Kanelbullar (Cinnamon Bun) Recipe

The buns, just out of the oven - they're a bit wonky and are without pearl sugar, but taste pretty good.

Well, I've now had two attempts at making Kanelbullar (Cinnamon Buns) and although I'm certainly no expert, I'm getting a bit better at making them. Tweaking is part of the fun of cooking for me and I think by attempt #3, I might just be there. And hopefully by then I'll have found some pearl sugar, which is a vital visual element for these buns but not so easy to come by in Melbourne town.

Rolling out the pastry

My recipe comes from the book "Swedish Culinary Classics" by Carl Jan Granqvist & Lena Katarina Swanberg, released by The Swedish Institute. Here's the spiel that comes with their recipe:

Kanelbullar are a classic at Swedish coffee parties. During the golden age of home baking, such parties turned into orgies of sweet yeast breads, small cookies, cookies with fillings, pastries and cakes. This tradition lives on in Sweden. If you are invited to someone's home for coffee, you always get a cinnamon bun, a cookie or a piece of cake with it. And at cafes, dainty little cookies continue to compete with all those supersized American muffins.

Kanelbullar (Cinnamon Bun) Recipe

INGREDIENTS

Makes 25 buns

35g yeast

100g sugar

300ml milk

1 egg

120g butter

1tsp salt

1 tbsp ground cardamon

750g wheat flour

Filling

100g butter

50g sugar

2 tbsp cinnamon

Glaze

1 egg

2 tbsp water

pearl sugar

PREPARATION

Crumble the yeast in a bowl and stir in a few tablespoons of milk. Melt the butter and pour the milk on it. Add the rest of the ingredients and kneed the dough in a dough mixer for 10-15 minutes. Let the dough rise while covered at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Roll out the dough so it is about 3mm thick and 30cm wide. Spread the room temperature buter on top. Make a mixture of sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle it over the dough. Roll the dough the long way and cut the roll into about 25 slices. Place them with the cut edge upwards in paper moulds. Place on a baking sheet and let rise under a towel for about 60 minutes or until the buns have doubled in size.

Beat together the egg and water, brush the mixture carefully on the buns and sprinkle pearl sugar on top. Bake in the oven at 220 degrees celsius for 5-6 minutes. Allow to cool on a rack.

MY NOTES:

• I used dry yeast, so I halved the amount listed above. Next time I'm going to try fresh yeast, which you can buy from bakeries.
• You don't need a bread machine/dough mixer but it makes it a bit easier.
• I made bigger buns this time so only got about half the number, but they turned out less dry than my first batch of 25. When they rise they get pretty big, but if you pat them down a bit the size is more manageable. If you make them bigger like me, you'll need to adjust the cooking time - up to double the time in the recipe.
• I also laid them out a bit differently - the swirl wasn't facing up but to the side, just for something different.

If you've got any tips/tricks on making these buns, I'd love to know!

Warms wrists, Swedish style

Look what arrived in the mail yesterday...

Photograph © Sandra Juto

..some lovely Wrist Worms made from a soft charcoal merino wool, all the way from Sweden. To die for! Jed got a grey pair too, so we're almost matching, and are very pleased to have very very warm wrists. Thanks Sandra :)

OK, off the finish cinnamon buns batch #2, I'll let you know how they go.

Obsessed by the weather

I know I seem kinda obsessed by the cold, but that's because it's freezing. And here's a Melbourne tree in winter to prove it!

So I had to buy myself a new blanket, which is sooo cute. It's actually a baby blanket but I think I want to keep it myself as a lap blanket :) I love PataPri's work, it's so great, and I had to stop myself buying this - swoon. And the new baby I mentioned? I'm making her a blanket, which I'm pretty excited about. Not that I've started yet, as I haven't decided if it's for her cot or to play on. Either way, I'd better get onto it as she's two weeks only already and so cute :)

Beautiful Sweden, sigh, part 2

Mainly blue skies and green trees and so so beautiful.

Beautiful Sweden, sigh, part 1

Yep, looking at more photos. And thinking about the fact that it's summer in Sweden now, as opposed to freezing/rainy Melbourne. In spring, Sweden was so beautiful. Sigh.

Sweet Treats

Sorting through my photos this week, I've noticed I have a thing for sweet food. Luckily I got to see a lot of delicious treats when on holiday, and try some too. Mmm.

North For The Winter!

After a frenzy of cutting and making, it's now time for a bunch of my stuff to get out of freezing Melbourne and head towards the sun. Yes, tea towels need holidays too, people! Unfortunately I don't get to go with them, but I'm sure they'll have a grand time at the Finders Keepers market in Brisbane, what with Tess keeping them company.

The market's on this weekend, June 26 & 27, at the Old Museum in Bowen Hills. If you're lucky enough to go along, look for the North for the Winter sign (made by Tess and very impressive looking by all accounts) that marks the stall I'm sharing with a bunch of talented Melburnians - Teahouse, Metremaid, Elizabeth Ann & Mainichi.

And on a completely different note, I really want to know just one thing right now...who will be our Prime Minister tomorrow and will they be a she? Crazy times in Australian politics people, crazy times.

Barcelona

Since coming back from holidays, I've noticed that this here blog is too narrow and the photos are too small, so I've just widened it. To test the new width out, here's a couple of snaps from our last stopover on the trip - Barcelona, and the chance to get some sunshine before coming home to winter. We ate such great food there, mmm.

Looking up

It's a beautiful winter day today - sunny, insanely blue sky - which made walking around and doing chores much more enjoyable, especially with a bit of music to keep me company. And I couldn't help but look up all the time.

OK, back to work - I've got a market to prepare for, and it's on soon!

Wintering along

It's grey and cold and sometimes rainy in Melbourne at the moment, but I'm generally happy to be home, rugged up and armed with a hot chocolate & marshmallows. Hope your week's been grand - I've had a busy week that involved becoming an aunt (welcome Lily!) and getting back into the swing of things with some printing. I'm also working on a new design, super exciting. Hopefully I'll have something to show soon.

Alive and cooking

OK, well it's been forever. For a while there on that holiday of mine I thought I'd be posting every day, then suddenly things sped up and there was no time for computers. We ate a million more cinnamon buns, I met some totally lovely folks and hung out by the Swedish sea, then dropped in on Barcelona just because we could (sun!). We then spent another action-packed week in London (my highlight - I really forgot how amazing it is, as I think I've said before) and now here we are back in Melbourne, falling asleep and waking up at random times due to jet lag. 24 hours really is too long to spend flying, ick.

It's great to be home, believe it or not, and nothing's changed except the weather (freezing). And I've been cooking lots, which is so much fun. Here's my take on cinnamon buns - they aren't a patch on the best ones I tasted on the trip, but they're a start. Once I get the recipe tweaked I'll share it, as they're sooo good.



Now it's back to sorting the 2,500 photos I took with my new camera - sheesh, do you think I might have gone overboard with the snaps?

Brrr it's cold in Gothenburg

So cold and rainy today, perfect for museum going and eating.

Time to buy another suitcase

After a fruitless search for shoes yesterday in Stockholm, today in Gothenburg we stumbled across the cutest clog workshop. And they've been made in the area since the 1930s, originally by the parents of the storekeeper, no less. Needless to say I'm in love and in a bit of pain - they're hard to walk in but hopefully that will sort itself out.



So now there's not much more to do than drink another coffee and eat another kanelbullen (cinnamon bun) and/or kardemommeboller (cardamom bun). And go back to the shop to buy another pair or two :)


Cinnamon buns - I've almost eaten too many of these, if that's possible.


Buns with vanilla and jam - mmm!

Hello from Sweden!

Supermarket shelves and shop window displays are about all we've seen of Stockholm so far, as we arrived on Sunday afternoon and most things were closed, but I think I'm in love. It's cold but the sky is blue and everything looks beautiful and spring-like. And the sun sets late - around 9pm, I think - which is weird for us as the temperature is less than 10 degrees celsius (a lot less than, I think!)

Tomorrow will be a day for buying warmer clothes and walking and walking and walking and looking at lovely things. And not buying AU$10 cups of hot chocolate, as we did tonight (delicious and necessarily warming but definitely budget breaking!)

Plants and Flowers

It's so nice to go from Autumn in Melbourne to Spring here (we're currently in Budapest, another unplanned stopover and the weather is amazing.) Here are some snaps of the spring flowers and plants we've seen along the way. Happy Saturday :)