Baking Against the Season New post Cinnamon snails at 37 degrees

You know what’s always a blast? Cinnamon rolls, whether eaten alone (yummy), together (double-yummy), or shared among workmates and friends (yummy OVER 9000). Everybody seems to like them; and if you’re the exception, please keep it to yourself and pass the box along.

Today Sài Gòn is sunny and hot, the feels-like temperature parked comfortably around ≈37 °C – which, temperature-wise, means cinnamon rolls should really only be served here next to a scoop of vanilla ice cream or something similarly frozen. Even without, they made my day and my mates’ day too, and mine maybe a little more, because as a German I can’t help picturing the weather back there right now: single digits on the thermometer, gray skies, undressed trees and plants, either autumnal gales or easterly winds, and that general, damp, Central European mid-fall unpleasantness that crawls under your jacket in October and doesn’t move out until March. Being far, far away from all of it feels good – smug, even.

The demand didn’t come out of nowhere. Over the past few weeks, several people here had voiced their wish for cinnamon rolls, independently of each other, surprisingly – at least I guess it was independent, unless they secretly got together and founded a cinnamon roll conspiracy behind my back (can’t rule it out). Whatever the trigger, the diagnosis was clear: some people in this office were in desperate need of freshly baked, fluffy, juicy, cinnamon-loaded rolls. So I heard them, I told them their desires were heard, and then – weeks of nothing, until motivation and free time finally showed up on the same evening.

And that evening was half the fun. Stay Forever on the speakers, a German podcast that dissects retro games with the thoroughness other people reserve for tax audits, while I mixed the dough, rolled it out, buttered it, sugared it, cinnamoned it, and rolled the whole thing back up again. And then the smell. Sweet, warm, cinnamonny, drifting through every corner of the apartment until just breathing became a mouth-watering experience on its own; pure coziness, pure pleasure, the closest a tropical apartment ever gets to an Advent Sunday in Bavaria, minus the drizzle.

First time with this recipe, so technically another untested release, just like the carrot cake – except this time I ran exactly one test case: a single roll, still fresh and warm from the oven. And one for my fiancé. Simply unbeaten.

Germans call them Zimtschnecken (cinnamon snails), and honestly, the snail is the better name: it’s exactly what you’re holding the moment you start unspiraling one with sticky fingers.

The next morning, the box had barely crossed the office threshold when big eyes started following my steps – or rather, the box’s steps – and the whisper began. I carried it to the kitchen corner, as usual, where the good soul of our office arranged and displayed the rolls the way she always does and posted a CTA in the workspace chat… well, a call to eat.

Within a few minutes, every single roll was gone (≈28-30 of them, excluding the two test cases) – no joke, you couldn’t even watch fast enough as they vanished one by one into watering mouths and hungry stomachs, to a chorus of YUMMY, AWWW, DELICIOUS, SO GOOD and I NEED ONE MORE, most of it delivered with a full mouth. A few rolls survived long enough to be carried back to individual desks and arranged on a plate next to a cup of coffee like a proper still life, but even their half-life was dramatically short. And the moment I wanted to grab one for myself? All gone. Thank god for the test cases the evening before.

And the feedback? Well, I guess I’m going back to my kitchen for another batch. Or two batches, three, every evening – because now that they’ve licked blood, they keep asking for more, friendly, but with a touch of playful insistence. Not one of my mates, not two, not three, but many of them, in person and through the chat.

Haizzz.

Somewhere between all those batches, the next boss fight is already lined up: Nussschnecken mit Zuckerguss (nut snails with icing, or nut swirls if you insist on English being less fun), exactly the ones sitting in the display case of any average German bakery, and a close cousin of the Nussecken that already made it into this tropical kitchen.

Snail assembly

Makes ≈28-30 rolls, depending on your rolling skills, your cutting skills and your mood.

Ingredients

For the dough

• 220 ml milk, room temperature
• 1 egg
• 600 g wheat flour
• 1 cube fresh yeast (≈42 g)
• 50 g sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 pinch salt
• 100 g unsalted butter, room temperature (in Vietnam, check the label: a lot of the butter here comes pre-sweetened, and sugar is just as wrong here as salt)
• 1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted, for brushing

For the filling

• 75 g unsalted butter, melted
• 100 g sugar
• 2 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground cardamom

Optional, for the fancy branch: 100 g raisins or 100 g chocolate chips mixed into the filling. Raisins are a minefield, though, so I leave them out – here and everywhere else; the basic version doesn’t need either anyway.

For the egg wash

• 1 egg
• 1 pinch sugar
• 1 dash water

For the frosting

• 100 g powdered sugar
• 2-3 tbsp milk

Method

1. Mix the lukewarm milk with the egg in a mixing bowl (room temperature in Sài Gòn takes care of the lukewarm part on its own). Add the flour and crumble the yeast over it.
2. Add the sugar, vanilla extract, salt and butter, and knead everything into a smooth dough with a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook.
3. Cover the dough with a kitchen towel and let it rise somewhere warm, 30 °C at most (in Sài Gòn, the hard part is finding a spot that isn’t warmer), for ≈40 minutes.
4. Knead it again on a floured work surface and roll it out into a rectangle ≈0.5 cm thick and ≈40 × 30 cm wide, then brush it with the melted butter (all measurements by eye, mine included, since there wasn’t a ruler anywhere near my kitchen counter – ahem).
5. For the filling, mix the melted butter well with the sugar, cinnamon and cardamom, and spread it evenly over the dough, leaving ≈1 cm free around the edges.
6. Roll the dough up from the long side and cut the roll into slices ≈1.5 cm thick with a knife – snails, finally.
7. Place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, with a little space between each one, cover them with the towel again and let them rise for another 30 minutes.
8. Meanwhile, whisk the egg with the pinch of sugar and the dash of water, and brush the egg wash over the rolls.
9. Bake at 180 °C top and bottom heat for ≈20 minutes, until golden brown.
10. Stir the powdered sugar and milk into a frosting and brush it over the rolls while they’re still warm.

Snail number two is on its way – slowly, obviously.

Chúc ngon miệng 🐌