OK. It’s Cinnamon Bun Day’s Eve. In Sweden tomorrow, all sorts of people will be celebrating the little round wonders that are cinnamon buns.

I love cinnamon anyway, so last year I had a little cinnamon Danish all by myself to celebrate; this year in my pursuit of all things hyggelig, I am determined to force cinnamon buns on all my family.

If I were in London, I’d be well away for authentic Scandi choices, as this article on 12 Delicious Nordic Cafes in London from Buzzfeed shows. I could get lost just looking at all the instagram-worthy pictures on here. But (despite never having been there) I have one cafe above all others that I am desperate to visit;

Scandinavian Kitchen, at 61 Great Titchfield Street, is on my Must Do list for my next London trip on the 12th November this year. I have no idea of the etiquette of visiting a hero’s shrine. Do I walk and and go, “Hello, I’m Angel Kneale from How to Hygge the British Way and I’m obsessed with your Fika and Hygge cookbook. You’re part of the reason I’m living hyggely this year. Can I have a salmon Smørrebrød, please?”

Or should I act cool and Danish and just order and sit and take surreptitious photos of the beetroot salad and the cool coffee that I had to have, and the decor? I know the second is classic London, where nothing impresses nobody any more, but I am so not a Londoner. I was born with a thick stripe of puppy dog enthusiasm running down my centre. Break me open and , like Blackpool rock, it reads “Really Happy All the Time”.

I’d want to be saying hello to the staff, to be telling them I’ve got the book and it’s brilliant (and it is) and that I’ve saved up specially to come and that this is a big treat for me because lunch alone is a totally out of the ordinary affair, and lunch alone in a London Cafe a once (or twice) a year thing and that their cafe, out of all the cafes in London this year, is the place that I HAD to go to because this year I AM DANGLISH and desperate to mix with other Nordicophiles or Scandiphiles and yes, please, can I visit the deli and I’ll have this fish thing and this salted liquorice and this liquorice chocolate and a BIG bag of daims…..

But that’s for November, and I’m sure by the time November comes I will have calmed down a little. Today my issue is that tomorrow is Kanelbuller’s Dag and I want to make my own buns this year.

According to the internet sources I found, Cinnamon Bun Day was established by the Home Baking Council in 1999, in honour of their 40th anniversary. They’re now run by Dansukker, but the festival goes on. According to Wikipedia, the Swedish bun contains cardamon as well as cinnamon, giving it a distinctive taste, while The Local.se says that they are far less sticky than the American equivalent. “Nowadays cinnamon rolls can be found around the world, but in Sweden they’ve got that extra something – a touch of Scandinavian simplicity,” the article reads,  and interviewing the project manager at the Home Baking Council  they quote her as saying, ” ‘We’re experts at fika,’ Birgit Nilsson Bergström said with a laugh. ‘Our Swedish cinnamon rolls are simpler, more every-day, and yet tastier. They have less fat, less sugar… They’re more plain, but still festive for us, and very Swedish.’ ”

I’ve got my cinnamon, I’ve got my cardamon, I’ve got the recipe carefully copied from Scandinavian Kitchen’s website, How to Make Cinnamon Buns, I have set the time aside tonight for the rising, kneading and anything else it needs and i will probably bake tonight so that, as we sit down with our coffee after dinner, we can start the celebration of my hyggely year early.

Articles and webpages used in this post;

Wikipedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnamon_roll

The Local.se; Cinnamon Bun day; What’s it all about?

Buzzfeed; 12 Delicious Nordic Cafes in London