Not-so-slow snail (bread)

COCONUT SAFFRON SNAIL BREAD 

These buns started out with a recipe for Sweet Saffron Bread from Dan Lepard's The Handmade Loaf. Besides saffron, the bread also contains currants and is formed into an "S" shape.

The loaf starts off with a sponge made with some of the flour, water and a little yeast, and then all the rest of the ingredients are added. I also mixed some boiling water with saffron as it would be added later.

After the sponge and saffron water were prepared, I took a look inside Tom Jaine's Making Bread At Home which has a recipe for Guatemalan Sweet Buns. This bread also starts off with a sponge before the final dough is mixed. No saffron or currants, but the buns are flavoured with aniseed and they contain a little more sugar than Dan Lepard's saffron bread. What I found interesting was the addition of coconut milk.

Both recipes looked awfully good, so what else could I do but combine the two!

I decided on rolls because they're easier to eat and I don't have to do any slicing before eating. (I'm lazy that way.) Instead of aniseed, I used cardamom.

The Guatemalan buns are coiled into a snail shape, or ensaïmada in Spanish, also the name for a famed sweet bread snack which is said to have originated from the island of Mallorca/Majorca, although there are versions in many other Spanish-speaking countries.

The dough was soft but easy to work with, the golden yellow was beautiful and I could smell the coconut milk, cardamom and vanilla in it. After it baked, however, none of the aromas were distinctive any more. But the buns were fluffy and I liked that little bit of sweetness in them. I used half the dough for cinnamon buns.

This has been submitted to YeastSpotting.

Make cinnamon rolls with the same dough

Sweet Coconut-Saffron Snail Bread
Makes 9 large rolls

Sponge

100g all-purpose flour

¼ tsp instant yeast

100g milk

Final dough

Pinch of saffron threads (about ½ tsp)

¾ tbsp boiling water

250g bread flour

25g sugar

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp cardamom powder

60g butter, divided

150g coconut milk

⅛ tsp vanilla extract
Snow or icing sugar

Mix the sponge ingredients in a bowl, cover and set aside for 1 hour.

Place the saffron threads in a small bowl and pour in the boiling water. Set aside for 10 minutes.

In a large bowl, stir the bread flour, sugar, salt and cardamom powder together. Rub in half the butter until well incorporated.

Hold back about 2 tbsp of coconut milk and stir the rest into the saffron solution with the vanilla extract. Add to the sponge and blend well. Stir this mixture into the dry ingredients until it all comes together into a rough dough. If there are dry spots, add the extra coconut milk. Cover the bowl and set aside for 10 minutes.

Stretch and fold the dough over itself a few times in the bowl and form into a ball; it should be soft but not sticky. Cover the bowl.

Do the stretching and folding three more times over an hour, forming the dough into a ball each time. Then cover the bowl and leave the dough to double in size, 1-1½ hours.

Melt the remaining butter. Place in a shallow bowl and cool.

Coiling the ropes into 'snail shells'

Divide the dough into nine even pieces and roll each one into a rope about 35cm long. Dip the whole length of the rope in the melted butter (or brush the butter on). Lay one end of the rope on a baking tray and coil it into a spiral, tucking the other end underneath. The middle section will be slightly higher than the edges. Do the same with the other pieces. Cover and set aside for about 20 minutes until slightly risen.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180°C. Bake the rolls until the tops are golden, 20-25 minutes.

Remove from oven and cool for five minutes, then dredge heavily with snow or icing sugar.