with neighbours (which I did and was hugely appreciated) because the thing is, like everything else, anything you make might be really nice but actually as we have all discovered, it is much better when shared. It really is as simple as that!
Dough:
- 6 tablespoons lukewarm water
- 1 sachet dry yeast
- 300ml milk
- 50g melted butter
- 550g self raising flour
- 3 tablespoons of sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
Remonce: (The Danish word for this filling and it sounds so right to me!)
- 150g butter at room temperature
- 100g soft brown sugar
- 75g muscovado sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Empty sachet of dry yeast into the lukewarm water to dissolve.
Next melt butter and add to the milk.
Pour milk (with melted butter) into the yeast mixture.
Finally add salt and sugar into the flour and mix (either by hand, with a wooden spoon or with electric bread dough whisks) into a soft dough. I always knead the dough gently by hand at the end and add a bit of extra flour if needed. This is usually a good way to establish if more flour is needed. It should be soft to touch, not sticky but will stick to a surface if left on it for any length of time. It just in between the sticky and non sticky stage and must not be dry and hard to knead like bread can be. So at the most, it will be a spoonful or 2 of extra four needed.
Place back in a bowl, cover with a clean tea towel and leave to prove in a warm spot for 45-60mins until raised.
Remove from bowl and place on a baking sheet to stretch into an oblong shape approx 30 x 20cm (you will need a light sprinkling of flour on the surface to stop it from sticking.
Make the filling by just mixing butter, light brown, muscovado sugar and ground cinnamon together. Next spread this over your ‘dough square’ fairly evenly but don’t worry too much if thicker one end and thinner in other places as this will even out.
Next roll it into a roll working from the longer side. Once it is in a long roll, cut 2cm thick slices and place on a baking tray with a small gap between each piece.
I give mine a gentle squashing with a blade of a knife. The gap between each roll is now approx 1-1.5cm and I then place them to rise again in a warm spot.
I usually leave approx 30-40min but went for a walk this time and left them which means they were left to rise for about 2 hours and this appeared to be just perfect, see image below:
They were big and fluffy and overlapping each other and remained very fluffy when baked* The filling had oozed out and they were all coated beautifully in sticky and delicious cinnamon sugar. I had high praise from anyone who ate them!! So my conclusion is …leave to rise for as long as you can!
Usually recipes also say, use an egg ‘to brush over the top’ but for me personally I thing this is a waste of time and egg. It makes no difference to the taste and as I’m going to cover mine in ordinary icing sugar, the gloss that an egg adds is not going to be seen. I use water and icing sugar and add this when they are slightly cooled. Not too warm, this will make the icing melt and if too cold, it won’t allow the icing to flow into the gaps so it’s a fine line between hot and cold and you might have to bake them once and twice (what a shame, but no-one will mind I promise!) before you get it just right.
And now all there left to say is… enjoy! As you can see, they were gone even before i got to take a picture ...
*And oh, you bake them at 220 degrees Celsius for approx 10min.
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