My ultimate kanelbullar

Tomorrow is the 4th of October. A date that doesn’t go unnoticed in Sweden. Yes, tomorrow is kanelbullens dag [cinnamon roll day].
I must have felt that this post – which I promised to share with you long before I even knew kanelbullar had their own day – was waiting in my drafts for a reason.

This is a recipe I first made in Åsen, the summer before last. I kneaded the dough in the evening, as we came back from a day by the lake. And by the time breakfast was ready the next morning, the buns had proofed and were ready to go in the oven for a mid-morning fika.

Later that day, I realised we’d forgotten my camera charger in Kusmark so I ended up taking some pictures using the film camera Kalle gave me.

We rushed on the road to Mora – through the forests and the bridge that goes over the lake, through the little stress I’ve come to cherish and the rails by which we always get to see a train pass by – to bring the roll to the only lab we knew of.

And because it was not fully exposed, I quickly took a few pictures of what was around me. In fact, the one below – of Kalle – is, to this day, one of my favourites.
Yes, it’s not without a certain sense of both love and reserve that I’m proud to tell you that my 79th roll of film has pictures of bullar, one of K., one of the sky, and one of flowers. The dream roll?

But let go back to that morning. When I rolled the dough and topped it with a thick layer of cinnamon butter. I don’t always say this, but salted butter really does wonder here.
Yes, that morning, is to be forever remembered. The table covered in a thick layer of white paint. And the blue chairs around it. The spitting sound of the fire in the wood stove. This is where I learnt how to roll kanelbullar.

A year has passed since then – days made of snow and walk through leafless trees, a spring that only lasted a second and a summer that is now starting to turn into autumn. Many more bullar have been rolled. At home. At the café.

And while my rolling techniques have definitely improved, the recipe has received only a few tweaks. That’s how much I’m in love with it. And I hope you will be too.

Kanelbullar, un peu comme des brioches

I love my bullar to be soft and fluffy, so instead of using a traditional recipe (which I always find slightly dry), I go for a cross between a doughnut and a brioche dough.

Although I’ve shared a recipe for kanelbullar in the past, these ones are different. They are my favourites. The ones I make at home and freeze into small plastic containers, ready to be thrown into a lunchbox or popped in the microwave for an almost-instant fika. The ones I make everyday at the café too (when I’m not off – and for the first time in a long time, I shall say: YES to the weekends).

The old ones were of the spur-of-the-moment kind. Made late, during our last night in Sweden the first time we visited. Eaten by Byske river, just a few hours before our flight back to London. They had whole wheat flour and I remember how long it took to develop the gluten by hand.
I also remember how wonderful it was to unwrap the not-so-neatly folded foil and dip them into a forever-hot cup of kokkaffe.

Making a sticky dough by hand is always a challenge; it takes time, a good scraper and hands being cleaned every so often. But trust me, I’ve done it many times and it doesn’t only produce beautiful results, it’s also wonderfully relaxing.

EDIT 5 October

After a few of you reported butter leakage, I’ve noticed I had missed a modification, which I made a few months ago: I now use a reduced amount of butter in the dough – 130g instead of 200g; a leaner dough absorbs the butter better, but I couldn’t remember why I had reduced it as I love the texture of the buns made with 200g of butter so much!
Thank you for your feedback! Also, make sure the bullar are proofed until doubled in size before baking them. It takes around 2 hours at 24°C but can take 3-4 hours if the room temperature is colder. Lots of love and sorry for the caramelised cinnamon butter 🙁

EDIT 6 October

I’ve tried both batches today, with 130g and 200g butter. While I love the texture of the buns with 200g of butter, they do leak during baking; a quick fix, if you’re after melt-in-your-mouth bullar, is to bake them in muffin paper-cases so you won’t end up with a puddle.
As for the batch with 130g of butter, they’re a bit lighter and almost no butter leak 🙂 Sending you all my cinnamon-love X

EDIT 8 December 2016

After having made this recipe daily for well over a year, I think an update is in order.
I have modified it slightly, mostly because I make it using 3.2 kg of flour, and that the flour here has a slightly higher absorption power.

Here is my updated recipe:

For the dough
600 g strong flour
75 g caster sugar
18 g fresh yeast
7.5 g sea salt
4 g hand-ground cardamom
225 g whole milk
150 g eggs
190g unsalted butter

For the butter
190 g salted butter
150 g caster sugar
3 tbsp ground cinnamon

Glad kanelbullens dag!