Our sense of smell has a unique power to stir memory and feeling. Baking this spelt cinnamon bun cake proved that in the most delicious way: the aroma filled the kitchen and sent my senses into happy overdrive.
The Road Less Travelled.
When writing about food it’s tempting to fall back on familiar adjectives — simple, rich, tasty, easy, quick. I try to avoid clichés and find fresher ways to describe flavour and texture. That requires close attention to the food itself and a willingness to connect with it on a sensory level.
Spelt deserves particular care. It’s a gentler grain than modern wheat and often needs adjustments in recipes written for wheat flour. Treating spelt with patience and respect brings out its nutty character and yields much better results than simply swapping flours in a standard recipe.
Follow the Scent.
Real estate agents often recommend baking bread or making coffee to give a home a welcoming scent. I have a better trick: roast a few green coffee beans on the stove, then bake this spelt cinnamon bun cake. As it bakes, your home will be filled with warm, comforting aromas of spice and butter that draw people in.
I tested this recipe carefully to ensure the measurements and timings work well with spelt. This blog aims to build a reliable collection of spelt and ancient grain recipes, and I take pride in adapting techniques so they suit the flour’s temperament rather than forcing spelt to behave like modern wheat.
At the start of the recipe, milk is warmed with butter and spices. If using cow’s milk, warming breaks down certain proteins that can interfere with gluten development and reduce rise. Beyond that functional role, the spiced milk carries and enhances flavour throughout the dough.
An Olfactory Journey.
Warming the milk with butter, cardamom and cinnamon is the first scent that announces this bake. The melted butter and spices create a heady mix so tempting I had to resist tasting it straight from the pan. As the mixture cooled it continued to tease the senses.
After the first rise, lifting the damp towel revealed a rounded, slightly swollen ball of dough carrying gentle notes of yeast and spice. Shaping it, spreading the filling and rolling the dough intensified those aromas — sugar and butter releasing their scent and promising a tender, fragrant crumb.
When the cake bakes, prepare to be distracted. The smell will drift through the house and coax family and friends into the kitchen. Once it’s out of the oven it’s best enjoyed at room temperature so the crumb sets and the flavours settle, though the temptation to tear a warm piece straight away is very real.
Spelt Cinnamon Bun Cake
By Gavin Wren
Makes 7
Uses 23cm springform cake tin. Wooden spoon. Large mixing bowl. Small saucepan. Bench scraper.
Ingredients
Spiced milk:
225ml soy milk
100g butter
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
0.5 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Dough:
225g wholemeal spelt
225g white spelt (plus extra for dusting)
100g golden caster sugar
0.25 teaspoon salt
7g fast acting dried yeast
1 egg, beaten
Filling:
50g very soft butter
75g dark brown soft sugar
0.5 teaspoon ground cinnamon
0.25 teaspoon salt
Glaze:
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons demerara sugar
Directions
Warm the milk in a small saucepan with the butter, cardamom and cinnamon. Remove from the heat just before it boils and leave to cool to body temperature. If you need to speed this up, sit the saucepan in a bowl of cold water.
Sift the dry dough ingredients into a large bowl, add the beaten egg and stir. Pour in the cooled spiced milk and mix with a spoon.
The dough will be sticky. This is normal and expected for spelt — persevere rather than trying to make it perfectly dry.
Turn the dough onto a floured work surface, dust lightly with flour and knead gently. Use a bench scraper to gather it back into a ball. Add small amounts of flour as needed until it forms a cohesive, slightly tacky ball (I used about 30g during this step).
Lightly dust your mixing bowl, place the dough inside, cover with a damp tea towel and leave in a warm place (around 25ºC) for one hour.
Grease a 23cm round springform tin with butter.
Turn the dough onto a floured surface, knead briefly three times, then roll out to roughly A4 size with square-ish corners.
Spread the filling: first the very soft butter, then sprinkle the cinnamon and dark brown sugar, covering the surface and reaching the corners. Roll the dough up from the long edge into a log and slice into seven even pieces. Place the largest piece in the centre of the tin and arrange the others evenly around it.
Cover with a damp tea towel and let rise in your warm spot for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven: start at a high temperature so the bake springs up when it goes in (see oven note below).
Remove the towel, brush the top with beaten egg (you won’t need all of it) and sprinkle the demerara sugar.
Place the tin in the oven, immediately reduce the temperature and bake in stages: 10 minutes at a higher temperature, then lower for a further 15 minutes. Check by tapping the bottom of the tin — it should sound hollow. If unsure, give it an extra five minutes.
Cool on a rack, remove the outer ring of the tin if possible, then tear off a chunk and enjoy the warm, spiced aroma.
Oven temperatures used: Start at gas mark 9 / 246ºC (226ºC fan) then reduce to gas mark 7 / 218ºC (198ºC fan) after placing in oven; finish at gas mark 4 / 177ºC (157ºC fan).
