Estonian Kringle Recipe (How to make Beautiful Cinnamon Braided Bread)

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Quick and Easy Estonian Kringle Recipe-Super Soft And Delicious Cinnamon Braided Bread topped with toasted almonds and Slathered With An Amazing Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cream Cheese Frosting. This Estonian Kringle Recipe, will help you make the most delicious cinnamon braid bread in less than two hours!

Why You will love this Estonian Kringle Recipe

• This Estonian Kringle Recipe will help you to make the best Cinnamon Braid Bread in a faster one rise method.
• As we do only one proofing, you can make them and enjoy in less than two hours!
• You don’t need to knead the dough for a very long time.
• The Cinnamon Braided Bread made with this Estonian Kringle recipe has a crunchy, nutty, toasted almond flavored crust with ultra soft, moist and delicious interior.
• The bottom of this cinnamon braid bread is golden with sticky caramelized sugar.

You might also enjoy these Faster, One Rise Bread Recipes..Quick Dinner Rolls Recipe and Easy Homemade Cinnamon Rolls Recipe.Both of these recipes doesn’t require double proofing and so you can save a lot of your time.

If you are looking for more quick and delicious recipe, then you will love this 30 Minute Flaky Biscuits Recipe

Ingredients needed to make Estonian Kringle / Cinnamon Braided Bread

To make the bread dough

1. All purpose flour/Bread flour: 260 g or 2 cups (loosely packed)
2. Warm Milk :120 ml or 1/2 Cup (If you don’t want to add milk, you can use plain water instead)
3. Unsalted Butter (softened):43 g or 3 tbsp
4. 1 Egg Yolk (at Room Temperature)
5. Sugar: 12.5 g or 1 tbsp
6. Salt :3g or 1/2 tsp
7. Yeast :3g or 1 tsp

For the filling

1. Soft Brown sugar : 75g or 6 tbsp
2. Unsalted Butter(softened): 57g or 1/4 cup
3. Cinnamon powder: 3g or 1 tsp

For the Topping

• Sliced Almonds 23 g or 1/4 cup
• For Egg wash, we can use the remaining egg white

For the Frosting

1. Cream cheese :80 g or 3 ounce or 2/3 cup
2. Unsalted butter:43 g or 3 tbsp
3. Powdered Sugar 38 g or 3 tbsp
4. Vanilla powder 1/2 tsp or vanilla extract 1 tsp
5. If you want more thinner frosting, you can add 1-2 tbsp milk into it

How to Make Homemade Cinnamon Braided Bread

Making Estonian Kringle or cinnamon braided bread is so easy.

We can make it in FOUR SIMPLE STEPS

1.Prepare the bread dough

Into a bowl add the milk, sugar, salt, yeast, egg yolk and softened butter.Combine everything together.

Make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature and the milk should be preferably warm(not hot).Ideally around 100 F.

Then add in the flour into this mixture and combine them together to form a shaggy mass of dough.

If you are kneading the dough in a stand mixer, use the dough hook attachment to knead the dough.

If you are kneading the dough by hands, transfer the dough on to a clean work surface and knead the dough for a few minutes(4-5 minutes) until it form a smooth dough.

The consistency of the bread dough may slightly differ according to the water absorbing capacity of different flours. That is okay.

The point is that our final dough should be soft, smooth and well hydrated.

You can add, 1/2 -1 tbsp water, if you find your dough tough or can add 1 tbsp flour, if your dough is too sticky even after kneading for 4 minutes.

Shape it into a ball ; then flatten it a little and then cover it with a bowl or kitchen towel and let the dough rest on the counter for five minutes.

This is not for proofing the dough, but this is to let the dough sit for a few minutes so that the gluten stands will relax.

This resting will prevent our dough from enormous rebounding back of the dough while rolling it into a thin rectangular sheet.

2.Shape the Cinnamon Braid Bread

So for the next step of shaping this sweet braided bread, first we need to roll the dough into thin sheet (4mm thick).

Pat, stretch and roll out the dough to form 16X12-inch or 40x 30 cm rectangle with long edge nearest you.

Mix together the brown sugar/ regular white sugar, cinnamon powder and soft butter together to form a smooth cream.

Then spread it all over the surface.

Starting with long edge nearest you, roll the dough into a cylinder.

Pinch and seal the edge. 

Using a sharp knife, cut the log lengthwise to form two equal parts.

Twist these two parts together and form a crown by joining two ends.

Transfer to a parchment lined baking pan.

3.Proof the Cinnamon Bread

Cover it with a bowl and allow the cinnamon braided bread to rise until puffy for about 60 minutes. 

Towards the end of proofing (at around 50 minutes of proofing),I prefer to keep the tray, inside the freezer for 10 minutes.

Thus the butter will be slightly solid when we take it into the oven and so it will not melt too fast.Thus we will not end up with a pool of melted butter after baking.

Before taking the cinnamon bread into the oven for baking, give an egg wash.

This will give a nice shine and golden color to the cinnamon bread.Egg wash will also help the sliced almonds to stick on the surface.

Sprinkle the top with some sliced almonds or with nuts of your choice.

4.Bake the Estonian Kringle or Cinnamon sweet braided bread

Bake at 400 F or 200 C preheated oven for 15 minute and then reduce the temperature to 375 F or 190 C and bake for another 10 minutes.

After baking you will get beautiful cinnamon braided bread or Estonian Kringle that has crunchy crust and soft, moist interior.

Dust the top with some powdered sugar.

Slather the top with some cream cheese frosting.This cream cheese frosting is not very sweet and I found it very complimentary to this Estonian Kringle.

Adding a dollop of cream cheese frosting can elevate this homemade cinnamon bread to a rich and decadent dessert that you enjoy from your favorite bakery.

How to make the cream cheese frosting for this cinnamon wreath bread

This Homemade Cinnamon wreath bread not the same without that cream cheese frosting on top.

It is so easy to make this cream cheese icing.

Keep the butter and sugar at room temperature as it will help us to combine them easily.

Into a bowl add the Softened butter, cream cheese, vanilla sugar/vanilla extract.

Thoroughly mix until they are light in texture and pale yellow in color.

Then add the powdered sugar and combine everything together until you get a silky smooth, light cream cheese frosting.

You can add some milk/heavy cream if you want your cream cheese frosting a little more thin.

Step by Step Video: How to make Estonian Kringle / Cinnamon Braided Bread / Sweet Braided Bread

How to store this homemade cinnamon wreath bread

These homemade cinnamon bread can be kept at room temperature for up to 3 days.Cover it and store them in an airtight container.

Do this Cinnamon Braid Bread need to be refrigerated

If you plan to keep the cinnamon wreath bread for more than three days, then it is better to store them in an airtight container and keep in refrigerator.If stored in the fridge, the rolls will last a few days longer.

Can I skip adding egg in this cinnamon braided bread recipe or Estonian Kringle Recipe

Yes ,you can skip adding egg in this quick cinnamon braided bread recipe.

How can I substitute egg in this homemade cinnamon braid bread recipe

I have made cinnamon bread using this same recipe skipping egg.I added the same volume of liquid (milk/water) for 1 egg yolk.You can add 15-19 ml milk/water instead of 1 egg yolk in this cinnamon bread recipe if you are not using egg.The cinnamon bread turned out soft and delicious, when i tried this way.

For Egg wash , You can use milk instead.

My cinnamon sweet braided bread came out drier and denser than expected…Where have I gone wrong

The 3 main reasons that may cause the Cinnamon bread to come out dry and/or dense, is

1. Adding too much flour, 
2. Over-baking or 
3. under-proofing the dough.  

So make sure the consistency of the final dough is very soft and smooth, be sure to check the expiry date of your yeast ,bake until the cinnamon bread is perfectly baked and make sure the dough got doubled in size during proofing before proceeding.