Swirly Cinnamon Buns
Makes around 12 buns
Takes: Over 1 hour
This is a great recipe to make when you have guests coming round.They look great and taste delicious - much better than store bought ones!
Ingredients
For the dough:
400g plain flour
15g dried yeast or 30g fresh yeast
65g sugar, I like light brown soft sugar
½ teaspoon salt
65g unsalted butter, melted
275ml milk
2 medium eggs
For the swirly filling:
1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
100g sugar, I like light brown soft sugar
100g unsalted butter, softened
100g raisins (optional)
few tablespoons icing sugar, for drizzling (optional)
Method
First make the dough. If using fresh yeast, put in a small bowl with a teaspoon of the sugar and a few tablespoons of warm water. Once foamy it is ready to be added to the dry ingredients. In a large bowl sift together the flour, remaining sugar and salt (if using dried yeast then add it here with the dry ingredients making sure it doesn’t touch the yeast).
In a jug whisk together the melted butter, milk and eggs.
Make a well in the centre of the flour mix and pour in about ¾ of the milky mixture.
Start mixing the dough until it comes together, adding little amounts of the milky mixture if you need to.
Take the dough out of the bowl and begin kneading it for around 5 minutes or until it springs back when you poke it. It should feel pillowy.
Place in a greased bowl, cover and allow to double in size. This can take anything from 20 minutes or even upto an hour depending how warm it is.
Whilst it’s proving, mix together all the filling mixture until combined, and line a cake tin (23cm round tin or 20cm square tin) with parchment paper.
Knock back the dough and knead for a further minute before breaking off about 1/3 of it.
Roll it out so it forms the base and place in the tin.
Roll out the remaining dough (about 30cm to 20cm should do it) and spread out the filling mixture evenly.
Roll up like a sausage from the longest side. Cut into 2cm pieces and lay them swirly side up in the tin on top of the dough base.
Cover and leave to rise for another 20 minutes until they are all puffed up whilst you preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6.
Sprinkle with a little more sugar and bake for 20 – 25 minutes. Check on them after 15 minutes and loosely cover with foil if they are colouring too quickly.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
If you want to make a sweet drizzle simply mix some icing sugar with water or alternatively with a little lemon or orange juice. Allow the buns to cool completely before drizzling over.
