A Beautiful Kringle Pastry for Breakfast

This Kringle pastry from Estonia is not only very good-looking, but also tasty! You can decorate it with what you prefer: chocolate chips, sugar, butter, cinnamon, dried fruits…
Just like the baguette recipe, I’m sure you’ll love to prepare these kinds of buns… and I can tell you it is super simple, despite the complex look. You simply have to try it!

Ingredients for the Estonian Kringle

For a pretty scented kringle:

• 3 cups (300 g) flour
• 1/2 tbsp (10 g) of dry yeast (I put only 7 g for one of my buns, it was good too)
• 1/2 cup (120 ml) of warm milk
• 1 tablespoon powdered sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp (30 g) butter
• A good pinch of salt

For the garnish:

• 2 3/4 tbsp (40 g) butter
• 3 tablespoons sugar (brown sugar for me)
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• Icing sugar for decoration

Baking instructions

Pour the warm milk into a small bowl, and add sugar (1 tablespoon) and yeast. Mix well and let stand for 10 minutes.

In the bowl of your food processor, put flour, salt and softened butter, cut into small pieces.
Stir until butter is well integrated; the texture should be sandy.
Pour the milk with yeast and then egg, lightly beaten, into a mixer bowl. Adapt the hook to your robot-mixer and mix for 5 minutes at medium speed.
Remove dough from bowl, knead by hand for 2-3 minutes on a floured work surface and place in a clean bowl. Cover with a clean cloth and let rise in a warm draft-free room for 1 hour.

Put in the oven at 90°F (30°C) for 30 minutes.

When the dough has inflated you have to de-gas it (deeply dive into the dough with your fist) and knead itbriefly to re-form a ball.

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured work space. While extending, the dough must be thin enough, thus forming a rectangle.

Prepare the filling:

Melt butter (40 g) Add 3 tablespoons sugar and cinnamon until well blended.

Spread the filling over the dough.

Roll the dough on itself (in the longitudinal direction for a long roll)

Cut dough in half lengthwise. Weave the two half-rolls of dough.

Form a ring with the braid or leave it straight.

Let rise in a clean cloth for 1 hour.

When the cake is puffed, baste it with a little melted butter. Drop a tablespoon of sugar on top and bake in the oven (preheated) at 360°F (180°C) for 20 to 25 minutes (25 minutes for me).

Remove from the oven, sprinkle with a veil of sugar and let cool before serving.

You can test several versions of this recipe  e.g. sugar, cinnamon, butter, as well as chocolate chips (garnish is made with melted butter brushed on the rectangle of dough, chocolate chips spread over the dough before rolling a few nuggets are then distributed on top).

You can experiment with Nutella, paste, red fruit jam…

This is the round version below: you just have to link the two extremities to form the ring.