‘Tis Kanelbullens Dag

or … Oh, cinnamon, the devil is a-waiting!

The fourth of October is Sweden’s national cinnamon bun day. Yup, it’s that day that you’ve never heard of, but would just love to celebrate if you had.

Why is it so? Well, the cinnamon bun (kanelbullar) is a staple of the Swedes’ devotion to fika, or coffee break, so much so that they decided to devote a whole day to it.

I’ve tried two recipes and the second one turned out fine courtesy of the  Swedish Food website. (I used the alternate recipe given for the filling and baked the buns for 20 minutes in a fan-assisted oven at 160°c, before lowering the temperature to 130°c and baking for another 8 minutes with foil over the buns. I made my own nib sugar and used freshly ground cardamom seeds).

Devilishly good!

Very gently melting butter into milk before adding a beaten egg.
Mixing the dry ingredients of the dough.
The rough dough after adding the wet ingredients.
The risen dough after 10 minutes of hand-kneading and 2 hours rising.
‘Buttering’ the rolled-out dough with a butter, sugar, cinnamon mix.
… rolled up ‘swiss-roll’ style
… then sliced and left to rise again.
Glazed and sugared before baking … et voilà