Giant Skillet Cinnamon Bun (lighter version)

This lighter giant skillet cinnamon bun can be made with spelt or regular flour. It is layer upon layer of cinnamon goodness, but has surprisingly less fat and sugar.

This skillet cinnamon bun is off the scale delicious. The only downside is: you will have to share it.

Cinnamon buns (known as kanelbullar here in Sweden) are lovely. What’s not to like? The soft, gently fragrant dough, irresistible cinnamon butter filling and sweet drizzle of frosting. But what if you could have all that only lighter? Yes, lighter cinnamon buns. Oh my life.

This skillet cinnamon bun is huge. A giant of a bun. It has much less butter and sugar than regular cinnamon buns but lacks none of the awesomeness that is cinnamon bread.

And yes, you may be rolling your eyes wondering how many times you’ve heard that claim before, but this is no claim. This is bona fide fact, my friends.

The idea of making a monster of a giant cinnamon bun isn’t a new one. It is a little fiddly to do, I will admit, and took a couple of goes before I got it right. The first time my strips were too thick, making the bun too tall. This time around, I made the strips of dough much thinner but that meant they were harder to manoeuvre. But you know what, the little trouble it did give me was worth it in the end. So worth it.

The dough in this skillet cinnamon bun is the softest I have ever eaten on a cinnamon bun. The way it has rolled produced layers and layers of deliciousness. It was divine. Be careful though because one slice is, in reality, probably five cinnamon buns. Nah, just kidding. It’s only three.

Other recipes that include cinnamon

Cinnamon is such an amazing ingredient in both sweet and savoury food. I honestly don’t know what I would do with it. Here are a few more recipes that include the versatile spice:

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Giant Spelt Skillet Cinnamon Bun (lighter version)

This giant spelt skillet cinnamon bun is the best cinnamon roll I have ever tasted. Super soft bread machine spelt flour dough with less sugar and fat.

Course Breakfast

Cuisine Swedish

Prep Time 5

Cook Time 20

Proofing/machine 2 30

Total Time 25

Servings 6 people

Ingredients

Dough:

1 egg (medium)
250ml (1 cup) milk
50g (3½ tbs) butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
400-450g (3⅓ - 3¾ cups) spelt flour (see note 2)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
⅛ teaspoon cardamom
7g (2¼ tsp) dried yeast (see note 3)
2 teaspoons salt

Filling:

1½ tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1-2 tablespoons cinnamon (depending on how much you like it)

Drizzle:

2 tablespoons milk
just enough icing sugar to make a thick paste

Instructions

Dough (see note 1)

Bread Machine:

Add the egg, milk, butter and vanilla to your bread machine pan.
Then add 400g (3⅓ cups) flour and the remaining dry ingredients, taking care to keep the yeast and salt separate as much as possible.
Set your machine to make dough.
On a very well-floured surface (the dough will be very sticky) work in just as much flour as you need to make a soft, pliable, but still a little tacky, dough.

Stand Mixer:

Mix the egg, milk, butter and vanilla together in your stand mixer bowl. If the butter is straight out of the fridge, it won't combine with the other wet ingredients too much, but that's okay.
Add 450g (3¾ cups) flour and the remaining dough ingredients. The dough should be sticky, but if you need more flour, just add a little at a time. Be careful: too much flour will result in dry bread.
Switch to a dough hook (if you have one) and allow the mixer to knead the dough for around 10 minutes, just until soft. The dough will still feel a little tacky to the touch, but will be able to slowly drop off the hook.
Cover the dough and leave to proof (until it has doubled in size - usually about an hour).
When the dough is ready, knock it back, and form into a rough ball.

Both Methods:

Pre-heat the oven to 175ºC (350ºF) and grease a small-medium skillet, or a round baking tin.
Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough into a large rectangle - around 40 x 50cm (15¾" x 19½"), keeping one of the shorter sides facing you. At this point the dough will be very elastic (which is perfect), but it means that it will bounce back a little.

Filling:

Melt the butter.
Combine the sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl and add to the melted butter. Give it a little stir, just to mix everything together.

Assembly:

Dollop little bits of the filling all over the dough and spread it about fairly evenly with a knife.
Taking a pizza slicer, cut the dough into around 8 strips of about 4-5cm (1½ - 2") thickness.
Starting with the first strip, roll it all the way up to the top. Move it over to the start of the second strip and repeat.
Continue to do so until you've used up all the strips of dough. It's not an easy process at all especially when your bun roll gets bigger, but it doesn't have to be perfect - mine most certainly wasn't.
If it gets very hard to handle, just move what you've already assembled to your skillet or pan, and then wrap the remaining rolls around the outsides.
Place on your skillet or pan, cover and let rest for around 20-30 minutes.
Bake in the oven for around 18-20 minutes.
Make sure it is baked through, but don't over-bake it (turn it upside down and knock on the bottom. Bread that is ready will sound hollow).
Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Drizzle:

Add two tablespoons of milk to a bowl and gradually add just enough icing sugar to make a thick paste. Pour it over the giant bun, slice and enjoy!

Notes

I have converted grams to cups/ounces/tablespoons using online converters. Although I have no reason to believe they are inaccurate, please be aware that I have not made this recipe with imperial measurements.

I have made the dough using both a stand mixer and bread machine with identical results. I have not made the dough by hand, but I see no reason why you couldn't do so!
You can use spelt or regular flour for this recipe (just use the same amount).
In Sweden we have something called dried yeast. It is used both in warm liquid to proof and also added directly to flour. I am aware that the US has two options for dried yeast, and I believe instant yeast is the most similar for the purpose of making this particular bread.