Estonian Kringle Recipe/ how to make Cinnamon Braided Bread
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!
Ingredients
To make the bread dough
- 260 g Flour or 2 cups (loosely packed)
- 120 ml Warm Milk :120 ml or 1/2 Cup (If you don’t want to add milk, you can use plain water instead)
- 43 g Unsalted Butter (softened) or 3 tbsp
- 1 Egg Yolk (at Room Temperature)
- 12.5 g Sugar or 1 tbsp
- 3 g Salt or 1/2 tsp
- 3 g Yeast or 1 tsp
For the filling
- 75 g Soft Brown sugar or 6 tbsp
- 57 g Unsalted Butter(softened) or 1/4 cup
- 3 g Cinnamon powder or 1 tsp
For the Topping
- 23 g Sliced Almonds 23 g or 1/4 cup
- For Egg wash, we can use the remaining egg white
For the Frosting
- 80 g Cream cheese or 3 ounce or 2/3 cup
- 43 g Unsalted butter or 3 tbsp
- 38 g Powdered Sugar or 3 tbsp
- 5 ml Vanilla extract or 1 tsp or Vanilla powder 1/2 tsp
- If you want more thinner frosting, you can add 1-2 tbsp milk into it
Instructions
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.
- 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.
Shape the Cinnamon Braid Bread
- So for the next step of shaping the Cinnamon 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.
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.
Bake the Estonian Kringle or Cinnamon Braid 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.
- Enjoy!
Video
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!