Komma to My Kitchen for Kanelbullar!

After visiting the jewelbox of the Morgan Library on a rainy pandemic Sunday, our walkies foursome ducked into the almost hidden café on the first floor of the Swedish Church. Lydie, of Norwegian heritage and a seeker of Nordic treats, had gotten to know the shy chef Olaf who both cooks and mans the small shop of Swedish sundries. We sat at a large blond wooden table surrounded by Swedish books and artwork marveling at Olaf’s kanelbullar with every bite. These Swedish cinnamon rolls are airy knots of dough, the size of a child’s fist, threaded throughout with butter/cinnamon and sprinkled with pearl sugar, like pristine snowflakes on a Lapland lake. Olaf’s kanelbullar is the antithesis of the American artery-clogging cinnamon roll, which, no matter if it comes from Dunkin’ Donuts or an artisanal bakery (Silver Moon), is over-large and/or over-glazed. To wit, see exhibts A, B &, our exemplar, C.

When I have a perfect pastry or savory snack, I get, well, obsessed! As soon as I got home I was Googling recipes, until I found this one complete with video tutorial.  I wanted to do this thing, but it involved proofing yeast, using a thermometer, and layering and twisting dough. I needed someone to hold my hand in the kitchen, but this was early March ‘21, still at the brink of the vaccination rollout. And so I texted Lydie my idea: Why not have a bake-along; separately assemble our ingredients in our own kitchens and go through the recipe steps together on Facetime. Lydie was game, and I almost slapped myself on the forehead: why had I not done this before? Duh! This is genius for an insecure baker. During our pandemic year I had baked 10 loaves of banana bread, two Alison Roman lemony turmeric tea cakes. Three Earl Grey yogurt cakes. Several baskets of biscuits and loaves of Jim Lahy’s no-knead bread. These were all within my repertoire. I had not set one foot beyond!

Bake-Along Prep

The recipe has only 10 ingredients, but, reader, my ever-observant friend hilariously pointed out that by the time bake-along day had arrived we had already exchanged 69 texts. There was the procuring of the ingredients, the Lars sugar, the hard to find and expensive ground cardamon, of which, somehow, Lydie’s friend had several pounds. Might we have some teaspoons? Then the thermometer… Was it necessary to have a $13.99 one to test the temp. of the yeast/milk mixture? And of course there was my obsessing over Swedish indie rock music for the bake-along, Jens Lekman (swoon)…And how would we coordinate our FaceTiming; ultimately we decided to FT with each other during recipe steps but turn off for the two dough risings and the baking. In all we were at this from 10AM to 2PM! For your amusement, here are some of our texts before and during. After several texts on using active dry vs. instant yeast, Lydie texted me “You’d think we’re building the Brooklyn Bridge!” So on to the bridge!

Bake-Along Day

As you can see from above, our experiment was an overwhelming success. Sure, it took over 70 texts and some FaceTime fretting about too-hot yeast/milk mixture (Nancy), difficulty stretching the dough strips before knotting (Nancy and Lydie), burnt bottoms (Nancy & Lydie).  But we felt triumphant, each making a baker’s dozen or so of airy kanelbullar, which were redolent not just of cinnamon but of cardamom, that fragrant spice that surprisingly shows up in Scandinavian cuisine (Fun fact: according to UN data Sweden consumes 18 times more cardamom per capita than the median and Norway consumes 30 times more!! See more here). Here then, are some tips we learned:

  • DON’T heat the milk/yeast mixture too quickly. I had to wait a while for it to cool down.

  • DON’T have to use a thermometer get the milk/yeast mixture to the exact temp. I remember my mother saying to put a finger in as if testing baby’s bath water, though temp is a bit warmer.

  • DO use something larger than a chopping board or even a pizza board to roll out the dough. I happened to use a large piece of plywood I had in the closet, but I could have rolled out on a vinyl mat on the dining room table.

  • DON’T spread the butter/sugar/cinnamon/cardamon mixture out to edges of the dough or the filling will gloop all over the roll.

  • DO use this tip: When you’re rolling the strips of dough/sugar mixture into the knots, the dough is not so elastic. Rather than stretching it, Lydie developed a great technique of taking each end of the strip and snapping it back and forth (the way you see them make hand pulled noodles); the dough stretches a little this way, without breaking.

  • “DON’T let the best be the enemy of the good.” When we rolled up our dough into knots or a semblance thereof, we were chagrined they didn’t look as perfect as Olaf’s but after baking, they did! And what’s most important, they tasted divine. Olaf would be proud.

Stay tuned for the next bake-along! With summer coming, maybe it will be a fancy fruit galette!

*Most of the photos and the beauty shot of one perfect kanelbullar are by Lydie Raschka!