Festive Spiced Rolls - Iced Cinnamon Swirls

Spicy, fruity bread swirls: easy to make, easy to eat(!) and easy to customise. Delicious for a festive afternoon tea. Read on for the recipe.

The brief: Lure my children to a live-streaming concert of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Keep them there for the whole concert.

Solution? A roaring fire, hot chocolate and festive iced buns. Though, in the interests of absolute honesty, I must say that the bread was so freshly made as to almost miss the concert entirely. We only just managed to scoff them before 'Winter' was over.

My eldest is learning the Vivaldi on her violin so we thought, as parents are apt to do, that we would ruin her weekend by making her listen to a live performance of the same. We even had the audacity to suggest that such beautiful music would benefit all our children.

Since the idea of a lovely family time by the fire was met with the customary sighing and eye-rolling, I resorted to the customary persuasive tactic: bribery. If you make an offer attractive enough, they will be there. And by 'attractive' I do mean sugary.

These rolls would be great for a cosy, grown-up afternoon tea or as festive fireside fare for all the family.

Here's the recipe.

Festive Spiced Rolls - Iced Cinnamon Swirls

I mixed up some of my standard bread dough (this is my go-to bread recipe). You need 500g of flour, in total (I opted for half wholemeal and half plain flour) with a teaspoonful of instant dried yeast, a teaspoonful of salt and 315g water.

To this I also added some mixed spice (about 2 tbsp) and some ground nutmeg (about 2 tsp). You can experiment with flavours here: perhaps you'd like to add cocoa powder, instead, to make chocolatey rolls? Or make them with extra cinnamon. What about stirring in some dried orange peel or orange essence? The possibilities are endless. You do need to create a strong flavour, though, or it will be lost in the cooking. It's no good being subtle with flavoured bread.

The dough needs to rise, as usual, and then comes the fun part.

Divide the dough in half and roll each portion out to a long oblong onto which you will sprinkle your chosen fillings.

This one has cinnamon and sugar.

On the second portion of dough, I created a different filling.

This one has candied peel and crystallised ginger.

Then you gently roll up the dough.

Cut it into sections and place them on a baking tray.

Some of them were more swirly than others.

Leave them to prove for a while. I'd say about half an hour to an hour, until they are springy to touch. Or until you're running out of time and simply Must Bake Them Now.

Bake at about 230^oC for five minutes and then about 200^oC for a further 10-12 minutes, until nicely golden.

They look less photogenic when baked.

But then...

Drizzled with icing, they look much more delicious.

This was just icing sugar, mixed with water. Nothing fancy. But I think it adds something. It certainly makes the rolls more 'attractive' ;o)

So, there you have it. Something delicious for a lazy Sunday afternoon, perhaps?

Let me know if you try them.

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