Laura's Gourmandises: Kanelbullar (Swedish cinnamon buns)

Kanelbullar and kanellängder (cinnamon buns and rolls)

Cardamom buns

Kanelbullar, or Swedish cinnamon buns, are one of my favorite desserts ever. They are sweet cardamom-scented buns filled with butter, cinnamon, sugar and sometimes marzipan and or cardamom too. Kanebullar are very typical of Sweden where they are eaten all-year round typically for fika (afternoon coffee time with a pastry) but also as snack, breakfast...

They take some time to bake (because of leavening times) but are otherwise very easy to produce (I made them as a kid on rainy afternoons with my girl friends). The dough is the same as for Semlor (almond-filled cream buns eaten on Mardi Gras in Sweden) and is the time-limiting factor in the recipe (basically the longer you let it leaven the longer it takes but the better they taste). The advantage however is that once they're baked you can easily freeze them down and keep them for the times you want a good Kanelbulle for dessert :-)

Recipe for about 30-40 buns or 4 rolls or 2 crowns:

Dough:

150 g butter
5 dl milk
50 g yeast (fresh!)
1/2 tsp salt
1 dl sugar
1 tsp cardamom (ideally seeds that you grind yourself)
1.4-1.5 liter flour

Cinnamon Filling (enough for 1/2 of the dough):

1 dl sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
100 g butter at room T

Cardamom Filling (enough for 1/2 of the dough):

1dl sugar
1.5 tbsp cardamom (must: seeds that you grind yourself)
100 g butter at room T

Filling option: add 100-200 g marzipan* to the cinnamon or cardamom filling above

Decoration:

some milk (you could also use cream or a whipped up egg)
pearl sugar
optional: sliced almond
optional: syrup (1dl water + 1dl sugar, brought to a boil)

Prepare the dough first: for this I highly recommend using the Assistent from Electrolux/Ankarsrum as this is how the dough is prepared in Sweden. You could do it by hand (as pictured below) but it will take more time / energy to work the dough.
Melt butter in a saucepan, add milk and heat up to 37 C (fingerwarm). Break down the yeast in crumbs in a big bowl and dilute it with some of the butter-milk mix. Add the remainder liquid, salt, sugar, cardamom, and almost all flour. Mix into a dough: on the Assistent mix for 5 min on low speed and another couple of minutes on medium speed, until the dough comes off from the bowl and until the dough can be stretched between fingers. Finalize working the dough on a floured table until it does not stick too much any more, and transfer it back to the bowl. Cover it with a cloth and let it leaven for at least 30 min (I recommend 1-1.5 hr... the longer the better). You do not want any draft in the kitchen at that point so I recommend putting the dough to leaven in the oven or in a closed space (closed windows).

While the dough is leavening, take the butter out for the filling. In a bowl mix and prepare your filling(s) - alternatively you could also not pre-mix. Cut the dough in 2 or 4 parts depending on what you've decided to make (buns, roll, crown). On a floured table, roll out the dough into a square that's approx. 5 mm thick. Cover the whole surface with your pre-mixed filling - or if not pre-mixed then 1) butter (a good nice layer, there's never too much butter here) and 2) sugar and cinnamon/cardamom. Optional: add a thin layer or small pieces of marzipan* on top.

For buns, rolls, and crowns: roll up the dough (from the long side) tightly. Here you can leave it as a roll and 1) make small incisions on the surface or 2) turn the roll into a flower roll or crown by making deep incisions with scissors and folding over (shown below). Alternatively you can cut the roll in 2-3 cm thick slices and transfer them to buns forms.
For buns as the cardamom buns in the picture: don't roll the dough but fold it in 2. Then slice the dough into strips of about 1.5cm (x 30-40cm). Twist and roll up that strip into a bun (I followed that video).
Transfer the rolls / buns to an oven plate covered with parchment paper and let them leaven for another 30 min (under a cloth). Paint the buns / rolls with milk (or cream or a whipped up egg as you prefer) and finally decorate them with pearl sugar and sliced almonds (for the ones that have marzipan).

Bake for apparox. 12 min at 225 C. Transfer to a grid to let them cool down. If you want your buns to look extra shiny (and be extra sweet and juicy) then paint them with syrup (bring to a boil 1dl water + 1dl sugar) after taking them out of the oven.