Chocolate cinnamon buns

New, wonderfully indulgent chocolate buns! Filled with a chocolate and cinnamon filling, drizzled with icing and decorated with strips of chocolate. They make even the chilliest autumn evenings feel a little cosier – because chocolate has a way of making everything better ;). I rolled the dough even thinner than in my previous recipe for cinnamon buns, which means there’s room for even more of that delicious, aromatic filling. They’re soft, fragrant and intensely chocolatey. You simply have to bake them this weekend!

Makes 12 buns.

Ingredients for the sweet yeast dough:

• 540 g strong white bread flour
• 80 g caster sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• 10 g dried yeast or 20 g fresh yeast
• 75 g butter, melted
• 250 ml milk
• 2 large eggs

Mix the flour with the dried yeast (if using fresh yeast, prepare a yeast starter first). Add the remaining ingredients and knead the dough, adding the melted butter towards the end. Knead for long enough until the dough is soft, smooth and elastic. Place in a lightly floured bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm place to rise until doubled in size (about 1½ hours).

Once risen, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and roll it into a rectangle measuring approximately 40 × 50 cm. Brush with the melted butter, then sprinkle evenly with the sugar mixed with cocoa and cinnamon. Finally, scatter over the grated chocolate. Roll the dough tightly from the shorter side to form a log. Using a sharp knife*, cut into pieces approximately 3–3.5 cm thick (it is easiest to divide the log into 12 equal pieces). Arrange the buns in a 23 × 33 cm baking tin lined with baking paper. They should touch each other as they rise. Cover with a tea towel and leave to rise again for about 30 minutes – they should visibly increase in volume, roughly doubling in size.

Place the risen buns in an oven preheated to 180°C and bake for approximately 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool slightly.

While still slightly warm, drizzle the buns with icing (prepare it according to the recipe below), then decorate with strips of melted chocolate. Tear the buns apart and serve.

Ingredients for the chocolate filling:

• 80 g butter
• 80 g fine brown sugar
• 2 tsp cocoa powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 80 g chocolate (for example, half milk chocolate and half dark chocolate)

Melt the butter and leave to cool slightly. Mix the brown sugar with the cocoa and cinnamon and set aside.

Grate the chocolate into shavings.

Ingredients for the icing:

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 3 tbsp boiling water

Mix the icing sugar with the boiling water to make a smooth icing, using the back of a spoon or a mixer. If necessary, adjust the consistency by adding a little water if it is too thick, or more icing sugar if it is too runny.

Additionally:

• a few squares of dark chocolate

Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie or microwave. Transfer to a disposable piping bag, snip off the tip and pipe diagonal stripes over the buns while they are still in the tin.

Method for bread machine users:

Place all the yeast dough ingredients into the bread machine in the following order: liquid ingredients first, then dry ingredients, and finally the yeast. Select the ‘dough’ programme (kneading and first rise). Once the programme has finished, remove the dough, knead it lightly, and continue according to the main recipe above.

*Another good trick for cutting the log into even pieces is to use a piece of thread. Simply slide it underneath the rolled dough, cross the ends over the top of the log and pull them tight – the thread will cut through the dough without squashing it.

Enjoy!