Mallorcan Ensaimadas

This wonderful recipe comes from Majorca Spain, very similar to the cinnamon bun you would think but it's far from that. These sweet little coils are crunchy on the outside and soft in the inside. You may want to double up on the recipe, mine were cleared of the table before my oven even went back to normal temperature. The traditional recipe doesn't include vanilla but my vanilla bean twist on these Spanish buns gave them I would say 10 EXTRA points in flavor. Brushing with water is a MUST

Ingredients
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons yeast
6 tablespoons lukewark milk
1 egg
2 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (optional)
1/4 cup butter, melted
confectioners sugar for dusting (vanilla sugar recipe follows)
water for brushing

Directions
sift the flour, salt, and sugar in a large bowl. Set aside. In a seperate bowl beat your egg, oil, and vanilla. Set aside. In a small bowl or in your stand mixer mix the yeast with the milk and allow it to sit for 5 minutes. Add a few tablespoons of flour to the yeast mixture and beat until a smooth batter is formed. Set the mix aside for 5 more minutes. After 5 minutes whisk the egg mixture into the rested yeast batter until smooth. Slowly add the flour until a smooth dough is formed. Make sure to kneed the dough for a few minutes for better results. Place the dough on a lightly oiled bowl cover with plastic and let rise, in a warm place, for 1hr or until doubled in size.

Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Punch down and cut into 8 to 16 equal size pieces (Use a knife to cut). Shape each piece into a thin rope about 15 inches long. Dip each rope into the melted butter on the baking sheet, curl each rope into a spiral, spacing each roll well apart. Tuck the ends under to seal. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for about 45 minutes or until doubled in size.

Meanwhile preheat your oven to 375* F. Brush the rolls with water and dust with powder sugar. Bake for 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool slightly on a wire rack and dust again with powder sugar. Serve warm....