One of my favorite dishes for Easter has become the Danish "Kanel Snegle" or "cinnamon snail". Yes, yes - to us Canadians this is akin to the beloved cinnamon bun, but with a homemade puff pastry. I'm a brunch fan through and through and relish in a touch of something sweet after a savoury start. I prefer Easter brunch, because ... well, kids. Ha. But even before kids, brunch has been my preferred meal of the day. I love being able to set the kids loose on a mini Easter egg hunt and then have a simple, but intentional Easter brunch.
Brittany, @ohmydearblog, shares my passion for this "hygge" atmosphere (to read more about this Danish concept, click here). She also loves baked goods just as much as I do, so we thought this would be a great project to undertake side by side! What better way to create memories than to take on a project together ... I might have made too many memories for Brittany with my unrestrained "gumption" and unbridled (or unguided) ambition during her visit, but laughs were had by all.
(Fun fact: we even took on our on twist to this classic pastry. Read below for how we cheated the process and came up with something wonderful!)
Kanel Snegle
Ingredients:
(Yields 12 cinnamon buns)
500 g flour
250 ml milk
14 g traditional yeast
20 g sugar
1 pinch of salt
2 eggs
250 g (unsalted) butter
Filling:
2 tablespoons of cinnamon
150 g sugar
Method:
Measure and weigh all ingredients. Allow ingredients to come to room temperature (eggs, butter).
Prepare the yeast mixture. Heat the milk on the stove top or microwave until hot to touch (scalded). Remove from heat and add yeast and a pinch of sugar. Set yeast mixture aside and allow to rise ~10 minutes.
Melt 50 g of butter and set aside.
Place the flour and sugar in a large mixing bowl and stir together.
Once the yeast mixture has risen, add to the flour mixture and mix by hand.
Add cooled butter and lightly whipped (with a fork) eggs to the dough mixture.
Knead the dough until smooth. Cover the dough and let rise for 2-3 hours.
Knead the dough again – aim for 3-5 minutes.
Roll the dough into a large rectangle. Take some butter, rub between palms to soften and smear a nice icing-like layer on the dough.
Fold the pastry into thirds. First one side 1/3 of the way to the left, then the other side 1/3 of the way to the right. Roll out the dough again until it is a large rectangle once again.
Repeat step 10.
(Now this is where we up the ante! This is how you transform regular sweet dough into puff pastry dough. Spread butter, fold the dough, and then roll out the dough – repeat up to 4 times for puff pastry dough. We did this process two times to achieve Danish/Canadian flair!)
Add one more layer of butter and then sprinkle cinnamon and sugar evenly.
Starting at 1 long side, roll up dough jelly-roll style, enclosing filling.
TRICK OF THE TRADE: using thread, loop around the cinnamon bun and pull
Transfer rolls to baking sheet, spacing rolls about 3/4 inch apart.
Bake at 350 for ~15-20 minutes.
Photo Credit: Justine Milton Photography
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