Another Danish goodie... Kanelsnurrer (Cinnamon buns)

This weekend I've gone for a sweet bread... These buns are really soft and fluffy!
It's another Meyers' recipe, but I've halved it so you get eight buns.

Cinnamon buns

250 ml cold milk
25 g fresh yeast
1 small egg
500 g plain flour
75 g white sugar
7 g salt
6 g ground cardamom
75 g butter

For the filling:
60 g melted butter
75 g white sugar
1 tbsp ground cinnamon

For the topping:
1 egg
Some suggar

Mix the cold milk with the yeast in a bowl. Then add the egg, flour, sugar, salt and cardamom. This has to be mixed until the dough is smooth and shiny, approx 20 minutes on the mixing machine (or by hand if you have the energy!).

Then cut the butter in small dice, add to the dough and mix for another 20 minutes. Cover with a kitchen towel and leave to rest for 1 1/2 hours, until doubled in size.

Get the dough out onto a floured surface and roll into a rectangle, approx 25cm x 40cm.

Spread the melted butter on the rolled dough, then sprinkle the sugar and the cinnamon. Fold the dough twice so you get three layers (folding on the 40cm side).

Roll the folded dough again until it's 30 cm x 25 cm. Cut in 8 pieces (which will be 30 cm long).

Now the shaping bit which is a bit tricky... Take each stripe and twist it from the ends, so it looks like a twisted rope. Then holding the stripe with one hand, you need to fold it twice around your index and middle finger and "close" the shape with the hanging bit by pushing it between your fingers.

Put the shaped buns on a baking tray and leave uncovered to rise for approx 2 hours until doubled in size.

Brush the buns with the beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake in the oven at 200C for 13 minutes and then leave to cool down on a wire rack.

Rundstykker - Danish breakfast bread

Yesterday we finally got to use the thing that lived in the kitchen - the sourdough...

It didn't smell acidic, which apparently is a good thing, but as it said in the recipe, like a good beer.

The recipe for the rundstykker is not that difficult, but it takes almost a full day. One thing to consider is that this recipe makes 30 pieces of bread! so you'll need a lot of space, time and oven trays if you make a full one.

Rundstykker

Pre-dough:

2 1/2 dl cold water

25 g fresh yeast

500 g plain flour

Dough:

8 dl cold water

3 dl sourdough

300 g fine durum flour (which is basically pasta flour)

1.1 kg plain flour

35 g salt

For the topping:

Poppy, sesame and linseeds

Predough: Pour the cold water in a bowl and mix in the fresh yeast. Then add the flour and mix it all together. You will need to use your hands and you should get a quite hard, stiff and just mixed dough.

Put the mix in a plastic bowl, cover with plastic film and refrigerate for 12 hours.

Dough: Mix the water, sordough, durum flour and salt with the predough in the mixing machine (obviously this can be done by hand, but you'll need to mix and knead for at least 10 minutes). After the mixing/kneading the dough should be elastic and pliable.

Leave to rest (at room temperature) covered with a kitchen towel for approx 30 minutes until it begins to grow.

Cut in three pieces and roll each one into a roll. At this point I have to say that the dough is quite sticky, so you might want to use quite a lot of flour for this. Cut each roll in 10 pieces. Make a ball of each piece, dipping it into the seeds before putting it on an oven tray (with either greased baking paper or the magic teflon sheets, I recommend the latter).

Cover them with a loose kitchen towel and leave them to rise until doubled in size (1-2 hours).

Put an oven pan on the bottom of the oven and heat to 200C. Once the oven is hot, pour a glass of cold water in the oven pan and put the bread in. Bake for 20 minutes and then leave to cool in a wire rack.

If you don't have any sourdough, the recipe suggests replacing it with the same amount of water, but I tried this the first time I made them and they got really flat.