Semlor

Happy Pancake Day, guys!

Now, as amazing as pancakes are, I felt the need to mix it up a bit this year. Other countries have their own traditions on this most holy carbohydrate-loading day, so I decided to copy the Swedes and make my Swedish boyfriend’s favourite pastry EVER.

Semla (plural, semlor) are these little sweet cardamom spiced buns, with the top cut off allowing it to be filled with an almond mixture and topped with whipped cream, before placing the lid back on. 

They are understated and decadent. There is no “triple chocolate fudge” element, but they still pack a flavourful and rich punch. To prove they are no joke, when I was doing some reading around these, I read that King Adolf Frederick of Sweden died in the 1700s by topping off a decadent meal with fourteen of the early version of these buns.

Full disclosure, I don’t eat cream because it is weird to me, so I don’t really chow down on these bad boys often. I feel like I should clarify one of my above statements, they are my boyfriend’s favourite FOOD ever. So he isn’t totally crying that I’m not pinching any of his precious semlor.

Makes approx 24 medium sized semlor

Adapted from Swedish Cakes and Cookies

Ingredients for the buns

• 100g butter
• 300ml milk
• 2 tbsp active dried yeast
• 0.5 tsp salt
• 80ml (1/3 cup) sugar
• 1 egg
• Crushed seeds from 3 cardamom pods
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 4 cups plain flour
• Beaten egg, for brushing

Ingredients for the filling

• 75g ground almonds
• Inner crumbs from the buns
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla sugar
• 80ml milk

Ingredients to garnish

• 200ml whipping cream, whipped
• Icing sugar, to sprinkle over

Method

Melt the butter in a small pan and add in the milk, heat to 115 Fahrenheit/45 degrees Celsius. I always find that I overshoot this, so I hold back about 50ml of milk to cool it down quicker.

Add the yeast to a large bowl and add in the salt, sugar, milk/butter mixture and egg. Mix well.

Grind the cardamom. 

In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and ground cardamom. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix to combine, kneading until smooth and elastic.

Cover with cling and let rise for 30 minutes in a warm place, or until doubled in size.

Not risen

Risen!

Punch down the dough, add a little flour and knead again until smooth and elastic. I normally do this by folding a quarter of the dough in on itself as below, spinning 90 degrees after each fold to allow everything to be properly kneaded and involved.

Punch down

Fold in a quarter

Spin 90 degrees and fold down again. Repeat

Form into similar sized balls, and place on trays prepared with greaseproof paper.

Cover with a clean tea towel and allow to rise until doubled, as before.

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius

Brush with some beaten egg.

Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden on top. Then let cool on a rack.

When fully cooled, cut the tops off the buns.

Scoop out the insides and place these crumbs in a bowl.

One down, a million to go

Phew, done!

The inside crumbs

When all the buns have been scooped, add the sugar, vanilla sugar and almonds to them and mix. Then add in the milk to make a paste.

Whip the cream.

I tend to make them in some kind of an assembly line style. Get the buns with their tops off (oo-er), place a tbsp of almond/crumb mix inside, a tbsp of cream and put the lid on again. Repeat a million times (or so it feels like). Sprinkle with icing sugar to finish.

Lids off

Filling in-situ

Lids and icing sugar