Every Christmas morning growing up we would have cinnamon buns. As I started my own family, my mom or more often my dad would deliver my mom's cinnamon buns. Her recipe is actually called cinnamon twists. I enjoy experimenting with recipes and not everyone at my house likes raisins. I came across a King's Cake recipe that reminded me a lot of the cinnamon twists. The shape is made differently by rolling and braiding additionally the filling adds flour to the butter, cinnamon, and sugar mixture. I made the King's Cake a couple times as the recipe is written. I wanted to try chocolate filling and found a recipe for Chocolate Sweet buns and tried twisting them after I rolled the swirl and that wasn't quite right. But they were tasty.
This time I decided to make the King's Cake recipe, make half the filling cinnamon with cardamon and the other half chocolate. I also wanted to twist the dough and followed the old twist recipe by adding filling to the center third of the 10 x 16" rectangle, then folding over the top third. Then the other half of the filling is added on top of the folded part which finally is enclosed by the last third.
Like other cinnamon bun recipes, the dough is divided into twelve pieces, in this case strips, which are twisted and then the ends are pinched together.
When I made the Chocolate Sweet Buns recipe above, it stated that chocolate chips or semi-sweet chocolate could be used interchangeably. In the King's Cake brioche with chocolate filling, I used 4 oz of semi-sweet Ghirardelli chocolate and found that the chunks of Ghirardelli chocolate melted completely while the chocolate chips from the previous attempt did not melt well at all.
Sweet brioche dough recipe adapted from the King's Cake recipe.
1 cup milk
¼ cup butter
Heat milk and butter in the microwave until warm or allow to cool until warm.
Add
1 ½ teaspoon salt
⅔ cup warm water
½ cup granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon bread machine dry yeast
1 teaspoon of cardamon
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Add one cup of bread flour at a time until 5 - 5 ½ cups have been added.
Knead until smooth. Dough will be a bit sticky. Allow to rest for 1-2 hours until doubled. Once doubled, punch down and knead briefly. Divide the dough into two.
Stretch the first ball of dough and then roll it to a 10" x 16" rectangle.
Add one-half of one of the fillings to the middle third, fold one third over, add the other half.
Cut into 12 strips, twist and arrange on a lined cookie sheet.
Repeat with the second dough ball.
Cinnamon filling (adapted from King's Cake recipe):
2 Tablespoons of butter melted
1/3 cup of brown sugar
half of a 1/3 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of flour
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of cardamon
Chocolate Filling (adapted from Sweet Chocolate bun recipe):
4 Tablespoons butter melted
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 Tablespoons flour
2 Tablespoons baking cocoa
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate bar, chopped
Once twists are formed, allow to rise again covered for 30 minutes.
Bake at 350 degrees for 23 minutes. Tent with aluminum foil after 15 minutes.
While icing was included in both above recipes, we did not see a need for more sweetness. The sugar could probably be cut down a bit and still have a great flavor.
Two 4" springform pans baked about 30 minutes
