Kanelbullar

Kanelbullar are delicious little Swedish cinnamon and cardamon rolls, traditionally eaten as a part of fika, which is basically Swedish for having a chat over coffee and little cakes like this. What a delightful word, it is things like this that made me love the Swedish language.

I made these for my last Swedish class of the semester a couple of weeks ago, and they were eaten very very quickly! I was actually surprised how easy these are to make, and how little time they took. I'll be making them regularly I think.

Geoff and I are off to Sweden in a couple of weeks for one of my best friend's wedding, so I am looking forward to having lots of delicious Swedish food there.

The recipe I used can be found here.

What you will need:

For the buns

• 25g of yeast (I used dried yeast)
• 75g of butter
• 2 and a half dl of milk
• Half a dl of white sugar
• A pinch of salt
• 1 tsp of cardamon
• Around 7 dl of plain flour (you may need a little more, just see how sticky the dough is)

For the cinnamon sugar/filling

• 50 g butter or margarine
• Half a dl of white sugar
• 2 tsp cinnamon (The recipe says only 1, but the more the merrier I say)

Glaze

• An egg

Melt the butter over the stove, and then add the milk until warm (around 37 degrees Celsius). Take off the stove and mix in the yeast allowing it to dissolve. Mix in the salt, cardamon and sugar.

Sift in the flour half a cup at a time - I ended up using a little more that 7 dl to ensure the dough was not too sticky.

Cover the bowl with a tea towel and leave in a warm place for 30 minutes to rise. While you are waiting, mix the sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl.

Take the dough out and on a lightly floured bench, roll it into a 20cm x 50 cm rectangle. Spread the butter or margarine over the top. Sprinkle your cinnamon sugar over the butter. Roll the dough from the bottom up and then cut into 1/2 cm slices and place into cupcake containers as shown in the photo below.


Leave these to rise for another 30 minutes.

Whisk your egg and brush this over the top of each kanelbullar, and then sprinkle with pearl sugar. I found pearl sugar in this shop in Melbourne, but it is quite a bit bigger than I would have liked.

Place in the oven for 10-15 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius.

Enjoy with some good friends over a cup of tea or coffee.

A nice variation might be to replace the cardamon in the dough with cinnamon, and to dice up apples to scatter with the cinnamon sugar to make apple scrolls instead.