Christmas Swirls

I wanted to come up with something a little different this Christmas for family and friends and decided to blend cinnamon swirls and mince pies to make the ultimate Christmas treat. These buns smell incredible right from the start and taste even better. Ideal as a home-made gift, they are surprisingly easy to make. I spiced both the dough and the filling for the perfect festive flavour.

Ingredients:
Dough:
800g strong white flour
7g fast action yeast
1/2 tsp salt
100g caster sugar
500ml milk - I use soy
150g butter - I use dairy-free
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp cinnamon

Filling:
4 tbsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground cloves
2 tsp ground nutmeg
75g butter
75g caster sugar
10 tbsp mince meat

Method:
Place the milk and butter in a pan over a low heat and melt together until the milk is warm to the touch but not boiling. Place all the other ingredients dough ingredients into a large bowl keeping the salt and yeast apart. Pour over the melted butter and milk mixture and stir with a spatula until the dry and wet ingredients come together.

Turn the dough out onto a well floured surface and kneed for around 10 minutes until the dough is soft and pliable, feeling like the lobe of your ear! Place the dough to one side to rest.

Mash together remaining sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves in a small bowl.

Take a large piece of baking parchment and lightly flour. Roll out the dough to around 50cm long, 25cm wide and 1cm thick. Spread the butter and sugar mixture evenly over the dough taking it right to the edges. I use my hands as it warms the butter and helps prevent the dough from tearing. Spread a thin layer of the mincemeat over the top.

Carefully roll the dough from the long edge, taking care to tuck the rolls over for a firm and neat swirl. Once a neat roll has been formed, take a sharp knife and cut the roll into 20 evenly sized pieces. Place these on a couple of lightly floured baking sheets and pop in a warm place to prove for at least 20 minutes.

Once the swirls have proved, placed in a preheated oven at 200c for 15 minutes until golden brown and springy to the touch.

Place on cooling racks with kitchen roll underneath to catch any melting sugar drips and leave to set.

When you make these, please take a picture and tag me using #diaryofadefectivehousewife

Enjoy!