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Ready for a sweet coffee break? Today we prepared the Swedish Kanelbullar. They are small beautiful buns roll-shaped with cardamom, filled with a filling made with butter, sugar and cinnamon. Subsequently glazed or decorated with sugars. They are truly irresistible, the light and soft dough inevitably leads you to eat one after another. Like Semla, they are consumed during the coffee break, but they are also delicious at breakfast, perhaps slightly soaked in warm milk. They were created in Sweden in the 20th century during the 1920s, but are widespread throughout the peninsula and also in Denmark.
They are very similar to the American Cinnamon Rolls, in fact the two countries contend for paternity. These cinnamon swivels are so loved by the Swedish people that since 1999 the Kanelbullar festival was added every year on 4th October, previously the day of the children’s festival. As a result, October 4th became the family day where the Kanelbullar are eaten, where their creator Kaeth Gard Norderstedt is also celebrated. During this holiday, bakeries can come to churn out about 7000 Kanelbullar instead of the usual 300-400.
How to Make Swedish Kanelbullars
The preparation of the dough of these Swedish rolls is not complicated, but they need their time to rise. To prepare them you need bread flour, so I used manitoba, ideal for recipes that require this kind of flour because it is particularly strong and suitable for long leavening.
In the original recipe is used instant yeast, we have used the Sourdough Starter and the result has been excellent. In the recipe you will still find the doses for both yeasts. Using the Sourdough Starter the mixing procedure does not change. Mix the flour, sourdough, sugar and cardamom, and proceed normally with the other steps.
For the kanelbullar fyllning are used two types of sugar, but if you prefer, use 80 g of light sugar or brown sugar. We have used two round trays as the recipe said but Swedish Kanelbullars can also be prepared in single portion. The icing is optional, I opted for a light icing to limit the sugar a little, but you can completely omit it and sprinkle the swedish rolls with the sugars before baking.
Swedish Kanelbullar: Swedish Cardamom Buns
Ingredients
Dough
- 450 g Manitoba Flour
- 80 g Caster Sugar
- 100 g Sourdough Starter or 7 g instant yeast
- 5 g Cardamom ground
- 3 g Salt
- 250 g Milk whole
- 1 Egg slightly beaten
- 100 g Butter soft cubed
Filling
- 80 g Butter very soft
- 1 tsp Pastry Flour
- 1 tbs Cinnamon
- 1 tsp Icing Sugar
- 40 g Caster Sugar
- 40 g Sugar Cane
Icing*
- 1 Egg
- 1 tsp Milk
- 45 g Caster Sugar
- ¼ tsp Vanilla Paste
Instructions
Dough
- In the bowl of the mixer, add the flour, sourdough and ground cardamom. Mix everything using the hook. Now add the salt.
- In a saucepan, mix the milk and the beaten egg and heat over low heat, stirring constantly until it reaches about 35 – 40 ° C.
- Add the milk to the flour and stir until the ingredients are well blended. At this point, add the butter one cube at a time, add the next cube when the previous one has been absorbed by the dough.
- Knead for another 3 minutes. If the dough is too sticky to the touch, add a little flour at a time. The dough must be sticky to the touch but without remaining attached to the fingers. If you add flour, knead for another 3 minutes.
- Flour the work surface and form a ball with the dough. Grease a bowl and place it inside, cover it with plastic wrap and let it rise for 1 hour until it is doubled.
Filling
- Line two baking pans with baking paper, and put them aside. Put the dough on the floured work surface. flatten the dough and roll it out into a 50 x 40 cm rectangle.
- Mix the butter and flour. cinnamon and sugar and spread it evenly on the dough.
- Roll the dough into a 50 cm long roll and cut it into 16 parts. Place the rolls in the two trays, cover them with a clean kitchen towel and let rise for 1 hour.
Firing and Glazing
- Preheat the oven to 200 °C
- Beat the egg and milk together and brush the cinnamon rolls. Bake them for 8 minutes, until they are golden brown.
- Let them cool on a grill. In the meantime, prepare the glaze by heating the sugar, water and vanilla paste on the heat, let it cool as soon as it is ready.
- As soon as they have cooled, pour the icing on the rolls and then sprinkle with the pearl sugar.