Kanelsnurrer (Norwegian Cinnamon Buns) With Apple Sauce Filling

It’s apple season here in Norway, and when my friend Josephine brought me a sack of apples from Sognefjord I was excited to make a new apple treat: Norwegian twisted cinnamon buns (kanelsnurrer) filled with apple sauce.

I developed this recipe based off of my favorite cinnamon bun recipe and added apple juice to the dough and a caramelized apple sauce filling. These buns are extra buttery with a hint of cardamom in the dough, which complements the cinnamon and apples beautifully.

Tips

Homemade apple sauce

You can use whatever apple sauce you like for this recipe, or you can make your own!

Apple sauce is very easy to make. I usually use about five or six large apples to make enough apple sauce for this recipe. Or you can make extra to eat later.

Peel the apples and cut them into small cubes. Then cook them in a covered saucepan with a few tablespoons of water until the apples are soft enough to mash. You can leave a few lumps in the apple sauce if you like.

Then you can add a bit of sugar and cinnamon to taste, though you can skip this step if you’ll only be using the apple sauce for this recipe, as we’ll be adding plenty of cinnamon and sugar when making the apple sauce filling.

Apple sauce filling

I like to make the apple sauce filling before making the cinnamon dough so that it has time to cool.

Heat up the apple sauce in a saucepan and add the brown sugar, cinnamon, butter, and cornstarch while stirring constantly. Bring the mixture to a boil and then let a bubble for a couple of minutes before removing it from the heat. The mixture should be very sticky – if it’s not, continue boiling for another minute.

Pour the mixture into a bowl and let it cool.

Cinnamon bun dough

Kanelsnurrer dough has a lot of butter in it. And while usually it’s best to add butter to dough towards the end of kneading, in this case you should add in the melted (and cooled to room temperature) butter at the beginning.

I like to use apple juice in the dough to add extra apple flavor to these kanelsnurrer. However if you don’t have apple juice you can simply use milk instead.

Head up the apple juice, butter and powdered sugar until the butter melts. Then let the mixture cool completely before adding the yeast and cardamom. If the mixture is still hot it can kill the yeast.

You can knead the dough by hand or in a mixer with a dough hook. I knead it by hand for about ten minutes. You can add a bit more flour if the dough is too sticky to knead, but try to add as little flour as possible.

You can use ground cardamom for this recipe, but if you have a mortar and pestal I highly recommend grinding cardamom seeds instead, as freshly ground seeds are much more flavorful. If you only have ground cardamom, I would double the amount in the recipe.

I roll out the dough and shape it before letting it rise. This makes the kanelbullar easier to shape. Then you can let them rise for about one and half hours, until about doubled in size (they will likely rise faster in a warmer room). When you poke them gently with your finger the dough should fully bounce back.

Try to spread the apple sauce filling as evenly as possible across the square of dough.

Then use a pizza or pastry wheel to cut the dough into about 20 strips.

Kanelsnurrer are twisted and tied into beautiful knots. I’ve seen many different ways of forming the knots, and I don’t think your technique here matters too much. Just make sure that you twist the dough a lot before making the knot.

To form the knots, I twist each strip of dough and then I hold out two of my fingers and wrap the twist twice around my fingers and then I wrap the end across the top of the bun and tuck the end through the bottom of the knot. See the video below if you’re confused.

Some of the apple sauce filling may seep out while you’re twisting the kanelsnurrer. Try not to lose too much of the filling. It might get a bit messy, but these apple sauce cinnamon buns are worth a bit of a mess!

Cover the formed cinnamon knots and let them rise for about one and a half hours, until they bounce back fully when you press them with a finger.

Once they’ve risen, preheat the oven and brush the buns with egg wash. Then sprinkle them with pearl sugar, or any coarse or granulated sugar you may have.

And then it’s time to bake the buns! It’s very important not to bake these for too long, as then they can become dry. I bake mine for exactly ten minutes, but the time can vary depending on your oven. The tops and bottoms should be golden brown when finished baking, and the center dough will be soft but not gooey.

You can switch the recipe from US measurements to metric by clicking from “US Customary” to “Metric” under Ingredients.