Cinnamon Roll Snail Food

KANELSNEGLE (DANISH CINNAMON BUNS)

Steps:

• Heat up the milk, either in the microwave or in a saucepan, until it is "fingervarm" (finger warm), meaning it should feel warm to the touch but not hot. You don't want to kill the yeast! Add the yeast and stir to dissolve. Let it rest 5-10 minutes until it begins to froth and bubble a little bit. (If your yeast doesn't do anything, it may be expired. Check the expiration date on the package and start over with new yeast!)
• Combine the egg, egg yolk, sugar, vanilla extract, cardamom, and salt in a large bowl. Mix well.
• Add the milk and yeast mixture to the egg mixture and whisk to combine.
• Slowly add the flour, stirring with a wooden spoon. Once the dough starts to come together, you can start kneading.
• Add the softened butter and knead until smooth and elastic, probably around 5-10 minutes. Add a bit of flour if the dough sticks to your hands or the surface. If you prefer not to get your hands messy and covered in butter, feel free to use a stand mixer for this step. The texture of your dough before its first rise should be soft and smooth, not sticky and not too dry.
• Cover and let your dough rise for about 45 minutes, or until doubled in size.
• For the filling, combine softened butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt and stir together until you get a smooth paste.
• Once your dough has doubled in size, roll it out into a rectangle that is about a quarter of an inch (0.5cm) thick.
• Spread your filling evenly on top and roll it up into a log. You'll want to roll from the shorter edge of the rectangle, so that your buns have more swirls. (TO MAKE TWISTS: Instead of rolling up your dough, fold it in half from the bottom - then cut into about 12 equal sized strips. Start twisting the strips, then wrap around itself twice and tuck the end of the strip through the middle.)
• Cut the log into 1-1.5 inch (3cm) thick pieces.
• Here is where you can customize the recipe: place the pieces (swirl side up!) close together in a buttered baking dish for gooey, American-style cinnamon buns, or separate them (plenty of space in between!) on two baking sheets lined with parchment paper for more of a crispy, Danish-style cinnamon snail.
• Cover the buns loosely with cling film or a clean dishtowel and let them rise another 45 minutes. In the meantime, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
• Make your egg wash (1 egg whisked together with a splash of water until there are no more gloopy streaks of egg white), then brush over the buns and bake for about 15 minutes. Once they are done, let them cool.
• Combine powdered sugar and water/milk until you reach your desired icing consistency. Remember, a little bit of liquid goes a long way, so start with a cup of powdered sugar and a tiny bit of water or milk! Pour or drizzle over the kanelsnegle and enjoy!

DANISH CINNAMON SNAILS

Steps:

• Pour the warm milk into a mixing bowl and mash in the fresh cake yeast. Mix in 6 1/2 tablespoons of soft butter, eggs, cardamom, 2 tablespoons sugar, salt, and 3 1/2 cups of the flour. Use a wooden spoon to mix the dough. If it's very sticky, mix in the remaining 1/2 cup of flour. Cover the bowl and let the dough rise for 30 minutes.
• Cream together the 2/3 cup butter and 1/2 cup sugar. Stir in the cinnamon.
• Transfer the dough to a floured surface and knead it until it's firm, about 3 minutes. Divide the dough in half; roll each half into a rectangle no more than 1/2 inch thick. Spread each rectangle with half the filling.
• Stack one layer of dough and filling on top of the other rectangle of dough, filling-side up. Roll the dough up, starting with the edge closest to you, to form a long log. Cut the log into 1 inch-thick slices.
• Preheat an oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, or grease a baking dish or two cake pans.
• Place the rolls on the prepared baking sheet, spacing them about 3 inches apart. If you like pull-apart rolls, arrange them in a greased baking dish or cake pans, spacing the rolls about 1 inch apart. Place the uneven end pieces on the baking sheet cut-side up for the best presentation. Let the rolls rest 20 minutes before baking.
• Bake the snails in the preheated oven until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Pull-apart rolls will take longer to bake: after 10 minutes, reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) and bake the rolls until the sides are fully set, about 10 minutes longer. Cover the baking dish with foil if the rolls begin to get too brown.

CINNAMON SNAILS

Steps:

• Preheat the toaster or oven at 350 degrees.
• Flattin the bread with rolling pin.
• Spread a thin layer of cream cheese over the flattin bread.
• roll up the bread with more cream cheese.
• Slice the roll into three pices.
• Dip each piece into melted butter and the cinnamon and sugar.
• Put them on a cookie sheet coverd with aluinum foil.
• Let it cook for about 6 minutes.
• Let your snail cool a bit before eating it.

CINNAMON BUN SNAIL

Steps:

• Coffee Cake:.
• Grease one 10X10 baking pan and heat oven to 350 degrees F.
• In a mixing bowl make your streusel by combining brown sugar cinnamon and melted margarine. Mix until crumbs form. Cover and set aside.
• In a separate mixing bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment add oil, eggs, vanilla, milk and sugar. Beat until well combined then add flour mixture.
• Pour half of batter into prepared baking dish then coat with half of streusel. Pour in and spread out remaining half and top with remaining streusel.
• Bake 25 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool and remove from pan after ten minutes. Cover and chill in fridge until ready to use.
• Cinnamon Roll Dough & Filling:.
• In a glass bowl mix warm water (100 degrees F), sugar and yeast. Allow to activate at least five minutes. In a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook; add warm milk, egg, room temp butter. Mix and slowly add yeast mixture. Finish by adding flour and salt. Mix roughly five minutes unit dough forms. Place in greased bowl and cover with damp cloth for at least one hour.
• Mix filling by combining melted butter, sugar and cinnamon. Cover and set aside.
• Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Once dough has risen, punch down and roll out to about 1/4-inch thickness. Cut into angled triangle that's roughly 8-inches wide at the bottom and 4-inches at the top total length should be about 20 inches. Using an offset spatula spread out 1/2 cup of filling evenly onto the top of the dough. Begin rolling at the 8" base and roll smoothly up to the top making sure the edge is covered underneath. Bend the tail inward slightly and cover with a large mixing bowl and allow to rise for 40 minutes.
• Once risen remove the bowl and place in oven for 35 minutes or until desired coloring is reached. I followed this method three different times (using brown food coloring on two attempts) to get the shape I wanted and actually borrowed a large piece from one of the duds to use as the top shell band on my snail. If I were to do this over, I would make one larger piece all one color instead of Frankenstein-esque ones you see here. That said, you're in charge of how you do this, and I say; make it however you like!
• Buttercream:.
• In a stand mixer beat room temp butter until fluffy. Add icing sugar one cup at a time. Add whipping cream, salt.
• Royal Icing:.
• In a stand mixer beat egg whites till frothy. Add sugar until desired consistency is reached. Once mixed I split this batch in half and used the brown gel food color on half. This was used to create the wavy lines on the shell and coat the underside of the snail.
• Decorative Direction:.
• Once your batch of buttercream, royal icing, cinnamon buns and coffee cake are made, you're ready to start assembling! As you can see in the photo this takes some patchwork and there's really no right or wrong way to stack and frost it. I did use two wooden dowel rods down the neck to support the weight while building, but I removed them once the cake had been crumb-coated and chilled. I used white and brown royal icing to create the final coat and for the long eyes I piped several strips of thick royal icing on parchment and allowed it to dry, then gently pierced the cakes head with them and did a royal icing flooding over top with a watered-down batch. The final product was really fun to look at and really didn't take that long!