Amy's been experimenting on this one for ages! She's tried with bread flour and plain flour and she's found that both made a tasty dough but required lots of cinnamon! For the puffiest cinnamon swirls, we'd recommend plain flour as they rise more when proving.
Ingredients (Makes 8-10)
1 cup almond milk (room temperature) ¼ cup vegan butter 25g caster sugar 3g yeast 2 cups plain flour (bread flour will also work) ½ tsp salt ½ cup vegan butter ½ cup brown sugar 2 tbsp ground cinnamon (or other spices like nutmeg and ginger to make it more Christmassy)
Icing made from icing sugar and water.
Make the Dough
Melt the vegan butter in the microwave. Mix together the almond milk, butter and caster sugar and whisk so fully combined. Add in the yeast and let sit for one minute before mixing in.
After 1 minute, add in the salt and one cup of flour at a time; the dough may seem on the dry side, but should still form a ball. If it is still sticky, add in up to another ½ cup plain flour.
Put the ball of dough into a greased bowl and cover with a towel or cling-film. Put in a warm place for an hour to prove.
After an hour, take the dough out of the bowl and knead on a floured surface; the dough should become soft but firm.
Roll the dough into a square shape that is about the depth of your finger.
Spread on the butter so that it is thick. You need to find the right balance: too much and it’ll leak during the cooking stage, too little and it’ll be tasteless!
Sprinkle over the brown sugar evenly and then finish off with a coating of cinnamon. I’ve recommended 2 tbsp but if you like a strong flavour, add to your taste. There needs to be a lot of taste in the filling or it’ll be overpowered by the dough.
Roll the dough into a sausage shape to create the swirl. Pinch the ends and cut into your cinnamon swirls – we usually make around 8 plus the two pinched ends.
Place the cinnamon swirls on a baking tray and cover with a clean towel or clingfilm and prove for another 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and cook for 25-30 minutes so that the dough is thoroughly cooked and golden.
Wait, and I can’t stress this enough, until the cinnamon swirls have cooled before you ice them! Whether you want a drip of icing or you want to go full Danish pastry, the icing will go translucent and soak in if you don’t wait until it has cooled! It’ll look and taste much nicer if you choose to wait!
Serve and enjoy!