Sweet Turkish coffee cardamom buns

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Comfort. I love comfort. My wardrobe full of elastic waistband pants is proof of that. No joke. I am an expert on comfort. All my pants have super stretchy elastic waistbands that expand and contract with me as I overeat or undereat, depending on my mood. My pants are very comfy, but probably not really cool. I glanced through my closet the other day in dismay. When did my entire wardrobe become a comfort-wear-only zone. Anything that is tight, form-fitting, snug, or remotely sexy is pushed to the back or tucked in a very bottom drawer, completely out of sight. If it's a top or a dress that hugs my curves ever so slightly, it gets rejected. My clothes are mostly loose and flowy, some items might fall into the "shapeless" category. I feel like my love of comfort-wear may have debuted when I started binge-watching Netflix instead of reading books. I'm quite certain the two are related. And the two combined are probably to blame for me being trapped in singledom. Sigh.

Comfort is... well, comfort is comforting. Comfort soothes and makes me feel safe. Comfort has me sticking to my schedule and has me following a weekly schedule that almost never changes. Comfort has me in a routine, a routine that I don't like to deviate from. This applies to work as well as life. There are definitely pros and cons to comfort. Isn't it so easy to be comfortable, to stay put, to not change a thing, to hide inside while others live their lives, to repetitively do the same things over and over? I watch others progress and move forward to new and exciting projects, travelling, getting married, having kids, moving around. Sure, with anything exciting and new, not every moment is "up". But while they move on, I stay here in the "comfort zone". I keep to my routine of bed to desk/kitchen to gym to couch to bed. That's my daily routine at least 5 or 6 days a week. It's extremely safe. Ask me to deviate, and I find myself grimacing and/or hesitating. Deviation requires thought. Do I feel up for it? Am I motivated enough? Is this activity going to be difficult? Is it going to be very social and demanding of my attention at a time when I feel like I have less and less of it to give?

The same goes for this blog. Comfort has me sticking to the same style of pictures: an overhead, horizontal shot with a bit of empty space where I can fit text—I need a picture like that for the opening of every blog post. The rest of the shots are usually vertical. Add a fork and a napkin to give the shot some life. Take a bite or a forkful from the plate. Tear the bread. Slice the cake. That's a wrap. Suivant next! Over and over again. Did I just blog about cookies? Well, I guess I can make a cake next. I've already posted 3 cakes this year? Then, it's time for bread. It's not always planned, but I don't veer off too far. None of it is easy, honestly, but most of it is very routine. Every recipe involves me calculating ratios and drowning myself in a spreadsheet. We all know how much I love ratios and spreadsheets. It's all very safe and very comfortable, like my stretchy pants and shapeless tops. But at same time, sometimes I think I end up watching others advance, from my comfortable seat surrounded by a barrier that is comfort, as though I'm watching longingly from behind a glass window as everybody plays outside. At a certain point, the comfort zone leads to that awful feeling of being left out. I make excuses like I can't because I don't have a partner or a husband to hold my hand or even just to hold the camera while I attempt something new. That's w hat friends and tripods are for. I make a lot of excuses.

For months (probably years, to be honest), I've watched other bloggers post about their kanelbullar adventures, yielding the most beautiful swirly twirly bread bun knots, with photos worthy of magazine covers, I swear. I watched, but I didn't even bother attempting. I mean, come on! Swirly twirly buns that are seemingly more complicated to make than a cinnamon bun? As if! But then, last week, after making these cocoa coffee cookies and inspired by the book Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert (available on Amazon), I decided to step out of my comfort zone and face the swirly twirly kanelbullar bread buns. And while making them, I figured I'd put together a story of the entire process on Snapchat AND I decided to film myself swirling the bread dough to knot it into a shape like the kanelbullar buns that I had been ogling for years. I even shared a video on Instagram the day I made these, on top of everything else I attempted that day. I decided to take a plunge and just try. I gave it my all. Not bad for the girl wearing stretchy pants who seems perpetually stuck in the "comfort zone" of life.

Of course, when I was working on this recipe, I made a spreadsheet as usual. I had to do something that was familiar and comforting that day! And then, I just went for it. I took snaps every step of the way to show how to make a dough in the mixer, to show what it looked like, to illustrate every step of the process. I even talked while recording. It was obviously very awkward. I'm not sure it really sounded like me. My accent sounds far more Canadian on Snapchat than I think it is in real life. I also realized I'm rather monotonous when I record myself talking. I shared it all anyways, boring Canadian voice and all. And when it was all done, I felt extremely proud and accomplished, like I wasn't going to be the girl behind the window watching the world go by from the safety of her comfort zone. I decided that everything I'm attempting is good practice. Practice for what? I don't know yet. It doesn't even matter why. I still made a video and I'm sharing it here. That's the point. To step out of the comfort zone, to try a new recipe, a new technique, to face the challenge of something different and unfamiliar.

I love lightly spiced breads, like this no-knead cinnamon raisin bread. But sometimes it's nice to change things up a bit. This recipe for kanelbullar (or maybe these are more like Scandinavian knutar buns flavoured with cardamom?) is different than all the sweet knotted cinnamon (and cardamom) bun recipes that I found on the interweb. I have a spreadsheet to prove it. I came up with a formula that I ended up having to adjust with a bit more flour than I expected before coming to this final recipe. The Scandinavians like to flavour their buns with lots of cardamom, which brought me to the conclusion that with a little coffee added to it all, we'd have Turkish coffee buns. Sweet Turkish coffee is my favourite, a strong coffee with lots of cardamom. Turkish coffee was the inspiration for this recipe: I had a hunch that transforming a traditional Scandinavian cardamom bun into a Turkish coffee bun would work out well, and this recipe actually turned out better than I expected! I survived (with 12 gorgeous buns to show for all my efforts) to face another challenge of stepping out of my comfort zone and trying something new.

Turkish coffee buns

📖 Recipe