The Nutella Semla

Hello all you lovely people,

Last year on a day just like this, I claimed that it was no ordinary day. And I'm here to say that is the case this year as well!

It's World Nutella Day!!

*confetti and balloons*

I've also mentioned before how February is a yummy month, because it's got the Nutella day, Valentine's Day (obviously you eat something sweet on Vday) and Fat Tuesday where we eat Semla in Sweden.

This year I decided to combine two yummies in one!
I present to you -- the Nutella Semla!

It is basically a Semla-bun filled with Nutella instead of almond paste and dusted with cocoa powder instead of powdered sugar.

For the Semla-bun check out my recipe from last year here from the post Fat Tuesday.

The Nutella Semla

INGREDIENTS

• Everything needed for the Semla-buns minus the almondpaste and powdered sugar
• 1 jar of Nutella
• Cocoa powder

DIRECTIONS

We'll start from where the buns are out of the oven and cooled.

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. Spoon in as much Nutella as you can fit inside of the wells.

Whip the whipping cream with vanilla sugar until soft peaks and pipe it onto the filled buns using a star tip (I use Wilton 1M). Add the lid on top of the piped cream, very gently pushing down a little. Dust the lids with cocoa powder.

I hope you all have a fantastic Nutella day!
Please let me know if you make these yummy little pastries!

Much love,

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!

Christmas sweets

Hello lovely people!
It's that time of year...

I love this time of year so much. There's excitement in the air, people think about each other and the love is graspable.

I love the preparation for Christmas as much as I love Christmas itself. I find so much joy in shopping for presents, wrapping them up, decorating and above all else Christmas baking and sweets making!

Today I want to share with you one of my favourite sweets to make for Christmas. It is the traditional knäck, which is a Swedish toffee popular around this time of year. It's a very simple recipe that is so delicious!

Knäck translates to "break", probably because of its breakable consistency (I prefer it to be a bit softer though...). It can be made with three ingredients and it's an easy recipe to remember as you have as much of each ingredient. Traditionally there's little pieces of almond in knäck, however I like my knäck to be smooth and almond-free, but if you're a fan of almond you can just add that. In Sweden we pour the knäck into waxed paper cups that we just call knäck-cups, so maybe go for the smallest mini-cupcake cups you can find. The smaller the better as they really are no bigger than a coin.

Knäck

INGREDIENTS

• 2 dl sugar
• 2 dl golden syrup
• 2 dl heavy cream

DIRECTIONS

Put all the ingredients in a saucepan and stir on heat until the sugar has melted. Then let it simmer. How long you let it simmer affects the end consistency you'll get. If you want it to be soft and chewy (the way I like it) let it simmer until it reached the hard ball stage. The stage is defined by pouring a little of it into a glass of cold water, if it can be rolled into a ball then it is done. Easier than that test is to just let it simmer until it reaches 124°C, but not everyone has got a jam thermometer. Continue to simmer if you want the knäck to be harder.

Much love!

Chocolatey kind of day

Today, the 7th of November, is a special day in Sweden. It is one of my favourite days, it is - Kladdkakans dag!

Kladdkaka literally translates to "sticky cake", but I have taken it upon myself to translate the kladdkaka to "Sticky Chocolate Cake", which I feel describes what it is a little more in detail. There is no actual chocolate in the cake, but cocoa powder, and it really is one of the simplest bakes ever!

The kladdkaka was the first cake I ever made on my own without the help of an adult when I wasn't even a teenager. It's that simple. And for something so easy to bake it really tastes amazing. The rich cocoa flavour and stickyness of it really hits the spot!

You traditionally serve it with whipped cream and it is just heaven in a slice.

Sticky Chocolate Cake

INGREDIENTS

• 100 grams butter, melted
• 2 eggs
• 225 grams sugar
• 105 grams flour
• 35 gram cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 ml baking powder

DIRECTIONS

Heat your oven to 175°C. Mix the melted butter with the eggs and sugar. In a separate bowl mix all the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Pour into a 20 cm baking pan. Bake for about 18 minutes.

Much love!