Happy Cinnamon Bun day!

Today, 4 October, is Cinnamon Bun day in Sweden and cafes and shops will stock up with freshly baked wonderful cinnamon buns. 

Cinnamon buns are easy to make at home. They taste best on the day of baking but can also be frozen and enjoyed later after a few minutes in the oven.

Below is one of my favourite recipes. You can also buy these lovely buns in places across the UK, here is list of a few cafes we know of. Where to Fika in the UK

Fredrik Broman/imagebank.sweden.se

Swedish Cinnamon buns

Time: about 2 hours

Makes 25 cinnamon buns

Dough

• 25 grams yeast, fresh yeast seems to work best but if you can't find it I normally use one or two packets of dried yeast instead
• 75 grams butter
• 2 ½ deciliters milk
• ½ deciliters sugar
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 tea spoon of grounded cardamom
• around 7 deciliters flour

Filling:

• 50 grams butter
• ½ deciliter sugar
• 2 table spoons cinnamon

Glazing:

• one egg
• pearl sugar

With fresh yeast break it up in a bowl. Then melt the butter in a saucepan,  pour in the milk and heat it up to 37C, you can test this by putting your finger in the saucepan, if it’s the same temperature as your finger it’s about 37C. With dry yeast follow the instructions on the package.

Stir in a tiny bit of the milk and butter mix in with the yeast. Then add the rest of the milk and butter. Add salt, sugar and cardamom while stirring.

Add the flour and work the dough into a smooth and elastic dough. You should work the dough for a  least 7 or 8 minutes if you are doing it by hand.

Cover the dough with a kitchen towel and let it rise for about 45 minutes.

Set the oven to 225C.

Use a rolling pin and roll out the dough to a rectangular flat cake, about 20 cm x 50 cm and 1cm thick.

Once rolled out you can use a cheese slicer and slice the butter (make sure the butter is cold if using a slicer) all over the dough. The sprinkle the sugar and cinnamon on top. If you would like more filling just add more of the butter, sugar and cinnamon. Make sure you cover the dough evenly with the filling.

Roll up the dough and cut it in slices that are around 1 ½ centimeters thick.

Put some grease proof paper on a baking tray. To get that lovely sticky bottom of the bun, put bits of butter and some sugar on top of the greaseproof paper. Then put the buns on the paper with enough space in between each bun so they can rise. Cover with a tea towel again and let the buns rise again for about 30 minutes

Whisk the egg and glaze each bun with a little of the egg mix. Sprinkle some pearl sugar on top.

Cook in the middle of the oven for 8 – 10 minutes.

Enjoy!