These soft vanilla cream and chocolate morning buns are filled with a delicious vanilla cream and chocolate chips to create a sweet and bitter balance, ideal for a morning breakfast.

Cinnamon or chocolate buns are the most dominant breakfast trend in the buns sphere in the last couple of years. However, even though I’m always down for a cinnamon bun, I’m much more of a cream filled pastry kind of girl. In fact, whenever I go to the bakery to get pastries I always choose those which are filled with a vanilla pastry cream base. Actually, the rich and luscious cream with its smooth texture makes a perfect pastry for me.

My love for vanilla pastry cream

Therefore, I decided to create these morning buns which are filled to the brim with a lush vanilla cream topped with dark bitter chocolate chips. For the dough, I used my go to sweet buns recipe. I have already shared with you previously in my Sticky Cinnamon Morning Buns. This dough is extremely easy to make and is so versatile and effortless to work it.

For the vanilla pastry cream, I follow the traditional way of making it by using full fat milk and eggs thickened with cornstarch. It is one of the first pastry skills I learned to make by heart. You can tell I’m obsessed with it, right? I use this vanilla pastry cream recipe for several other recipes, such as eclairs, cream fruit tarts, Boston cream doughnuts and many more! An important tip, while making this vanilla pastry cream, use a high quality vanilla bean pod. Vanilla is the star here and we have to make sure that it really shines by using high quality beans.

Making these morning buns

Making these buns is exceptionally simple, all you have to do is prepare the dough and the cream in advance. When you are ready to assemble, just roll the dough into a large rectangle, spread the pastry cream on top and drizzle the chocolate chips. Fold the dough lengthways twice, and cut widthways strips. Lastly, twist each strip on itself to create these twisted morning buns. You don’t have to be precise here and it’s fine if some of the vanilla pastry cream pops out of the dough. This is a messy step so relax and have fun twisting these dough strips. Let the buns rest a bit more and bake until you have the golden shiny soft buns.

Enjoy!

The best way to enjoy these buns is a few minutes after taking them out of the oven, when they’re still all warm and fresh, as the cream will be so luscious and the buns will be all so fluffy and cosy. However, you can easily eat these buns at room temperature or even after a couple of days. Although, the cream slightly hardens and gets more absorbed by the dough after it cools down. When you re-heat it, even though you’ll still taste it, the cream might change a bit its’ texture. Whatever way you choose to eat these buns, they’re simply delightful!

Ingredients

For the dough:

370 g bread flour
75 g butter room temperature
1 medium egg + 1 egg (for egg wash)
5 g salt 1 tsp
13 g fresh yeast or 7g active dry yeast
25 g caster sugar
150 ml full fat milk lukewarm

For the Filling

50 g dark chocolate chips

For the Vanilla Pastry Cream

280 ml full fat milk
15 g cornstarch
25 g sugar
2 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla bean paste or seeds from one vanilla pod
Pinch of salt

Instructions

For the Vanilla Pastry Cream

In a small saucepan with the heat turned off, combine together all the pastry cream ingredients. Cook your cream filling on medium heat, stirring continuously until it thickens. It is important to not move away from the cream while cooking as once it thickens you have to remove it from the stove immediately or it will burn. Place the cream into a clean bowl and cover with plastic wrap, making sure that the plastic wrap is touching the cream. Leave it to cool down in the fridge for at least an hour.

For the Dough

If using active dry yeast, in a small bowl mix the sugar and yeast in the lukewarm milk and let the yeast activate for about 15 minutes until foamy. If using fresh yeast, crumble the yeast in the flour before starting mixing the dough.
To a mixer with a dough hook add all the dough ingredients. Mix on a low speed for about 5 minutes, then increase the speed to medium and mix for a further 12 minutes. Until the dough comes away from the bowl. If you are kneading by hand, knead until you get a soft and smooth dough, after about 15 minutes of kneading.
Form the dough into a ball and let it rest in a warm place covered for an hour until it doubles in size.

Assembly

Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Set aside.
On a floured work surface roll the dough into a rectangle, roughly 40 x 30cm.
Spread the pastry cream over the dough and cover it on top with the chocolate chips.
Fold the dough lengthways, by closing the bottom half of the dough first, and then fold the other half on top. Cut widthways into 12 strips about 3 cm each.
Twist each strip a couple of times and roll on itself and tuck the sides underneath. Don’t worry if it is messy, that is how it should be. Place each bun on the prepared baking tray, leaving some space between each one. Cover the baking sheet loosely and let sit for about 30 minutes. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 200°C.
Brush the buns with the egg wash and bake them for about 20 minutes, until golden.
Before transferring the buns to a cooling rack, let rest for about 5 minutes on the baking tray.
Store rolls in an airtight container. These morning buns can be enjoyed at room temperature or slightly warmed up before serving.

If you have any questions, feedback or comments on this recipe, please leave a comment below. Please also rate this recipe by double clicking on the stars below. If you did make this recipe, tag @apronandwhisk and hashtag #apronandwhisk, as I’m curious to see what you create!

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Vanilla cream and chocolate morning buns

My love for vanilla pastry cream

Making these morning buns

Enjoy!