Tag Archives: semla

Celebrating Fat Tuesday with Semlor

2017-semlor_2017-5February is traditionally the month I would go from one bakery to another to hunt down the best semlor in town. But since moving abroad that task has been put on hold.

Semlor, also called fettisbullar, is a cardamom bun filled with almond paste and heavy whipped cream. Comfortingly delicious. Traditionally they should be eaten on Fat Tuesday before lent, but Swedes start having them as soon as they finished their Christmas’ ginger cookies and keep enjoying them until it’s time for Easter candy.

From a distance, I have noticed that in the last few years this wonderful almond paste filled cardamom bun has started to come in different varieties and flavors. Sometimes even in different shapes. As much as I love chocolateprincess cake, or licorice I think my favorite always will be the traditional combination of cardamom, almond paste and hand whipped cream.

This year, Fat Tuesday (Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Paczki Day or Pancake Day) falls on Tuesday, February 28. So its time to get the ingredients ready and start baking.
2017-semlor_2017b

Semlor
recipe from Fika: The Art of The Swedish Coffee Break 
by Anna Brones and Johanna Kindvall

makes: about 12 to 16 buns

for the buns
7 tablespoons (3.5 oz, 100 g) unsalted butter
1 cup (240 ml) milk
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 eggs
1/4 cup (1.75 oz, 50 g) sugar
3½ cups (1.12 lb, 495 g) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 to 3 teaspoons whole cardamom seeds, crushed

filling
2 cups (10 oz, 285 g) blanched almonds
¼ cup (1.75 oz, 50 g) sugar
1 teaspoon pure almond extract
½ to 1 cup (120 to 240 ml) milk

to finish
½ to 1 cup (120 to 240 ml) heavy whipped cream
powdered sugar

In a sauce pan, melt the butter and then add in the milk. Heat until the liquid is warm to the touch (about 110ºF/43°C). In a cup, dissolve the yeast in 2 to 3 tablespoons of the warm liquid. Stir and let sit for a few minutes until bubbles form on top.

In a large bowl, whisk together one of the eggs with the sugar. Pour in the butter and milk mixture including the yeast. Stir until well blended.

Mix in the flour, baking powder, salt and cardamom. Work the dough until well combined. Transfer dough to a lightly floured flat surface, and knead until dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. The dough should feel moist so try not to add more flour to the dough (which could result in dry buns).

Place dough in a bowl, cover with a dampened tea towel and let rise at room temperature for 1 hour.

On a flat surface, divide dough into 12 to 16 equal pieces and roll each into individual rounds. Place them with 2 inches (2.5 cm) apart on a greased baking sheet (or line with a silicon baking mat). Cover with a dry tea towel and let rise for 30 to 45 minutes. (To test when they are ready to bake, poke your finger gently into one of the buns; the indent should slowly spring back, about 3 seconds).

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

When you are ready to bake, beat the last egg with a fork and brush each round all over the top. Bake until the tops of the buns are golden brown, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove the buns from the oven and transfer to the counter. Cover with a tea towel and let cool completely.

To make the almond paste, in a food processor grind the almonds until finely ground. Add in the sugar and almond extract and pulse until mixture sticks together.

With a knife, cut a “lid” off the top of each bun. Scoop out a portion of the inside and place the crumbs together with the almond paste in a large bowl. Mix it well together and add as much milk as needed to create a thick and smooth filling.

Fill each bun with the filling, followed by some whipped cream. Top with the “lid” and dust with confectioners’ sugar.

Brew some coffee and serve immediately.

Note: Semlor doesn’t store well, so if you are not planning to eat them all in one go, I suggest you only prepare as many as you need. Freeze the rest of the buns as soon they are cool.

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related links

Whole Wheat Semlor by Anna Brones @ Food52

Polish Paczki (Doughnuts) by Barbara Rolek at Spruce

Mardi Gras recipes in New York Times

22 New Orleans Classics to Celebrate Mardi Gras  – SAVEUR

Semolina Pancakes – kokblog recipe

Paris-Brest
(just because they remind me of semlor)

more Semlor

and

French Crepes
and the La Chandeleur tradition (February 2)
by Clotilde Dusoulier

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Pssst the drawing on the top is available as a print here.

Semlor for Fat Tuesday (guest post)

My second guest to write here on kokblog is Anna Brones who is a Swede (like me) living in Portland, Oregon. Anna is a writer and co-funder of Under Solen Media (New Media Marketing company). We just met on the Internet and immediately started a conversations around Swedish treats such as knäckebröd, gravlax, and the Swedish Fat Tuesday bun called Semla.

Semlor For Fat Tuesday
by Anna Brones

In my family, as with many, food represents tradition. As a child growing up with a smorgasbord – pun intended – of Swedish foods all year round, I found nothing unusual in our repertoire of dining choices. There should always be hard tack in the pantry, pickled herring and aquavit indicate a good party, and open-faced sandwiches are a perfectly acceptable way to start the day. In Sweden, yes. In the U.S., maybe not.

The same goes for seasonal traditions. I can’t have Christmas without meatballs, and I can’t have a winter without a semla.

semla, also known as fastlagsbulle or fettisbulle, is a flour bun filled with almond paste and topped with whipped cream and powdered sugar. Historically the decadent pastry was intended for consumption on fettisdagen, Fat Tuesday. But in modern day, the tradition of semlor has gone far beyond just fettisdagen, allowing for Swedish pastry shops and bakeries to fill their windows with the baked good from just after the New Year all the way through Easter. Several months of pastry bliss.

But tucked into the forest of the Pacific Northwest, we were thousands of miles from a Swedish bakery. And yet, I remember that antsy feeling that would come in the late winter months, as my mother would whip out the baking supplies and create masterpieces of almond paste and whipped cream. I would inevitably end up with powdered sugar on my nose.

And thus tradition was born. If Fat Tuesday comes and goes without having eaten one, something is wrong. But with a food savvy mother, my own food traditions come with high expectations.

So in preparation for fettisdagen this year, I figured it best to make some semlor in advance, fine tuning the recipe and ensuring that come Fat Tuesday, I could successfully produce a baked good that would live up to my own standards.

A misread recipe and a bag of whole wheat flour later, I had a batch of cinnamon rolls and a plate full of mini-sized semlor buns on my hands, small enough to be bite size for a five year old. Failure.

“You used whole wheat flour?”

“Well yeah, you know how guilty I feel about buying regular flour,” I responded to my mother on the phone. Along with food tradition, she has also instilled a continued expectation of stocking my apartment full of healthy food. Things made with white flour and sugar are out of the ordinary.

“Did you even buy whipping cream?”

“Umm… no,” I quietly added. What am I going to do with an entire bowl full of whipping cream by myself? I thought.

“Anna, if you’re going to make something decadent, make something decadent. It has to be a real semla!”

And that is where tradition wins. No need to use organic agave instead of sugar, or switch out unbleached white flour or even attempt to make something that doesn’t use butter and eggs, because when it comes to baking and cooking in the name of tradition, you stick with what works, and you get what you expect: a celebratory moment with a cup of coffee and a semla.

semlor
(20 buns)
400F (200°C)

250 ml (one cup) milk
100 g (3 ½ oz) melted butter
25 g fresh yeast (2 teaspoons dry yeast)
¼ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon cardamom
1 egg
850 ml (3 2/3 cups) flour

1 egg, lightly beaten, for glazing

filling
200g (about 1/2 lb) almond paste
insides of the buns + 200 ml (7/8 cup) milk
100 ml (½ cup) whipped cream

Melt butter and add in milk. Heat until lukewarm. Pour over yeast and let sit for 3 minutes. Add rest of ingredients and work the mixture into dough. Leave dough to rise under cloth for 15 minutes.

Knead dough on floured surface. Separate into two sections, then each section into 10 small balls. Place on greased baking pan and let rise for 20 minutes. Glaze each bun with lightly beaten egg. Bake approximately 15 minutes. Cover the buns with a cloth and cool on a wire rack.

To fill
Cut off a circular “lid” off of each bun and set aside. Scoop out inside of bun with a spoon or fork. Mix in a bowl with almond paste and add milk to make a smooth mixture.

Fill buns with mixture and top with whipping cream. Place lid on top of whipping cream and garnish with powdered sugar.

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You can follow Anna Brones on twitter, @AnnaBrones

More Swedish baked classics

Kanelbullar – Swedish Cinnamon Bun
Pepparkakor – Ginger Bread Cookies (at EcoSalon)
Lussebullar – Saffron Buns
Mazariner – Guest post by Anna Brones