Almond paste, orange and chocolate buns & cinnamon buns (kanelbullar)

Here in Sweden, bullar (sweet buns) are the most usual company for coffee. It is a sweet yeast bread with usually, an intense cardamom aroma. There are a lot of different kinds of bullar. The classic one is kanelbulla, the cinnamon bun that you can find everywhere. Of course the homemade version is always the tastiest. This time,except the classic cinnamon buns I made a successful experiment with almond paste, orange and chocolate filling that it has now become one of my favorites. For the dough I used a recipe that I found behind a flour package.

Almond paste, orange & chocolate buns and cinnamon buns

For the dough:

150g butter in room temperature

500 ml milk

25g dry yeast or 50 g fresh yeast

100 ml (1/2 cup) sugar

½ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cardamom

850 g (about 13-14 dl) flour

1 egg  lightly beaten for brushing

Pearl sugar or brown sugar or almonds (optional for decoration)

For the fillings:

 

Almond paste, orange & chocolate filling:

150 g butter in room temperature

250 g almond paste

juice and zest of one orange

200 g finely chopped dark chocolate

Cinnamon buns filling:

150 g butter in room temperature

100 ml (1/2 cup) sugar

2 tablespoons cinnamon

Warm the milk until about 37 ^o C or until “fingerwarm”. Put the yeast in a large bowl, pour the milk over it and combine. Add the butter in pieces, sugar, salt and the cardamom and stir. Add the flour gradually about 1 dl (1/2 cup) at a time while kneading the dough with a mixer or with your hands. Keep about ½ dl (1/4 cup) of the flour for later. I used about 13 dl of flour. Knead the dough with a mixer for about 5 minutes or work it with your hands for 10 minutes until the dough becomes firm and pulls away from the side of your bowl.

Cover with a damp towel or plastic wrap, put it in a warm place and let it rise for about 60 minutes. After this time work the dough a little on a floured surface. Divide the dough in 4 pieces. Roll each one into a rectangle about 15x 25 cm.

·        If you are making cinnamon buns mix together with a spatula all the ingredients of the filling in a bowl and spread a thin layer on each of the rectangles.

·        If you are making the almond paste filling combine the sugar, butter, orange zest and juice and grated almond paste in a bowl, spread a thin layer on each of the rectangles and sprinkle pieces of chopped chocolate on the top.

Preheat the oven to 225 ^o C/ 435 ^o F. After spreading the filling on each rectangle, roll each one tightly to a long cylinder and cut in 10 even pieces. Place each one in paper muffin forms or as they are on a cookie sheet lined with baking paper. Cover with a damp towel and let them rise for about 30 minutes.

Brush each bun with egg wash and sprinkle with pearl sugar or almonds. Bake for about 5-10 minutes. It took about 8 minutes for me.