It sounds a bit goofy and it’s mainly a PR-stunt but we actually have an official Cinnamon Bun Day in Sweden. It’s on the 4th of October. I don’t usually buy in to these things. All these Hug-a-Vegetarian-day/Eat-a-salty-pretzel-day/Jump-on-one-leg-with-a-blindfold-day … They are mostly just awkward. But for some reason I found myself in the kitchen baking buns on the evening of the 3rd October. Let’s call it a coincidence.

I wanted to bake a mash-up between a Swedish bun and the most amazing Hazelnut & Chocolate Babka that we tried in Tel Aviv earlier this year. So I started with the cardamom bun recipe from our first book, doubled the portions (I don’t bake buns often, so I want them to last), changed the proportions a bit and then added the most luscious filling I could think of: Mapled hazelnut butter, freshly ground cardamom, grated apples and dark chocolate. The combination was insane! The good kind of insane. I almost felt like Archimedes there for a while, screaming “Eureka!” as I ran naked into the living room to tell Luise about the flavours of the filling. Thinking back, I might not have screamed Eureka and I definitely wasn’t naked. But the filling was fantastic. And still is.

Decadent, sweet, rich, whole grain buns with a fresh apple twist. They are good. You should try them. And you don’t need a fake-Cinnamon Bun Day to do so. Just a rainy autumn Sunday.

It will take a few hours to bake buns but the reward is sweet. I didn’t finish until there was hardly any light outside, hence the dark and slightly blurry photos. We normally bake with spelt flours instead of all-purpose, but this time we were out of light spelt so I went with a nice, organic all-purpose flour that we had at home. I mixed it with some dark spelt to still give it a bit of a wholegrain touch. I must admit that result was softer and better than when I use 100% spelt. But that is of course an option, if you prefer.

Tying them into knots is the trickiest part. My mother makes the most perfect knots. I never manage to make them as pretty or regular shaped (as you can see from the photo below), but I decided a long time ago to call mine rustic and not worry too much about them perfect. You can either cut them once or twice, I show both examples in the photo on the left. Cutting them twice makes more intricate knots and prettier buns, but they are also a bit more difficult to shape as they are so thin. If you don’t want to do knots, you can also roll the dough into a log, with the filling inside, and cut it into simple rolls.

Vegans can replace the butter with coconut oil and glaze the buns with plant milk instead of egg. I have never succeeded to make a gluten free version of buns as they need the gluten to hold together when they are tied into knots. If you make a good gluten free version, I’d love to hear your tricks.