Kanellangd – Cinnamon Buns

By Emma Hawkins | December 3, 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

It’s December and so Christmas bakes are officially allowed! This means we have a month of sugar, spice and all things nice coming up. I’m carrying on with the theme of foreign baking, from last week’s kaiserschmarrn to kanellangd this week. Now you might be asking am I becoming obsessed with weirdly named dishes no one’s ever heard of before? Well yes, but bare with me. This one is a Swedish version of cinnamon buns, where it’s pretty much the same except for the beautiful shaping. All the buns are baked attached together as a loaf, rather than as a batch bake in a tin, and so you end up with this really cool shaped bake. Essentially though you still get the sweet cinnamony fluffy buns smothered in icing which we all love.

This takes a bit of time to make, but as with lots of my recipes recently, it’s not time you have to spend working on it, you just need to leave it a lot to rise and bake so that you get the perfectly light texture. On the one hand this can be really annoying as you just want to tuck into this delish loaf, but then again, if you have little pockets of time in a day this can be the bake for you. When making anything remotely bready I tend to do a step and then when leaving it to prove I’ll do some work before coming back to it later on, so don’t let the long resting times put you off as you can get stuff done in those times.

Recipe

Makes 1 loaf

Time 1 hour, plus time for proving

Ingredients

For the dough

80g Unsalted butter
260ml Full fat milk
480g Strong plain bread flour, extra for dusting
½ tsp Mixed spice
6g Salt
7g Instant yeast
40g Caster sugar
1 Egg (10g for dough and the rest for glazing)

For the filling

75g Unsalted butter
1 tsp Vanilla bean paste
1 tbsp Ground cinnamon
80g Caster sugar

For the glaze

50g Caster sugar
50ml Water

For the icing

125g Icing sugar
1 tbsp Water

Method

Firstly make the dough by putting the butter and milk into a saucepan and melt gently.
Put the flour and mixed spice into a bowl. Then add the salt and yeast on separate sides of the bowl (putting them in direct contact of each other will kill the yeast). Then add the butter, milk, sugar and 10g of the egg (keep the rest for glazing).
Using a spatula at first, mix everything together. When it starts to come together go in with your fingers until a dough forms.
Lightly flour a work surface, tip out the dough and then knead for around 10 minutes until smooth, elastic, and soft. Form the dough into a ball and put into a lightly oiled bowl. Cover with clingfilm and then leave to rise for about an hour, until doubled in size.
Meanwhile make the filling. Put the butter and vanilla into a bowl and beat until smooth and spreadable.
Put the sugar and cinnamon into another bowl and mix until fully combined.
Pre-heat the oven to 200˚C and line a long baking tray with baking paper.
Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead a little to knock back.
Roll the dough out to a 25x35cm rectangle, making sure the long edge is facing you. The dough will resist being rolled and will spring back into shape but persevere. Tack the far edge down onto the work surface by pushing the dough into the worktop.
Spread the butter mix over the dough and then sprinkle the cinnamon sugar evenly over the top. Roll the dough up like a swiss roll from the edge nearest to you to the tacked down edge. Transfer to the lined tray.
Take a pair of sharp scissors and cut 15 slices into the roll, making sure you don’t cut all the way through. Pull the slices to alternative sides to make the cool shape. Loosely clingfilm the dough and leave to prove again for 20-25 minutes, until the dough springs back when pressed lightly.
Meanwhile make the sugar syrup. Put the sugar and water into a small pan and bring to the boil. Leave to reduce by half and then set to one side (it’ll thicken up even more once cooled down).
Brush the loaf with the rest of the beaten egg and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and soft. If it starts to brown too much cover with foil to stop it burning.
Now make the icing. Put the icing sugar and 1 tbsp water into a bowl and mix to make a semi-thick icing. If it’s too thick add more water a little dribble at a time until you have a pourable mixture which still holds its shape.
Take the loaf out of the oven and leave on a wire rack to cool. Brush with sugar syrup whilst it’s still warm, and then, once completely cool, drizzle with the icing. Serve and enjoy!