Norwegian Cardamom-Cinnamon Rolls

There are ways to make cinnamon buns very time-consuming and complicated. And perhaps if it weren't the day after New Years and we weren't all tired of time-consuming and complicated, such an endeavor would be well worth it. We could make a croissant dough with layers and layers of butter, a process that requires rolling and folding and chilling done three times. We could start the night before and finish in the morning and we would be rewarded with something sinful.

Or, if it were a normal weekend morning, with chores that needed to be done and errands that needed to be run, we could buy our cinnamon rolls pre-made, or cut them from a package, which is almost the same thing. But it's the day after New Years and we don't have much to do. This is a lovely compromise.

Especially if your finace decides he wants to take this particular project on himself, as mine did. The dough for these Cardamom-Cinnamon Buns is forgiving. It's relatively painless if you're planning on lounging all morning anyway and waiting for a few quick rises is no big deal. The recipe comes from this website, but R has translated and converted it for us below. These rolls aren't overly sweet, but if you have a craving that needs to be satisfied, feel free to slather them with some vanilla icing (my father's preference). We made do with a little butter melting on top.

Norwegian Cardamom-Cinnamon Rolls

For the Dough

4 1/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon cardamom

1/2 cup sugar

1 package active dry yeast

3 1/2 decilitiers milk

1 stick of butter

For the Filling

4 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 stick of butter

Oven preheated to 425, two cookie sheets greased or lined with partchment paper

Mix the flour, cardamom, sugar and yeast together. Melt the butter and heat the milk until it is just warm to the touch. Mix the butter and the milk into the dry ingredients. Kneed by hand until the dough forms a ball. Cover the dough and allow it to rise for about 1 hour.

In the meantime, allow the butter for the filling to softened and work the sugar and cinnamon into the butter to form a paste.

Once the dough has risen, roll it out on a lightly floured surface to about 1/2" thick rectangle. Spread the filling mixture evenly over the dough and roll it up jellyroll style. Using a serrated knife, cut the dough into slices and space the slices out on the cookie sheets. We baked the cookie sheets one at a time for around 14 minutes each, plan to start checking at about 12 minutes.

Remove the rolls from the cookie sheets and transfer to a wrack to cool. Be sure to dig into a couple of them while they're still warm, just as they are or with a smearing of butter on top.

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Let's not forget, since these are yeasted they're headed over to Yeaspotting, Susan's weekly breadfest at Wild Yeast!