Cinnamon buns

The whole kitchen will smell of fresh bread and cinnamon when you make these cinnamon buns! These buns are soft and savoury, and definitely worth the 2 hours of work. Everyone in my family loves these buns!

Dough:
150 g butter
2 1/4 cups milk
1.4-1.5 kg flour
50 g compressed yeast
1/3 cup caster sugar
2 tsp cardamom powder

Filling:
100 g butter (room temperature)
4 tbs caster sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

Brushing:
1 egg (egg wash)
pearl sugar

Melt the butter in cooking pot. Add the milk and heat the butter-milk mixture to 37 C degrees. While you melt the butter, measure the flour in a bowl and mix in the cardamom. Crumble the yeast into a large bowl. Add the heated milk-butter into the bowl. Add sugar, mix and then add the flour. Take a wooden spoon and mix until everything comes together into a dough. Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for about 10 minutes with your hands or hand mixer/Kitchenaid. Let the dough rest in a bowl covered with a cloth for 30-40 minutes. Beat the egg needed for egg wash and put it in the refrigerator.

You have to bake these buns in 4 batches. Therefore divide the dough into four pieces, like in the picture above. You have to work with one at a time. Make sure that you have everything that you need for the filling is at a hand's reach. Now, roll out the dough like you would a pizza on a floured surface. Take the softened butter and spread it over the dough with a dining knife, then 1 tbs of the sugar and then 1/2 tsp of the cinnamon. Roll it in like a swiss roll and cut them like in the picture below.

There is another way to make the buns, that is more demanding. You could also fold the dough from both sides, instead of rolling it in. In this case you need to fold the dough from both sides, halfway.

Then lightly roll out the edges so that it becomes wider and then cut them like in the picture below.

Take a piece with both hands and "screw" them from both ends, in the opposite direction and roll it in like a flower as seen in the picture below. 

Once you have made the first batch of buns. Turn the oven on, at 200 C. Take the towel that you used to cover the dough earlier and cover the buns again for about 20 minutes. After that take out the egg that you had placed in the refrigerator and dip a brush in it. Brush the buns with egg and top them with pearl sugar as seen below. If you are vegetarian, you could brush the buns with some melted butter instead. Place them immediately in the middle part of the oven bake for about 15 minutes or they look ready.  

Take them out and remove them from the hot baking sheet, to allow them to cool down. These soft buns taste best the first two days. You can put them in a bag and refrigerate them otherwise. Good luck!