Day 54: Cinnamon Bun Day

Getting a bake on for Kanelbullensdag (Cinnamon Bun day)

It's always clear that Swedes are fond of cinnamon buns but now they have a set day to eat buns with an excuse. It's apparently a recently made-up day established by the hembakningsrådet (home baking council). On one hand I could be fooled into thinking that baking is so important here that they've got a council for it, but on the other, more likely, hand, Swedes have a council for everything and this fact merely points to how bureaucratic the country is.

AAaaanyway, baking is fun and buns are good. As testament to how popular it is to bake breads and buns, fresh yeast is readily available in the fridges of all shops, something which is very rare in England. It is a small clay coloured cube that smells like beer and flakes apart when you break it. Here is a recipe for a cinnamon bun cake should anyone feel inspired:

Recipe for Buns

Ingredients - Buns
225ml milk warmed to body temperature
75g butter
425g plain flour
70g sugar
1tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
25g yeast (half a cube)

Ingedients - Filling
75g butter
50g sugar
2tsp cinnamon
(optional) dash of vanilla sugar

1. Add the yeast and sugar to the warm milk
2. Put this mix into the centre of all the combined dry ingredients. It should make a slightly wet dough
3. Leave this dough to rise, covered with cling film, for 30 mins
4. Combine the filling ingredients together.
5. Roll out the dough into a rectangle. Spread the filling over the rectangle (see my picture at the top for inspiration)
6. Roll up the rectangle from the long end (like a swiss roll)
7. Cut 1inch thick circles from the roll and arrange them in a 22cm cake pan with removable base
8. Leave to rise for at least 30 mins until they grow monsterous (I left mine overnight and they got huge) then bake at 200C for 20 mins

Weird Ingredients and Measurements

Fresh yeast - can be bought in 50g packets in Sweden. You can supplement dry yeast according to this really detailed site about yeast this recipe needs 20g of dry yeast.

Vanilla sugar - Icing sugar/powdered sugar with ground vanilla added. It's very strong and you only need a little for a lot of vanilla flavour. Use vanilla essence or fresh vanilla if you want.

Grams - I use ounces in England and they use cups in Sweden (which I think are different to American cups). So to save any argument this recipe is in metric measurements.