Semla

 

 

 

What I love about having met all these amazing online friends is that it’s given me the opportunity to learn about different places, and to travel to countries I normally maybe wouldn’t have ended up in. Before I met Jessie I never would’ve thought I’d be spending so much time in Sweden, but almost four years (and about six? Seven? trips there) later, here we are.

I really like Sweden. Jess is there, for starters, but it’s also the European home of the moose, and if I’m lucky I get to see some snow (I wasn’t very lucky in that regard this trip around. Hopefully next time!) Semla is also a big reason why I love going to Sweden so much. This tasty treat, sadly enough, isn’t always available . It’s a traditional fettisdagen (mardi gras) treat so it’s usually available in and around February. This year “Fat Tuesday” is March 4th so you still have time to whip up some semla for yourself!

It’s made up out of bread-like buns (made with flour, a little bit of sugar, butter, milk, yeast and flavored beautifully with cardamon.) The insides have a marzipan/almond filling and then it’s topped off with whipped cream. 100% delicious. I found a great recipe, and a beautiful instructions video, on the call me cupcake blog, here. (Seriously, how gorgeous is that video?!)

 

 

I used cardamon pods for my semla instead of the pre-ground stuff, you can use both.
I heated the shells with my milk/butter on the fire to infuse it, and I ground the insides of the pods before adding them to my dough.

 

I weighed the dough 55 grams/semla, so they were pretty small. This gave me 13 buns.

 

An egg wash makes them shiny and golden.

I had a lot of leftover marzipan filling,  and I ate it all with a spoon.
No regrets, it was delicious.

Just looking at these and remembering how yummy they were is making me happy!
I hope you all have a great weekend.

Tags: baking, fettisdagen, food, mardi gras, pastry, semla, semlor, sweden