Cinnamon Swirl Twisties

I baked these at the weekend for the College Tutors at Moreton Morrell College. They were hosting an open day and as a treat I arrived with a batch of these beauties. So delicious and pretty, you have to gobble them up!

The cardamom can be replaced with just cinnamon if you prefer but i like the strong flavour of the cardamom.

Dough Ingredients:

500g strong white bread flour

5g Salt

10g dried yeast

30g sugar

2 tbspn Ground Cardamom or Cinnamon

30g unsalted butter melted

1 small egg

40ml milk warmed.

210ml water

Filling

30g softened unsalted butter

30g Soft brown sugar

2 tbspn ground cinnamon

2 tbspn ground cardamom

1 tspn vanilla extract/ Essence

Toppings

Egg wash / egg white and splash of water

Pearl sugar or crumbled up white sugar cubes.

Method:

Combine all of the dry ingredients together. Flour, salt, dried yeast, sugar and cardamom. Add in the melted butter, egg, warmed milk followed by the water.

Then Mix until it comes together.

Lightly flour a work surface and knead the dough for about 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic. If you have a dough mixer with a hook you can use this instead and knead on a medium speed for about 5 minutes.

Leave the dough to prove in a lightly oiled bowl and cover for 1 hr somewhere warm.

Prepare your baking tray and line with baking parchment or silicon mat.

Lightly flour your workbench.

Take your dough out and using a rolling pin roll your dough out into a large rectangle shape about 1 cm thick.

Then brush the sheet of dough with the melted butter, sugar and spices with the vanilla extract.

Roll up from the bottom until you have formed a long rope of dough, brush with a little butter then split into your bun sizes. Approx 3cm in width along the length of the dough. Place each bun flat side down onto a prepared baking tray for baking.

Pre heat your oven to 220 degrees celsius and allow your dough to prove one last time for about 30 minutes.

When proved, brush with the egg wash and bake for about 15 minutes. watch the browning on these as they can burn easily with the added sugar content.

Once baked take out of the oven and crumble some sugar pearls over the top for added texture and crunch.

If you wanted to plait these (twistie them) once you have finished brushing the filling in fold over in half and cut length weighs into strips about 3 cm wide. Slice down into each strip twice and make a plait down the length of the dough. The roll up into your bun shape. Brush with egg wash and bake as above. TopTip! Because these are swirls they can pop up when baking so make sure you push tem down in the middle a little to flatten before baking.