Cinnamon buns for Christmas morning

This recipe is from the wonderful Arianna Halshaw, baker and pâtissier extraordinaire. Arianna is my colleague at Natoora, but until recently she owned her own bakery, Bittersweet Bakers. Since Arianna started working with us, office treats have taken on a whole new meaning (and my waistline a few more digits).

I arrange cooking classes for staff once a quarter and Arianna has been kind enough to teach a few of these. We did a Christmas special recently where she shared these cinnamon buns for Christmas morning.

Cinnamon buns have never been one of my favourite things – I usually find them a bit dry and not as sweet as I’d like. I’m not much of a sweet tooth, but when I do crave something sweet, it tends to be at the very naughty end of the spectrum – custard filled doughnuts, double chocolate fudge brownies and any kind of cake that comes with cream cheese icing.

Arianna seems to have read my mind with this recipe – the dough is fluffy and moist, more like a cake than pastry and, guess what? She drizzles them with a cream cheese icing. Sold. 

If you are making these for breakfast on Christmas Day, I suggest doing a slow proof in the fridge overnight so that you are free to enjoy your morning. There is also the added benefit that the cold dough is much easier to work with than a warm sticky one, particularly when it comes to rolling it into the scroll. 

They are particularly good while still warm so get ’em while their hot!

Makes 12.

Ingredients

For the dough:

300g bread flour
300g plain flour
150g caster sugar
2 tsp salt
3 tsp (15g) of Quick Yeast
1 large whole egg, room temperature
1 large egg yolk, room temperature
1 vanilla pod, scraped
270ml whole milk
50g unsalted butter, softened 

For the filling:

125g unsalted butter, softened
150g light brown muscovado sugar
3 tbsp (45g) ground cinnamon
1.5 tsp (7g) green cardamom, pods discarded, seeds ground
1 pinch of salt

For the icing (optional):

100g full fat cream cheese
1 pinch of salt
½ vanilla bean, scraped
50g icing sugar, sifted or to taste
Whole milk, to taste

Method

Preheat oven to 180C and line a roasting tray (at least an inch deep) with baking parchment. Butter any edges not covered with paper.

Put the flour, sugar, salt and yeast into a large mixing bowl. Put the eggs and vanilla into a separate bowl and whisk to combine.

Heat the milk and butter to 35-45C (body temperature, test on inside of wrist). Carefully whisk in heated milk mixture into the egg mixture.

Fold wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and turn out onto a floured surface. Knead mixture until it becomes a well-combined, elastic ball (about 5 minutes). Lightly sprinkle with more flour if too sticky.

Put in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a tea towel. Place in warm area to proof for approximately 2-3 hours or until doubled in size and puffy. Alternately, if making the day before, cover with cling film and put in the fridge overnight.

To make the filling, combine the sugar, cinnamon, cardamom and salt in bowl and mix well.

Once the dough is proofed, roll out into a rectangle approximately 40 x 30cm. Spread the softened butter on top, leaving 2cm from the edge on all sides. Spread the sugar mixture over the buttered section of the dough. 

Roll lengthways as tightly as you can ending with the seam side down. Using a serrated knife slice 12 even pieces very carefully. Use a sawing motion – do not press downward.

Lay the rolls down in the tray, cover with a tea towel or cling film and proof again for 30 min in a warm corner. Once proofed, bake for approximately 20 minutes. 

For the cream cheese icing, blend the cream cheese, salt, vanilla and icing sugar together using a mixer, whisk or stick blender. Add splashes of milk until it reaches the desired consistency – it should be reasonably runny so you can drizzle it over the buns.

Let buns cool for 15 minutes, then drizzle over the cream cheese icing.

Comments

[Charlie Brown]

I made these last night for a very close friend who loves a kanelsnegle (as they are known in Denmark) aswell a bunch of both Danish and international kanelsnegle lovers. They were greeted with rapturous reception...aka gobbled up only minutes after I had put them on the table.
I think next time I will put them in a smaller tray and add a sprinkle of the sugar mix over the top of the buns as I personally found them a little bit dry on top...despite the bottoms being delicious and moist and almost toffee like!
Great recipe!