Baking Together: Cinnamon Rolls!

Posted on by Malin - Sensational Learning with Penguin

Did you know that the humble cinnamon roll has it’s own day of celebration in Sweden? Since almost 20 years now, Cinnamon Bun Day (’Kanelbullens Dag’) is celebrated on the 4 October every year, to honour the importance of this traditional fika favourite. The good news though is that you can happily carry on eating Cinnamon Rolls (or Buns, or Swirls, whatever you prefer to call them) all year round. Just have a few extra in October, to join in with the celebrations!

At the moment, these are one of our favourite things to bake together, so I thought that now could be a good a time as ever to write up a little post on how we make them.

Cinnamon Rolls, Cinnamon Buns or Cinnamon Swirls - whatever you choose to call them, this Traditional Scandinavian Fika Favourite makes for a lovely Multisensory Baking Experience. And they’re very tasty to eat, too! For more simple recipes for baking together (and a whole lot of other activities too!) come visit us at sensationallearningwithpenguin.com

Ingredients

For the dough:

  • 600 g plain flour
  • 1 bag dried yeast
  • 35 g sugar
  • a pinch of salt
  • a generous sprinkle of ground cardamom (though you can make the buns just fine without this too, or if you like, add a sprinkle of cinnamon into the dough)
  • 100 g butter/margarine/baking spread
  • 300 ml milk

For the filling:

  • butter/margarine/baking spread
  • sugar
  • ground cinnamon

Plus:

  • 1 egg, beaten, for brushing the buns with.

I haven’t actually measured how much we use of each ingredient for the fillling, but I think it’s usually in the region if 50-75 g marge, c.65 g (or just under half a cup) of sugar, and approximately 1-2 tablespoons of cinnamon.

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1. Start by melting 100 grams of butter in a small pan, then gently add the milk, and heat it up to around 40 degrees (the yeast won’t work if too cold).

2. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a big bowl. Then add the wet ingredients, and work it all into a dough.

3. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and leave the dough to rise, for about 45-60 mins or more.

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4. Turn the oven on to c.200 C. Then get the dough out of the bowl and kneed it. Split it into two lumps.

5. Roll out the first lump of dough, into a rectangular shape. Using a rolling pin is a good motor skills activity, involving coordintation and propriceptive input.

Now it’s time for the filling to go on, and you can either mix butter, sugar and cinnamon together first and then spread it ready-mixed on your dough, or you can do it our way:

6. Spread butter on the dough, then sprinkle sugar generously over the surface, followed by the cinnamon.

Penguin enjoys adding the sugar and cinnamon, while the butter-spreading part is a bit less fun/more tricky. So I help a lot with the latter, but still get him to TRY and do it, so he gets to practise.

7. Now roll your rectangle up, like a doughy snake.

8. Cut your snake up into slices, roughly about an inch or so in width.

9. Turn each slice on its side and flatten it into a bun. This is Penguin’s favourite part at the moment.

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10. Put the buns on a baking tray lined with baking paper (or use paper baking cases or other alternative). Brush them with egg, then bake them in the middle of the oven for approximately 10-12 mins (best combination of heat, place in the oven and timing can vary quite a bit between different ovens, and whether fan assisted or not, electric or gas etc, so keep an eye on them).

If you want to make your buns look a bit more fancy, you could sprinkle some pearl sugar nibs on top before baking them, or flaked almonds. And if you’ve got a garden with an abundance of apples (lucky you!), you could make a sweet apple sauce and use that for filling, just adding cinnamon.

I hope you enjoy baking and eating your cinnamon rolls. I prefer them with a cup of strong black coffee, but they’re also great to bring on outings, to have a quick snack at hand at all times and avoid anyone getting ’hangry’… 🙂

If you enjoy baking with your child/-ren, you might like to take a look at our previous post about baking together, which also lists all our other baking activities to date, including Chocolate Cake Cookies, Queen of Hearts’ tartes, and Meringue Snowmen!

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47 thoughts on “Baking Together: Cinnamon Rolls!”

    1. I believe you can! 🙌 Or is there something in the instructions that could do with improving? Let me know if there’s anything your missing 🙂 Otherwise, just go ahead and make some tasty buns! xx

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  3. My favourite. I didn’t know they were Swedish. We tried them once and all the filling spread out all over the baking tray and we were left with pastry swirls.What did I do wrong? #kidsandkreativity

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    1. Well they’re supposedly Scandinavian in origin, and as far as I know it’s only Sweden which had a specific Cinnamon Bun Day for celebrating them. And they’re the most common type of ’fika’ bun in Sweden for certain. But I guess it’s a bit like with ’Swedish’ meatballs (as what they serve in IKEA) which are said to have come to Sweden from Turkey originally.
      I’ve had the same problem once with all the filling leaking out. I’m not sure, but I think the oven might not have been hot enough when we put the buns in. Also, roll the dough up quite tightly, and give the buns a good flattening after cutting them, that might help too x

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  7. Thanks for the recipe my son had cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate for breakfast, maybe not the healthiest but he was made up with such a treat. X

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      1. Not this time. If I am cooking something for the first time it works better if I do it alone and then the next time I am better able to guide him through the process.

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  8. I have to admit I am not a huge fan of cinnamon but you could convert me with the look of these!
    We have been making some use of the apples and pears on our trees and have baked some crumbles and pies together.

    Thanks for sharing with #MMBC. Have a lovely weekend. x

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    1. Thank you so much! And yes, they can certainly make a yummy breakfast treat. Do let me know after you’ve tried it with US measurements, if it worked well for you (or not, in which case perhaps there’s something we can figure out together about what might have gone wrong). They’re simple and good fun to make, and I hope you enjoy both baking and eating them! X

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  13. Oh I LOVE cinnamon rolls, they look delicious. The school break’s coming up next week, I think this is something we’ll add to our to do list for a day at home #KCACOLS

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  14. These look amazing! I have plans to make some Christmas themed ones soon with the kids. Love a cinnamon roll. Thanks for linking up with #KidsandKreativity. Reall hope to see you again next time x

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  21. Oh my word these look so good! I love cinnamon rolls but have never tried to make them myself. I’ll be pinning your recipe though, it looks simple enough that I think I might be able to manage it! x #KCACOLS

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