Adapted from Lil’ Luna

It was raining yesterday, and the rain sounds lovely in my apartment, drip-dropping on my roof
(I live on the fourth floor, so some of my walls are made of roof!).

  

Rainy Autumn days (even if it is, technically, still Summer? Or at least it was still August on Sunday! September is definitely an Autumn month.. no? I can’t believe September is here already…) always make me crave cinnamon buns. Truth be told, I crave cinnamon buns most of the time; we’re big on cinnamon in Scandinavia. In Denmark, cinnamon buns are called kanelsnegle – ‘cinnamon snails’ – because of their shape (obviously 😉 ), and while I have made them a lot, they take aaaaages, with the rising of the dough, and the rolling out… So I rarely make them these days, even though they really are worth the fuss. Enter: the cinnamon bun cake.

I printed this recipe out to test about a week ago, and a rainy Sunday afternoon seemed the perfect time to make something sweet, rich and cinnamony. Oh and easy!

Although I did have some trouble with the swirling of the cinnamon-sugar-butter gloop – it just wouldn’t swirl for me. So I will have to practice my swirling, because it really does make for a more beautiful-looking cake (I may try adding a tbsp more butter next time, to make the filling a little runnier, or leave out the 2 tbsp flour – I’ll let you know how this goes!). But man, it tastes good just the same – sweet, buttery, cinnamony, just like a cinnamon bun with more of the filling! I’m definitely a fan. If you like cinnamon buns, I’m sure you will be too 🙂

Here’s what you’ll need:

For the batter

• 375 g ~ 3 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 200 g ~ 1 cup sugar
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 360 ml ~ 1 ½ cups milk
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 115 g ~ ½ cup butter, melted

For the filling

• 170 g ~ ¾ cups butter, softened
• 200 g ~ 2 cups brown sugar
• 2 tbsp cinnamon
• 2 tbsp flour

For the glaze

• 250 g ~ 2 cups icing sugar
• 5 tbsp just-boiled water

Preheat your oven to 180° Celsius ~ 350° Farhenheit ~ gas mark 4, and grease a baking pan
(more or less 22×34 cm ~ 9×13 inches).

In a large mixing bowl, mix together your flour, salt, sugar and baking powder.

   

In another bowl, briefly whisk together the eggs and milk, and poor this into the flour mixture a little at a time, whisking well after each time, until you’ve incorporated all the eggy milk into the flour and the batter is smooth.

  

Poor in your melted butter, and gently whisk until the butter has just been absorbed and you have a shiny, thick batter. Poor into your prepared baking tray.

 

Make the filling by mixing the ingredients in a bowl.

Distribute evenly across the batter, using two teaspoons. With a knife, make cinnamon-butter swirls throughout your cake! (Or, if you’re me, try to do this, and end up with something much less dignified-looking, but delicious all the same).

Bake for about 30 minutes until the cake begins to brown nicely.

 

When your cake is out of the oven, prepare the glaze by mixing the icing sugar and just-boiled water until there are no icing sugar lumps (giggle at the words ‘sugar lumps’).

Drizzle this over your cake while it’s still warm from the oven. Eat some straight away, or wait until it’s cooled down a bit, if you can 🙂 It’s equally good once cooled, and stays super moist because of the filling. I think this would keep well for several days, if kept covered.

Hope you like it! I’m already planning to make a second (hopefully prettier) batch! I need to practice my swirling.

P.s.: I also tried making this as cupcakes a few days later, and it turned out ok – but I like the ‘cake’ cake version better, this cake wasn’t made to be teeny tiny and fussy… I think for this to work in cupcake form, I would need to get a jumbo muffin tin! Makes for about 36 little cupcakes, baked for approximately 20 minutes. 🙂