Craquelin Sweet Buns! With a magical little pocket of melted sugar and vanilla inside...

Sweet yeast breads like cinnamon rolls, babka, brioche, challah are such a popular treat. In my house nothing goes faster than homemade cinnamon rolls or donuts and I am always looking for a new way to make a new snack size version of a sweet roll.

I bumped into a recipe for a Craquelin style roll on the Food52 website. I had never heard of this and the dough itself was just a basic yeasted sweet roll recipe so I decided to use my own sweet yeasted dough instead of theirs (I used the one for my Babka on the blog). The new thing for me though came in the method and what was inside. Before making the dough, you take sugar cubes and basically marinate them in whatever flavors you like. I am big on vanilla, so I used my favorite ingredient in the kitchen lately, vanilla paste, and made sure to coat each sugar cube in vanilla bean paste for a few hours. Letting them marinate is very important.

While the sugar cubes “marinated” I went ahead and made my babka dough. I let the dough sit in the refrigerator for a few hours though so that it was easier to handle. The original recipe on Food52 called for 4oz pieces of dough rolled into balls but I think that is way too big for these rolls so I went with pieces of dough that weighed about 2-2.5 ounces each, 3 ounces would be perfect, especially if you will bake them individually in the mini paper panettone molds like I did. They made for such a cute presentation. Eating each roll was like unwrapping a delicious little gift.

Ingredients for sweet yeast dough:

4 1/4-4 1/2 cups (530 grams) AP flour

1/2 cup (100 grams) white sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons instant or fast acting yeast

3 large eggs

1/2 cup water (room temp is fine and you may need 1-2 tablespoons more if dough is dry)

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup room temp butter

oil for greasing bowl

1 egg for egg wash

Ingredients for the sugar cube filling:

24 sugar cubes

1 tablespoon of vanilla paste

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

small Tupperware or sandwich bag.

First thing you want to do is take the sugar cubes and place them in a little container with a lid or a ziplock with the vanilla paste and extract and shake. You want to let that vanilla sink in for a few hours while you make your dough and let it rise.

Directions for the dough:

To make the dough, combine your dry ingredients with your wet ingredients in a big bowl (or mixer bowl) all at once and mix by hand or dough hook until it comes together. If the dough is too dry add a teaspoon of water at a time until it comes together. It’s ok if it’s a little dry, you don’t want to add too much water and have a sticky mess. If making by hand dump the dough on a lightly floured surface and knead 8-10 minutes until the dough is smooth, adding flour a tiny bit at a time to keep it from sticking. If using a mixer knead on medium speed with a dough hook until the dough pulls away from the bowl adding a little flour as needed, 8 minutes or so. When the dough is smooth put the dough in a greased bowl, cover bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest 4-6 hours in the refrigerator. You want to give the dough time to relax and rise slowly. Once the dough has rested and chilled, lightly flour a clean surface and take the dough out of the bowl and divide into 2-3 ounce pieces, the size is up to you. Roll gently into balls, as the dough warms up it will roll easier but you don’t want warm dough. Let the dough balls rest for 15-20 minutes covered. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and grease individual baking cups or like I used, mini panettone molds, or even cupcake liners lightly sprayed as well. You should get 10-12 3 ounce rolls.

While the dough is resting take the sugar cubes and with a rolling pin gently crush them. You want uneven pieces of vanilla coated sugar cubes, you won’t want them completely crushed.

Now take a ball of dough and flatten lightly in your hand. Take a few pieces of crushed sugar cube (about 1 1/2 cubes per roll) and place in the middle of the ball of dough and wrap the dough around the sugar to enclose fully. Place seam side down in the paper cups or baking molds. Repeat with the rest of the dough. Make an egg wash by whisking one large egg with a teaspoon of water and brush on the rolls gently. There will be some vanilla sugar cube crumbs left over, mix that with more sugar if needed for sprinkling on the rolls over the egg wash and bake the rolls for 20-25 minutes until golden and puffed up. Cool before eating and inside will be a little pocket created by the sugar as it melted and the inside of the roll will be extra sweet and very vanilla. Enjoy!

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