Polish sweet buns with plum butter and cinnamon crumble

These soft, fluffy yeast buns are filled with delicious plum butter and topped with a generous layer of butter and cinnamon crumble. They rise beautifully in the oven, joining together as they bake to make a lovely batch of pull-apart buns. They’re best eaten while still slightly warm, but are just as good the next day. A lovely autumn bake! 🙂

Makes 15 buns.

Ingredients for the yeast dough:

• 540 g strong white bread flour
• 80 g caster sugar
• ¾ tsp salt
• 10 g dried yeast or 20 g fresh yeast
• 80 g butter, melted
• 250 ml milk
• 1 large egg
• 2 egg yolks, from large eggs

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

Once risen, briefly knead the dough again. Divide it into pieces weighing approximately 70 g each. Shape each piece into a ball, then flatten it slightly with a rolling pin. Place one generous, heaped teaspoon of plum butter in the centre, then bring the edges together and pinch firmly to seal. Shape into a neat ball.

Arrange the buns on a baking tray lined with baking paper, leaving small gaps between them (they will join together as they bake). Cover with a tea towel and leave to prove for about 40 minutes, or until doubled in size. Just before baking, brush with the beaten egg and sprinkle generously with the crumble topping.

Bake the risen buns in an oven preheated to 180°C for about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool slightly. You can dust them with icing sugar before serving, if you like.

Ingredients for the filling:

• 300 – 350 g plum butter

Ingredients for the cinnamon crumble:

• 180 g plain flour
• 100 g sugar
• 16 g vanillin sugar
• 125 g butter, melted
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon

Mix the flour with the sugar, vanillin sugar and cinnamon. Pour over the hot melted butter. Stir with a fork until the mixture forms a crumbly topping.

Additionally:

• 1 egg, for brushing

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.

Enjoy!