Fat Tuesday

Hello all you lovely people.
Tuesday the 9th of February, is Shrove Tuesday, or Fat Tuesday also known as Mardi Gras. In Swedish we call it Fettisdag (= Fat Tuesday). Historically it's a day where you gorge before the beginning of fasting. But in Sweden it is nowadays mostly celebrated by eating the pastry known as Semla.

A semla is a delicious thing. The flavours are so balanced and go so well together. It really is a masterpiece in my opinion, and I wouldn't change anything about it.

Let me tell you what a semla actually is. It is a yeast-proven dough with cardamom made into buns. Once cooled, the buns are cut at the top, to form something like a lid. The insides of the bun is emptied (not completely, the actual bun is very tasty too, so you ought to leave quite a bit of it). The empty "well" that is created is filled with almond paste. Whipped cream is piped on top of the bun, and then the lid is placed back before dusting it with powdered sugar.

And let me tell you this, a semla really is a sweet piece of heaven.

Semla

INGREDIENTS

• 50 g butter
• 1,5 dl milk
• 25 g yeast
• 1/2 dl sugar
• 1 small egg + extra for egg wash
• 1 teaspoon cardamom
• 2 ml ammonium bicarbonate (can be omitted)
• 5 dl flour

• 200 g almond paste
• 5 dl whipping cream
• 3 teaspoons vanilla sugar
• powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS

Melt the butter and pour in the milk. Add yeast and whisk until dissolved.
Add the sugar and then the egg, whisking while adding them.

Pour in the dry ingredients (cardamom, ammonium bicarbonate and flour). Cover and let prove for 30 minutes.

Roll the dough into round buns (I make this amount of dough into 9 equal sized buns). Cover and let prove again for 1 hour. Turn on your oven to 200°C. Egg wash the buns.
Bake for 8-10 minutes.

Let the buns cool to room temperature. In the meantime mix the almond paste with un-whipped whipping cream until you have a soft, pipeable consistency. Whip the rest of the whipping cream together with the vanilla sugar until soft peaks.

Cut off the top of each bun. I use scissors and cut out a triangular shape. Leave the lid for later use. Empty the middle of the buns, creating little wells. Pipe or pour the soft almond paste into the wells of each bun. Pipe the whipped cream onto the filled buns using a star tip or closed star tip (I use Wilton 2d). Add the lid on top of the piped cream, very gently pushing down a little. Dust the lids with powdered sugar.

Enjoy!

Much love,

Golden Spice

Hello all you lovely people!
Hope you are having a wonderful time these days before Christmas is upon us.
I have been baking all day whilst listening to She & Him's Christmas record, and I thought I'd share the recipe for the traditional Swedish Christmas-time saffron buns called Lussekatter or Lussebullar.

These are delicious with an amazing scent of saffron. They also get a lovely yellow colour from the saffron, and they are mildly sweet. Great to have with a cuppa. They do need to prove for quite some time, so it's not the quickest of bakes, but it's definitely worth it in the end!

Saffron buns

INGREDIENTS

• 5 dl milk
• 50 grams fresh yeast
• 1,5 dl sugar
• 2 grams salt
• 2 grams saffron
• ~14 dl flour
• 100 grams butter
• 1 egg
• Raisins

DIRECTIONS

Heat the milk to 37°C. Solve the yeast in the milk. Add the sugar and then the salt. Solve the saffron in 1 tablespoon warm water, and then add it to the rest. Add the flour and butter in additions. You might not need all of the flour. When the dough isn't super sticky anymore and releases from the bowl you're preparing it in it's saturated for flour.

Cover and let prove for 1 hour, until the dough is twice as big.

Divide the dough into balls of about 60 grams. Roll out the balls to snake-like shapes and then roll them up into S-shaped buns. Put the S-shaped buns on parchment paper and cover and let prove for another hour. Before baking give the buns an egg wash and stick in raisins in the buns, bake at 225°C,  for about 8-10 minutes.

Much love!