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Cinnamon Buns Inspired By Magnus Nilsson
So I posted these cinnamon buns on Instagram and was promptly told that putting icing on them was a very un-Nordic thing to do - so for that I apologise! I just love the combination of the squidgy cinnamon dough contrasted against the sharply sweet icing - it reminds me of eating them as a child, which was in London so I guess I haven’t ever had proper Nordic ones. This is something I plan of fixing but in the meantime making them at home is no where near as hard as you might think!
Having never made them before myself, I scoured my cookbooks and recipes I trust online and after a few experimental bakes and I have to say my recipe is very much based on the esteemed Felicity Cloake’s version she wrote for The Guardian.
Ingredients
For the dough:
- 300 ml milk
- 1 tsp ground cardamon, you can bash it yourself in a pestle and mortar or a coffee grinder works well too - it’s about 20 pods
- 50 g butter
- 450 g flour
- 1 egg
- 7 g 1 packet of fast action yeast
- 70 g caster sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
For the filling:
- 80 g butter, softened
- 25 g light brown sugar
- 25 g dark brown sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- For finishing: 1 egg and Demerara sugar
Instructions
- Heat the milk in a saucepan and add the cardamon. Bring it just before the boil and then turn the heat off. Add the butter and leave to cool for a minute or so.
- Mix the dry ingredients together into a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Crack in the egg and then add the milk mixture. Bring it all together to make a soft dough.
- Keep it in the bowl and knead the dough until it is smooth and no longer sticks to your hands. Once the dough is ready, cover the bowl with a tea towel or cling film and leave somewhere warm for 30 minutes. You want it to double in size.
- Make the gilling while you wait - simply beat the butter, sugars and salt together until its creamy and spreadable.
- Tip the risen dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll into a rough rectangle - about 35 cm x 20 cm roughly
- Spread the butter mixture all over.
- Roll it up dough tightly into a Swiss roll (by rolling along the longer edge). Make sure it’s sitting on its seam and then cut into 6 slices
- Arrange these on a large baking tray - leaving good gaps between them and then cover with a tea towel and let them prove again for 30 minutes until they’re nearly doubled in size.
- Preheat the oven to 200C
- Brush the tops with beaten egg and Demerara sugar and bake for 25 minutes approximately - the should be lightly golden.
- I serve mine with a simple icing made with icing sugar and water to loosen.
