Muffin tin kanelbulle: like a Swedish cinnamon bun, but smaller. Make the traditional Swedish kanelbulle recipe using a muffin tin. It’s very easy and here you’ll find step-by-step photos to guide you through the recipe. What’s lovely about smaller cinnamon buns is that you can feel less guilty when you reach for your second (or third) serving.
Sweden runs on cinnamon buns. They are sold at every newspaper kiosk, gas station, café, grocery store. Even several food places at Stockholm Arlanda airport sell them (and I swear that that airport smells like cinnamon buns!), and obviously also Ikea. Swedish people are really obsessed with cinnamon buns, to the point that they even have “cinnamon bun day” in their calendar. It’s on October 4th!
As an immigrant to Sweden I made it my resolution to try and integrate as much as possible in my new home. Baking homemade kanelbullar (that is the plural of kanelbulle) was definitely high on my list of first times during the first months. Since at the beginning I couldn’t find the larger paper cups used for regular cinnamon buns, I started to bake mine smaller, to fit muffin-sized paper cups. Muffin tin kanelbulle!
How to make muffin tin kanelbulle
The dough used in Swedish cinnamon buns is made with fresh yeast, flour, milk, butter and an egg. What I love about kneading this dough is that you add lukewarm milk and butter to it, so it has a very pleasant temperature to handle. Detailed quantities to make both the dough and the filling can be found in the recipe card below. Now let me take you through the recipe with some step by step photos.
- Once you’ve made your dough, place it in a bowl, cover with cling film, and let rest for one hour. I recommend to place it near a radiator or in the sun – in a warm place in your house.
- After the dough has risen, roll it out to a thickness of about 2 mm. Try to give it a rectangular shape.
- Spread the filling over the dough with a spatula. You don’t need to get to the very edges, as those will be cut off.
- Trim off the round edges to give your dough a straighter rectangular shape. It should measure around 36 cm (14 inches) on the long side.
- Roll up the dough folding the long side – you want to have a long thinner cylinder rather than a thick and short one. Cut it into 12 parts. If your dough measures exactly 36 cm, it will be a cut every 3 cm.
- Place each roll with the cut facing up into a muffin tin lined with paper cups. Lightly beat an egg aside and brush some eggwash over every cinnamon roll. Sprinkle some pearl sugar on top. Proof for 20 minutes, while you are preheating the oven.
- Bake the muffin tin kanelbulle at 220°C (430°F) for 10 minutes, or until golden. They will notably grow as they bake, filling up all the space in the muffin tin hole. Depending on the tin size they may even grow a slight muffin top!
The perfect fika
A kanelbulle is the perfect match to a large cup of drip coffee. This is how most Swedes take their coffee. Black, no sugar, and at certain times of the day it will be accompanied by a cinnamon bun. The coffee and pastry ritual is called fika and if you’ve been following me for some time you’ll know it’s one of my favourite things about Sweden.
So what can you do when you want to partake in daily fika rituals while trying not to double in weight by the end ofthe year? You make your fika pastries smaller. Muffin tin kanelbulle, that is. Or cinnamon roll cookies. Or small chocolate oatmeal balls. And if you ever grow tired of cinnamon buns (if ever…) you may also want to give Norwegian cardamom rolls sjokoladeboller a try! If you’re looking for something more decadent, Sweden has another bomb of a sweet treat: sticky chocolate cake kladdkaka.
Swedish cinnamon buns taste best warm. For a memorable experience enjoy them freshly baked, as soon as they have cooled down a bit. Or pop them in the microwave for 30 seconds. That is the best trick ever. If you’ve made (or bought, let’s be real) some the day before and they’ve gone a bit stale, just microwave them real quick and they will revert to the soft goodness that they are meant to be! The result is so good you may fool your guests into thinking they are freshly baked.
This muffin tin kanelbulle recipe is adapted from this original kanelbulle recipe. It was originally published on this blog in November 2016. Updated March 2021 with step-by-step pictures and a recipe card.
Muffin tin kanelbulle (mini cinnamon buns)
Equipment
- Mixing bowls
- Rolling pin
- Pastry brush
- Spatula
- Muffin tin
Ingredients
The dough
- 380 g flour
- 50 g sugar
- 20 g fresh yeast
- 150 ml milk lukewarm
- 60 g butter melted
- 1 egg
- 1/3 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp cardamom ground
The filling and topping
- 50 g butter soft
- 25 g brown sugar
- 2 tsp cinnamon ground
- 1 egg
- 3 tbsp pearl sugar
Instructions
- Add the yeast and sugar to a mixing bowl and stir until the yeast has dissolved. Next, pour in the lukewarm milk and the melted butter and gently whisk by hand. You want to use slightly warm milk as cold milk would make the butter solidify when combined. Lastly, crack in the egg and mix it all up.
- In another bowl, combine flour, salt and cardamom. Add mixture to the other bowl and stir with a spatula. When it starts coming together, tip the content on a working surface and knead until you get a smooth dough. Put the dough back into the bowl, cover with cling film and let rise for 1 hour.
- In the meantime, you can prepare the filling. Mix all the filling ingredients in a small bowl until homogeneous. Set aside.
- After the dough has risen, roll it out to a thickness of about 2 mm giving it a rectangular shape. Spread the filling all over the dough with a spatula. Trim off the edges to give your dough a straighter rectangular shape. It should measure around 36 cm (14 inches) on the long side.
- Roll up the dough folding the long side - you want to have a long thinner cylinder rather than a thick and short one. Cut it into 12 parts. If your dough measures exactly 36 cm, it will be a cut every 3 cm. Line a muffin tin with paper cups and place each roll into a paper cup.
- Preheat the oven to 220°C (430°F). Crack an egg in a bowl and lightly whisk it by hand. Brush some egg over every cinnamon roll and top with pearl sugar. Proof 20 minutes, while the oven comes to temperature.
- Bake the muffin kanelbulle for 10 minutes or until slightly golden. They will keep growing as they bake, expanding to fill the muffin tin hole and possibly even growing a slight muffin top.
Notes
Cinnamon bun day sounds like mind of day. 🙂 These look wonderful!
my kind of day* 😀
Next 4th of October dint forget to celebrate then 🙂 it’s a good excuse to bake!!
Oh they look so delicious!! Also, they have the perfect size 🙂 It’s been way too long since I’ve had cinnamon buns so I will have to try them out when I’m with my family over Christmas 🙂
They’ll make the perfect Christmas treat!
Cinnamon Bun Day — great idea!
Such a nice celebration!!