Nigella Lawson's Chocolate-Almond Whirligig Buns

Sometimes - do you know those mornings? - all you want is a truly trashy breakfast. No ascetic shreds of wheat in a bowl with thin, blue milk, no virtuous globes of fruit cut up into a stern puddle of white yogurt, no hard-boiled egg eaten, hurriedly, on the way to the train. Some mornings, the ones when you wake up languidly, stretching like a cat, with sun streaming through the blinds and a blissful sense of purposelessness enveloping you, the perfect breakfast is puffy and sweet, threaded with butter and sugar and pockets of melting chocolate, and best eaten on the couch. Absolutely no balance is needed when you're starting the day off with something like that, well, other than a cup of something hot and steaming.

Ben was still asleep on Sunday morning when I snuck into the kitchen. Doing my best not to wake him with my kitchen clangings, I stealthily shook flour into a bowl, heated milk and butter on the stove, and came to a screeching halt when I read, then re-read, Nigella's amounts of instant yeast. Three packets? As in Three Entire Packets? As in 6 and three-quarter teaspoons of instant yeast? I went online in an attempt to figure out if this was a misprint, then found my answer in Nigella's How to Be a Domestic Goddess on my bookshelf: yes, she really does mean three whole packets, which will seem like a positively obscene amount of yeast, but just go with it, it'll be fine, I promise. Because what you'll end up with will be a riotous tangle of fragrant dough baking up into burnished perfection just in time for when your sweetheart shuffles into the kitchen, eyes growing wider by the second when he spies what awaits him on the kitchen counter.

(And remember, folks, instant yeast is also known as bread-machine yeast or rapid-rise yeast. It's not the same as active dry yeast, which needs to be proofed in liquid before being added to the flour. Instant yeast goes directly into the dry ingredients.)

So, yes, the dough - it was easy-peasy. It comes together in a matter of seconds, then all you have to do is knead it to a smooth, elastic state. This takes a few minutes, if you're doing it by hand, but on a lazy Sunday morning, there's no better way to ease your way into wakefulness. And, while I didn't exactly miss baking with yeast during the summer, there's no better way to welcome our cooler temperatures than by slapping around a yielding piece of dough. The dough, buoyed by the ridiculous quantity of yeast, practically exploded out of the bowl - billowing puffily upwards with what looked like almost unrestrained glee.

I punched down the dough, spread it with a paste of sugar and butter, scattered chopped almonds (in place of the splintered pistachios called for in the original recipe) and fat chocolate chips over the dough, then rolled it up into a plump, nay, corpulent sausage of doughy, sweet goodness. Nigella also has you roll one reserved piece of dough into a rectangle to form the bottom of the rolls, but I'm not exactly sure why. If you make these, I'd suggest skipping this step. After another quick rise, the pan went into the oven and the dough practically shot skywards, growing and twisting and glowing in the heat of the oven.

The recipe says to bake the buns at 450 degrees Fahrenheit, but after only 20 minutes, that bottom rectangle was scorched into a flat, black plank. So, my suggestion to those of you itching to make these right now is to bake the buns at 400, without that bottom sheet of dough, for 25-30 minutes. Keep an eye on them, maybe they'll have to go for a few minutes longer, but something tells me that will be just right.

Oh, you're meant to wait until these puppies have cooled a bit before tearing them apart and eating them, but to that I just say good luck. The scent of them baking will wake up even the deepest sleeper in your house and, before you know it, pleading eyes and beseeching hands will push your careful self aside to reach for the hot pan. In a blink, you'll be on the couch, popping sweet, plump strands of fluffy dough studded with chocolate chips and crispy almonds into your mouth, thinking it was sensible indeed to throw caution to the wind. Who cares about burned mouths when there are more buns to be eaten?

Chocolate-Almond Whirligig Buns
Makes 20-30 buns

Dough
5 to 5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup superfine sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 packets instant yeast (6 3/4 teaspoons)
7 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 2/3 cup milk
2 large eggs
Vegetable oil

Filling
8 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon superfine sugar
3/4 cup slivered or sliced almonds
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 large egg, beaten

1. To prepare the dough, combine 5 cups of flour, sugar, salt and yeast. In a small saucepan, combine butter and milk and heat to lukewarm. Beat the eggs lightly, then whisk them into the milk mixture. Sitr the liquid ingredients into the dry ones.

2. Using a mixer with a dough hook, or by hand, knead dough until smooth and springy, adding more flour if necessary. Form into a ball and place in a clean, oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until double in size, about 30 minutes.

3. Punch down dough. Line a 13 x 10-inch baking pan with parchment paper. On a floured surface, roll out one-third of the dough and place in pan (I skipped this step and think you should, too). Roll out remaining dough to a rectangle about 20 to 10 inches.

4. For the filling, mix together the butter and sugar to a paste. Spread the paste over large rectangle of dough. Sprinkle almonds evenly over the dough, then top with chocolate chips. Starting from longest side, carefully roll up dough so it looks like a long sausage. Cut dough into 20 slices, about 3/4 inch thick, and arrange with a cut side up on top of the dough in the pan.

5. Preheat oven to 400 degrees (original recipe says 450). Brush buns with beaten egg and let them sit in a warm place until puffed up and snugly fitting pan, about 15-20 minutes. Bake until buns have risen and are golden-brown, about 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from baking pan to cool on a rack. Serve warm.

Comments

[mary]

Yikes, three packets of yeast? That must be what gets the doubling time down to 30 minutes, which would solve my longtime problem of how to start and finish some kind of yeasted cinnamon (or chocolate almond) roll in the space of a morning. They look so good. Did they taste particularly yeasty?

[RA]

As much as I am not a fan of Nigella at all, these look amazing. I was so curious at what that billowy bowl of dough in your Flickr stream led to! Yum.

[Carmen]

Oh! What a perfect way to spend a lazy September Sunday morning! The smell must have been divine! And when will we be treated with kitchen pictures?

[radish]

Three whole packets??? Holy crap - Nigella means business. The pictures look heavenly, and I suspect the buns tasted just as heavenly if not more so.

[Mercedes]

Oh, Luisa, they're just gorgeous! Perhaps it's our sudden snap of chilly weather, but I, too, have been thinking about warm indulgent breakfasts. At first I was dreaming of buttermilk biscuits and then it was cinnamon buns (and now I love your fanciful whirligig swirls). I would totally burn my tongue for those!

[Molly]

I love, love, love this post. And the thought of those whirligig buns...

[Su-Lin]

These look insanely indulgent! I love the idea of chocolate and almonds better than the usual cinnamon buns. Thanks for posting the recipe!

[lolobstersquad]

wow. I´m more likely to stumble out and buy churros from the churrería down the street, but they don´t open sundays, so maybe this is in order.

[s'kat]

We're finally seeing cooler temps, too, and this would be such a lovely way to greet a slowly lightening Sunday morning.

Oh, and 'whirligig buns'? I am so cat-calling my husband that tonight!

[Honeybee]

Yum, yum, yum. There's nothing than some freshly baked goodie for breakfast. I sometimes make the dough in the evening and let it rise in the refrigerator overnight. But I've never used three packets of yeast in this case. God knows what might happen...

[Tammy]

Trashy breakfasts are good for the soul.

My grandmother has an old Italian recipe for crescia that calls for a HALF POUND of fresh yeast. The recipe makes five loaves of cheese bread, but still. I was sure she was wrong, but it turns out she wasn't. I guess cheese is heavy lifting.

[ann]

I can never make this. Never. Why you ask? Because I lack self control around baked goods of the spiraled bun variety. If Isaac didn't stop me, I'd eat the whole damn tray. So I must now forget you ever posted about these. Damn you Luisa!

[Andrea]

Did you see this article about how difficult Nigella's recipes are to follow opposed to those of her male counterparts?? Oh, yes.. there was a governemnt study on it in England. I think it's nonsense, personally.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=481052&in_page_id=1879

[Luisa]

Mary - you know, they didn't! I was worried about the same thing, though... but they were delicious. And so so so easy.

RA - I know that her baking recipes have a lot of people frustrated... this one is a winner.

Carmen - oh dear! I owe you them, don't I... :)

Radish - ha, that was my reaction exactly. She doesn't mess around, even if three packets is taking the easy way out.

Mercedes - cinnamon buns! Molly's photostream on flickr has had me craving them, too.

Molly - thanks, sweets. Hope you're feeling better enough for your own cozy, trashy breakfast soon!

Su-Lin - yes, these are a nice change, though cinnamon buns sound pretty good these days, too. Something tells me that this recipe with cinnamon sugar would be pretty delicious, too.

Ximena - you're killing me with those churros - can you believe that the last few times I was in Spain I NEVER had any? Sob.

S'kat - ha! :)

Honeybee - your yeast might eat your refrigerator in one fell swoop....

Tammy - holy cow, that is a seriously large amount of yeast. Yum, did you ever make it yourself?

Ann - your comment made me giggle. But you won't know that, because you're not rereading this post. No way. Get lost! :)

Andrea - it sounds a bit nonsensical, but thanks for sending. I'll have to go check with Gemma, my upstairs neighbor and expert on all things British...

[Tammy]

I did make the crescia recipe and it came out just the way hers does: perfect. Go figure.

[Leah]

I have to tell you - lately I've been going through a bit of a rough patch with some serious heartbreak. But something about this post made me feel hopeful and misty in all the right ways, for all the right things that I know are out there. I'm glad you're so happy in your chocolate & almond-scented home with Ben in Queens!

[holley]

I am SO making these on Christmas morning - thanks! :-)

[Tea]

I made these for our family Easter brunch (because on Easter it's okay to have chocolate for breakfast:-), and they were the hit of the day. I sent the leftovers home with guests (who actually requested them), as I didn't want to see what might happen with me alone in a house with half a pan of whirligig buns; it wouldn't be pretty!

Also, my nieces helped sprinkle the almonds and chocolate on and roll it up into a "snake." They had a blast with it. Good kid cooking project. Thanks.