This is the best recipe I have for Finnish Cinnamon Rolls / Cinnamon
Buns. These are most commonly eaten with afternoon coffee, which Finns
typically drink around 2 pm (lunch is at 11 am - noon), but they can be
of course be enjoyed at any time of the day, e.g. at breakfast, with 5
o'clock tea, or as a snack with fresh milk.
I write this one in English for my non-Finnish speaking friends. Finnish friends will find a recipe anywhere. :-)
This is the second recipe I write in English, and I mostly read Finnish or French cookbooks, thus please notify me if there's something really strange e.g. in the vocabulary.
Finnish Cinnamon buns
~32
buns, 3 hours, active cooking time 1 hour
Ingredients
Dough
- 5 dl (2.1 cups) milk
- 1 egg
- 2 dl (0.85 cups) sugar
- 1 tablespoon ground cardamon
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 22 g dry yeast or 50 g fresh yeast
- 13-15 dl (5-650 g) wheat flour
- 150 g butter (softened in room temperature or in microwave - not liquid, though)
Filling
- 100 g butter (softened in room temperature)
- ~1 dl (0,4 cups) sugar
- cinnamon
On top
- 1 egg
- pearl sugar (optional)
Instructions
If using fresh yeast:
- Warm up the milk to ~37 degrees Celcius, and mix the yeast into it in a large, preferrably round bowl.
- Add the egg, sugar, salt and cardamon and mix.
- Add some flour, and mix using a whisk, to get some air into the dough. Continue adding flour until using a whisk is impossible. Then switch to kneading the dough with your hand, adding flour ~1 dl (~1/2 cup) at the time.
- When the dough is more dense, but still attaches to the bowl, add the soft butter. After kneading the butter into the dough, continue adding flour and kneading, until the dough is easily removed from your hands and from the bowl.
- Cover the bowl with a clean cloth, and leave it to a warm place for roughly 40 minutes. It should at least double in volume during that time.
- Knead the dough to remove air bubbles, and divide it in two. Spread some flour on a clean table, and roll the pieces into rectangles of roughly 30x60 cm in size. Spread the butter on top, then add sugar and sprinkle cardamon.
- Roll the rectangles into long rolls (60 cm long). Leave the free end under the roll. Cut into trapezoids with the shorter side being ~2 cm, and longer side 4-5 cm long.
- Place the rolls upright on a baking tray covered with parchment paper, a with the 2 cm long side on top, and press with your finger, to make them flat. Leave some space between the rolls, they will expand!
- Cover the rolls with a clean cloth and leave them for roughly 30 min to a warm place.
- Heat the oven to 200-225 degrees Celcius.
- Mix the egg white & yellow, use a brush to spread it on top of the buns. If you have pearl sugar, use it to decorate the buns.
- Bake one tray at the time for 10-15 minutes in the middle level of the oven, until the buns get some brown colour.
- These are best when fresh, but also ok if stored e.g. in a plastic bag and eaten the next day. You can also freeze the buns, unfreeze them in room temperature and heat a little bit in the oven just before eating.
If using dry yeast,
- Warm up the milk to 40 degree and pour it into a large, preferrably round bowl. Add the egg, salt, sugar and cardamon and mix.
- Mix the yeast into some flour and add it to the milk.
- See steps 3-13 above.
The buns before baking in the oven:
The following pictures have nothing to do with the buns, except that all these pictures were taken in October this year. We had a really beautiful October with the sun shining on most days, so I just wanted to put them here in the middle of the November darkness!
