Swedish cardamom buns カルダモンロール

This is one of my wife's baking projects. She saw this recipe in the "Milk Street” magazine. It is a sweet roll seasoned with ground cardamom. We were not sure whether we would like the cardamom flavor in a  sweet roll but my wife decided to try it. This was a great success. It is sweet and the sugar/cardamom mixture melted and made a nice crust especially on the bottom.

Ingredients:
For the dough:
390 grams (3 cups) AP flour
103 grams (3/4 cup) bread flour
80 grams (6 Tbs.) White sugar
1 Tbs. Yeast
1 tsp. Ground cardamom (more if you want stronger cardamom taste)
3/4 tsp. Salt
1 1/4 cup whole milk warmed to 100 degrees F.
113 grams (8 Tbs. Butter) melted and cooled
1 large egg separated (yolk for dough. White to brush on buns before baking)

For filling
170 grams (12 Tbs.) Salted butter at room temperature (maybe try less butter to keep it from running out and puddling during cooking.)
163 grams (3/4 cup) packed light brown sugar
2 tsp. Ground cardamom
27 grams (2 Tbs.) white sugar

Directions:
To make the dough: in a stand mixer with dough hook mix AP flour through salt to combine. Add together the wet ingredients (milk through egg yolk). Then with mixer running slowly add the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until the ingredients form a sticky dough. Increase mixer’s speed and knead until the dough becomes smooth and elastic (about 10 minutes). Line a 9 X 13 baking dish with parchment paper (#1). Put in the dough and press it with your hand to flatten it into an even layer. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until almost doubled in size (about 1 hour). Transfer to a refridgerator and chill for at least 2 hours or up to 24 hours. (I chilled the dough overnight.)

When ready to fill and shape the rolls first make the filling by mashing the butter through cardamom together to form a well combined paste. Set aside. Turn the chilled dough onto a large cutting board. Roll out into a 12 X 16 rectangle. Spread the filling in a even layer on the dough spreading out to edges (#2). Do a three envelope fold with the dough (fold bottom third to middle then top third over that fold (#3). 

Rotate the dough 180 degrees so the short side is facing you. Roll the dough out into a 12 X 16 rectangle and repeat the envelope fold.

To form buns: Rotate the rectangle so the long side is parallel with the counter’s edge. Cut the dough crosswise into 16 even strips (#4). Pick up one strip by the ends and gently stretch it to about 16 inches by gently bouncing it against the counter while very gently pulling on the ends. At the same time twist the ends of the strip in opposite directions while gently stretching to create a looose spiral about 16 inches long. While holding one end of the strip in place between your thumb on one side of the dough strip and index, middle and ring fingers on the other side of the strip wrap the strip around your 3 fingers (index, middle and ring) without untwisting the spiral. Then tuck the end under and up into the center while sliding the resulting turban shaped knot off your fingers (Rt. Side of #4). Using 2 cookie sheets lined with parchment paper put 8 of the buns on one sheet and 8 on the other sheet using the pattern shown in #5 below. (Using this pattern is helpful because the muffins expand and they can cook without touching.) Cover and let rise until doubled. When doubled in size add 1 Tbs of water to the egg white beat the mixture together and then brush on the buns. Top with 1/2 of the white sugar listed in the filling ingredients list. Bake each sheet one at a time in a 400 degree oven for 15 to 18 minutes until the buns are a deep brown (#6). (When the trays are cooked separately it allows the muffins to be exposed to equal heat all around and helps caramelize the sugar to make a crunchy candy like crust.) 

As shown below it is a good thing to cover the sheets with parchment paper because it is normal for some of the filling to seep out and caramelize on the baking sheet.

Once the overflow cooled it became a nice candy/caramel with crispy texture (as shown in the next picture). We enjoyed some of it as a snack.

This is a perfect roll for breakfast. It is best soon out of the oven because it is covered in a crispy light caramelized candy crust both top and bottom. While not too sweet, the crust provides a wonderful crunchy texture over the softly chewy bread inside. Although the bun tends to lose its crispy candy crust over time as it melts into the bread and  it is still extremely good. Although we were initially unsure of whether we would like the cardamon flavor, it was gentle and went extremely well with the buttery caramelized flavor coming from the sugar. This bun has everything going for it as a breakfast. 

P.S. As I was browsing a Japanese newspaper web site (Asahi Shinbun 朝日新聞), I came across a series of articles describing a number of amazing bakeries in Japan. One of the articles was about a family-run bakery in Urawa ward of Saitama city さいたま市浦和 called "Bake house Yellow knife".  Among the amazing breads they bake was Swedish cardamon rolls. It appears that this kind of artisanal bakery with dedicated bakers paying attention to every detail is becoming more common in Japan now-a-days.