Friday’s hygge: Cinnamon braid with filling and custard. This week’s Friday’s hygge is a Danish bakery classic—a soft yeast dough that is braided with filling and vanilla custard inside. I’ve tried to describe exactly how to braid the dough in the recipe, and I hope the pictures above can help you, too. I made a large cinnamon braid, but it might be best to divide the dough in two and make two cinnamon braids. I baked the cinnamon braid with pearl sugar and almond flakes on top, but you could try hazelnuts. A cinnamon braid tastes best when it’s still a little warm, but if the whole cinnamon braid isn’t eaten, it can easily be frozen. Serve it with a little glaze on top, if you like. Enjoy!
Friday’s hygge: Cinnamon braid with filling and custard
Ingredients
Vanilla custardInstructions
Vanilla custard
Make the vanilla custard a day in advance. Whisk the egg and sugar until yellow and foamy. Add the flour and whisk again. Boil the milk with the vanilla pod, stirring continuously so it doesn’t burn. Add the milk to the egg mixture as you whisk. Then pour the egg mixture back into the pan. Strain the vanilla pod and scrape out the vanilla seeds and add them to the custard. Heat the custard as you whisk it until just boiling. Pour it into a bowl and allow it to cool.
Dough
Dissolve the yeast in half the lukewarm milk in a food mixer. Once dissolved, pour in the rest of the milk. Add the salt, sugar, eggs, butter and cardamom and stir well. Now add about half the flour and knead the dough in the machine. Then add the rest of the flour until the dough is no longer sticky and releases from the bowl as it mixes. Cover with a dish towel and allow the dough to rise for 1 hour.
Filling
Mix all ingredients well with a fork and set aside until needed.
How to assemble the cinnamon braid
Roll the dough into a sausage of about 50-60 cm. Roll the sausage flat with a rolling pin so it’s about 25-30 cm wide. Spread the filing over the entire dough. Spread the vanilla custard along the center of the dough (on the long part). To “braid” the cinnamon cake: Cut diagonal cuts into the dough on each side of the vanilla custard, about 1/3 of the way in, so it looks like a herringbone pattern (see photo). Now alternately folding a dough strip from each side over the custard, so you “braid” the whole cinnamon cake. Gather the dough at the ends of the cinnamon braid and fold them under. If necessary, fold the little dough strips in under the cinnamon braid along the sides. If you don’t want to braid the cinnamon cake, simply fold one dough side in over the middle and then the other dough side in over that. Press the dough lightly together and make a long cut with a sharp knife down the middle.
Carefully move the cinnamon braid onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper and allow it to rise about 30 min. Brush the cinnamon braid with the egg wash and sprinkle with pearl sugar and almond flakes. Bake it for about 25 min at 200 C until it’s baked and light brown. Serve the cinnamon braid while still warm. Enjoy!
Please write a comment