How to make Princess Hat Cinnamon Swirls

Try making this fun, girly twist on the regular cinnamon swirl, with these cinnamon swirl princess hats! Medieval maiden hat inspired, they look like Rapunzel princess hats. These are perfect to make for a girl baby shower, if you are looking for sleepover or slumber party snacks or party foods ideas, plus are just right for a princess themed girl's birthday party. They are super fast and easy to make too, and can be ready to ice in around 20 mins. 

Fast and easy, these make great last minute party food or party desserts ideas to impress guests of all ages - plus could be the cutest thing to make with little ones. You could even decorate these with your little helpers - they could have so much fun designing these princess hats! 

You will need 

• A couple of mixing bowls

• A piping bag

• A sheet of ready to use rolled puff pastry

• Cinnamon swirl filling (you could even experiment with a nutella or strawberry filling as a fun alternative twist!)

• Ready to use pipeable buttercream or cream cheese frosting in any colour/s  

• Edible wafer paper sheets (similar to edible candy money) 

• Food safe scissors

• A sprinkle of edible silver stars to finish (optional) 

For our cinnamon swirl filling, we used

• 1tsp ground cinnamon

• 55g brown sugar

• 2 tbsp caster sugar

• 40g melted butter

 

Pop the oven on and preheat to around 180c or 350f, or follow the instructions for your ready made pastry - then whip up your go-to cinnamon roll or cinnamon swirl filling and prepare your pastry, just as if you were making regular cinnamon swirls. Ready rolled pastry is great to use if you are short on time and need to whip these up fast for your party or event! 

Spread the cinnamon swirl filling over the pastry, just like how you would when making regular cinnamon swirls. 

Then roll the pastry up from left to right until you have a long pastry log.

Then slice into quite slim sections, with each one measuring around 3cm or so. 

Now take one section and completely unravel it. At this time, to keep the other sections nice and pliable, we popped them on to a plate and covered with clingfilm, whilst we worked on each, one at a time. 

What we're aiming to create with each one is a Christmas tree shape, by taking your long unravellled strip of cinnamon dough and folding a section inwards, to form the base and then go from there, piling the folds on top of each other, folding the strip of cinnamon dough in a concertina motion, as like the picture. As we fold, try to make the folds each a little narrower as you go, so that the base dough strips are longer and each fold grows slightly shorter from there. 

Don't worry if you have to unravel and start again, it can be tricky to manoever each layer so that it gets gradually narrower towards the top! Each doesn't have to be perfect, just to follow the general shape. 

This photo illustrates the process and the final shape we are trying to achieve - keep experimenting with folding in a concertina motion - fold each one back on itself, then again and again - until you have something that resembles a Christmas tree. Repeat this process with all of the slices, so that all appear in Christmas tree shape. 

Here are some of our finished hats! Now pop them on to a baking tray or baking sheet and spread them out - we recommend placing about 4-7 on a baking tray, depending on the size of your tray, but just so they won't come into contact whilst they grow in the oven. They may tend to grow taller - if you can, leave as much space as possible above them so they can grow upwards!

To bake, lower the oven to about 160c or 320f and set a timer for 12 minutes - ours needed a couple extra minutes more - or abide by the regular instructions for your puff pastry recipe.

While they are baking, whip up or ready your frosting in your desired colour - or even make batches in different colours! Buttercream or cream cheese frosting will work perfectly here. 

Keep checking on your hats - they will be ready when nice and golden but may need a careful eye! When baked, leave them to cool on their tray for about 5-10mins, then carefully use a spatula or similar tool to ease each one from the tray and place it on a cooling plate, rack or similar. Then allow them to cool as much as possible, so that they will be nice and ready to ice. 

While you wait for them to cool, use a pair of food safe or clean scissors to cut out, clip and shape the edible wafer ribbons for your hats aka turn them from pink Christmas trees in to princess hats! 

To make these ribbons, cut your wafer paper into strips that are roughly the same height of your hats, then carefully trim each into a tapered shape, with one end pointy and the other end being the thickest point. Then at the thicker end, cut out a triangle to create an angled ribbon end effect. Do the same for each one so they roughly resemble the same shape (you could make slightly more than you need, then just select the best ones!) 

These will need to be all ready in time for icing the hats, as when the frosting sets, this will keep them in place. 

Using icing/frosting of a pipeable consistency, ice them in a 'Christmas tree' squiggley motion, roughly following the shape of the pastry folds. We then finished the hats with a light sprinkling of edible silver glitter stars, making them party ready. 

Now we're ready to attach the ribbons to the hats, by gently pressing the pointy end of each wafer ribbon on to the top of each princess hat, slightly at an angle, to make it look so that the ribbon is trailing from the top of the hat. 

These look adorable on a party table all arranged together! You could deck them out in different colours - we love the idea of alternating pink and lilac princess hats! 

We hope you love and enjoy! Thanks so much for reading!