Elisabeth Toll shares her classic Lent recipe for cardamom buns.
Shrove Tuesday marks 47 days until Easter and the beginning of Lent. “In Sweden, this day is celebrated with the first semla of the year,” Elisabeth Toll tells Family Style. These cardamom buns, filled with marzipan and topped with whipped cream, are traditionally served with hot milk and cinnamon. Bakeries and coffee shops overflow with semlor, with taste tests often published in daily papers. The authentic recipe, shared by the Stockholm and Paris-based photographer, is free from canned whipped cream or new lemon-flavored hybrids. For many Swedes, sticking to tradition is what makes enjoying this festive delight so special.
Ingredients
Buns
- 3 ounces of butter
- 1 ½ cups of milk
- ¼ cups of sugar
- A little bit of salt
- 2 teaspoons of crushed cardamom seeds
- 1 ounce of yeast
- 2 eggs
- 4 cups of white flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons of baking soda
Filling
- 1 cup of almonds
- 1 cup of sugar
- ⅔ cups of cream
- 2 ½ cups of whipped cream
- Icing sugar
Instructions
- Melt the butter
- Pour the milk into saucepan until the mixture is lukewarm.
- Add sugar, salt and cardamom.
- Add yeast and stir until melted.
- In a separate bowl, mix the flour and baking soda.
- Remove mixture from heat and add one egg and dry ingredients.
- Work it into a nice dough and let it grow under a towel for 40 minutes.
- Cut into 10 slices and shape slices into balls.
- Place balls on a baking sheet covered with paper and let them grow for 30 minutes.
- In a small separate bowl, whip the second egg.
- Glaze the balls with the whipped egg and bake them at 437 degrees for 8 minutes.
- Let the buns cool down under a towel.
- Grind the almonds and mix the powder with sugar and cream.
- Cut a lid of each bun and save it on the side, dig out the inside of the bun and mix the crumbs with the almond filling until evenly blended.
- Put the mix back into the hollow buns.
- On top of the filling, add the whipped cream, and on top of that the lid (cut into a triangle for a fancy touch, if not keep the original shape).
- Eat as it is or in a bowl with hot milk and some sugar and cinnamon on top.