My cinnamon buns shaped into twisty knots, with masses of spice and flavour from cinnamon and cardamom, with a sticky syrup glaze are inspired by Swedish kanelbullar rather than the bakes of Cinnabon.
Cinnamon buns worldwide
The world of cinnamon buns stretches from Sweden to the US. In Sweden they bake and eat kanelbullar, cinnamon and cardamom flavoured, yeast-leavened buns or rolls, depending on how they are shaped.
In America cinnamon buns are enormous, and feature super thick icing or even cream cheese frosting, as immortalised by Saul Goodman and Cinnabon.
There are also some delicious cinnamon rolls around made with laminated pastry so the roll is like a cross between a fabulously layered croissant and kouign amann from Brittany, but that’s an awful lot of hassle. My baking aim was leaning towards Sweden with industrial amounts of the spices and not too much sugar overall, rather than thick layers of icing.
After several test bakes of varied quality outcomes, I settled on the ScandiKitchen recipe. Like they say on YouTube, I baked 70 cinnamon buns to create the perfect recipe. But as they say elsewhere, there’s always room for improvement.
The spices
Say what you will, but the Swedish cinnamon buns are really cardamom buns: the latter overpowers the dough and the filling albeit in a pleasing way. And that’s the only snag: cardamom preparation.
You can source ground cardamom in the UK but it is a bit pointless. Cardamom is very fragrant when freshly ground but it goes stale quite quickly.
I believe it is worth going through the effort of squeezing those little black seeds out of the green pods and grinding them in a pestle and mortar or a spice mill, especially that cardamom is the nicest when coarsely ground, giving the baked goods a bit of a crunch in the texture.
The best method is to run a rolling pin over the pods, on a chopping board or paper towels, then pick out the seeds.
You can also buy cardamom seeds in jars which is the third way: not quite as fresh as podded there and then but much more fragrant than ready ground.
Thankfully cinnamon comes in the ground form and it keeps well if good quality.
The dough
The dough is quite straightforward, enriched with milk, egg and butter. Once mixed, by hand or machine, to a silky smooth and elastic, it needs to rise to twice its bulk, which takes about an hour.
The next step is rolling out and it is a really pliant and obedient dough: it doesn’t shrink up into itself but happily stretches to a large sheet of 40 x 50cm/16 x 20 inch.
The filling
The filling is soft butter beaten with sugar and an industrial quantity of cinnamon – and some cardamom for a good measure.
It needs to be very soft to spread it evenly, with an offset spatula. It is to die for, but the only problem is that it tends to leak in baking. Which doesn’t make the buns any less delicious, just a little messy.
The shaping
Once the filling is spread, you could just roll the dough up tightly into a log, then cut into thick slices. But the leaky risk increases with that shape, unless you arrange the rolls (which they will become in this case) close together on a tray.
Twisty knots are more pleasing, at least to my mind. To do that, you have to fold a third of the dough over towards the centre widthwise, then fold the other third over the top.
You can roll it out gently to help spread the filling evenly and ensure even thickness throughout.
Using a pizza wheel or a sharp knife, slice the dough into strips about 2 cm/¾ inch wide. Stretch each gently, then twist opposite ends into a rope and curl it onto itself, making sure the ends are tucked underneath. The ScandiKitchen video is helpful in working it out.
The baking
They will need to prove now, arranged on parchment-lined trays, for half an hour to an hour until slightly larger and softly puffy.
Brushing with egg wash will make them glossy but also keep longer. Baking is brief in a hot oven, fan-assisted if possible, 8 to 10 minutes max if you’ve made them quite substantial.
They’ll turn light brown on their extremities and pale golden in the nooks and twists. Some filling will invariably leak out a little.
The syrup glaze is optional, golden syrup mixed with date syrup or on its own, warmed up to loosen it up. You can obviously ice them, thus making a Swedish-American mini-fusion. And pearl sugar is also optional but doesn’t it look pretty?
Do they keep?
They are really the best on the day of baking and tend to get drier and harder overnight. Therefore – unless you’re able to eat all 18 on the day, which I sense I possibly could in the right circumstances – freeze the surplus when they cool down.
You can stick the tray in the freezer for an hour, if it fits, and when frozen, slip the buns into a container or a bag. They defrost within a couple of hours or overnight and will be almost as fresh and delicious.
More sweet bun recipes
Marzipan buns flavoured with cinnamon and cardamom. Homemade marzipan fills these soft sweet buns baked in a muffin tin. These are perfect breakfast buns!
Yorkshire teacakes, with raisins or currants, toasted and buttered are the best tea time treat. And they are really easy to make.
Pistachio morning buns, a treat for breakfast, with cardamom scent and toasted pistachio and sugar crunch. Made from enriched bread dough on tangzhong milk starter.
More Swedish dessert recipes
King Oscar II cake is also known as Swedish almond tart. It's an almond macaron style cake filled with almond buttercream, easy to make and absolutely delightful.
Swedish almond caramel cake, Toscakaka, is a lovely and easy cake to make ahead. Bake the base in advance, then add caramel topping and blast it under the grill just before serving.
St Lucia buns, vibrant with saffron and elegantly twisted, are Swedish Christmas time bakes. Lucia Day and Lucia buns go back to the history of Lucia, an early Christian martyr.