It is the holiday season aka Cinnamon Season. Here’s a penultimate cinnamon recipe.
In his lovely Comfort, John Whaite describes a trip he made two years ago to Sweden. To see one café — Café Saturnus. For one particular dish: Cinnamon Buns. Well, if it was important enough for John, it should be important enough for us all.
We made these. We like them. They are surprising. I’m used to big, fluffy, gooey cinnamon rolls with enough cinnamon to burn the roof of your mouth. Not here. These are small, bready, firm. There is the ambiance of cinnamon but not blunt force. Are they good? Good enough to visit Sweden? They are good. When we go to Sweden, someday, Suzi and I will visit Café Saturnus. And in the meantime, we have this lovely recipe from John’s key book.
The measurements here are in grams. I’m giving up on translating grams to ounces. It’s time for all of us to be using a digital scale that does grams. Really. It’s time. The more exact measurements — grams are smaller than ounces — let’s us craft more specific recipes. It’s better. You can still use MPH when you drive. I do.
Cinnamon Buns ala Sweden
Yield: makes 12
Ingredients:
For the dough:
- 250g plain flour
- 250g strong white bread flour
- 2 teaspoons ground cardamom (use ½ teaspoon if using freshly ground seeds from the pod)
- 10g caster sugar
- 5g salt
- 7g sachet fast- action yeast
- 150ml water, at room temperature
- 120ml milk, at room temperature
- 1 large egg
- 40g unsalted butter
For the filling:
- 90g unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing 10Og icing sugar
- 70g light brown muscovado sugar
- 25g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
- 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground cardamom (just use a pinch if using freshly ground seeds from the pod)
To finish:
- 75g caster sugar
- 50ml water
- 1-2 tsp lemon juice
- Pearl/nibbed sugar
Preparation:
To make the dough, put the flours and cardamom into a bowl and stir in the sugar, salt and yeast. Add the water, milk and egg and mix well with a wooden spoon or your hands until you have a scraggy dough. Squeeze in the softened butter, then knead until the mixture is smooth and elastic – about 10 minutes by hand or 5 minutes in a mixer fitted with dough hook. The dough will be fairly sticky, but under no circumstances add any more flour – just keep at it and it will become tacky rather than sticky.
Place the dough into an oiled bowl, cover with clingfilm and allow to rise until doubled in size – usually an hour but it could be quicker or slower, depending on the temperature of your kitchen.
To make the filling, beat together the butter, sugar, flour, cinnamon and cardamom until very’ paste-like – you will need to spread this onto the dough, so make sure it is very loose.
Preheat the oven to 425°F.
Once the dough has doubled in size, lightly dust the worktop with flour and turn out the dough onto it. Roll the dough into an 18-inch square and spread the filling over the dough as evenly as possible. Starting with the edge closest to you, fold one third of the dough over, then fold the top third over that first piece – just like folding a business letter. Roll briefly with a rolling pin to ensure all of the dough is stuck together. Trim the messy ends and discard them, then slice the dough into 12 slices. Take a slice of dough and twist gently until it starts to feel tight, then spiral it round itself and poke one end through the middle to form a knot. Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough, and place them, well-spaced, onto two lightly greased baking sheets. Allow to rest for another 20-30 minutes, or until they look slightly swollen.
Meanwhile, put the caster sugar and water into a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat.
Bake the buns for 10 minutes until golden brown. Using a pastry brush, glaze the buns with the sugar syrup, as soon as they come out of the oven. Allow them to cool completely.
To finish the buns, beat together the icing sugar with enough lemon juice so the mixture has the consistency of golden syrup – you may need to add a drop or two of water to slacken it. Drizzle the icing over the buns and sprinkle with pearl sugar, if using.
Source: Comfort: Food to Soothe the Soul by John Whaite [Kyle, 2018]
Photo Information: Canon T2i, EFS 60mm Macro Lens, F/4 for 1/30th second at ISO‑200