Recipe for Semlor (Scandinavian Cream Buns for Shrove Tuesday)

Ahh, go on:  it’s only Fat Tuesday once a year, eh? 

Every year on Shrove Tuesday, we gorge ourselves on cardamom buns stuffed with whipped cream and marzipan.  Some people eat them as they are, some like to put them in a bowl and pour warm milk on top and eat them with a spoon.

However, you eat yours, we recommend you allow yourself at least one of these before Lent.  They are worth the experience, even if you have no intention of denying yourself anything in the forty days thereafter.

Makes 20 buns

The buns

50 g fresh yeast (1 packet)

175 g butter

500 ml whole milk

140g caster sugar

3 tsp ground cardamom

1 tsp salt

900g-1000g of plain bread flour (ideally with high protein content)

Filling

200 g mandelmassa (50% almond, 50% sugar – less can also be used if you cannot get hold of this good quality stuff)

200 ml ‘marsan’ or a good quality crème patisserie (ready bought is fine)

300 ml whipping cream

1 egg, for brushing

Icing sugar, to dust

• Melt the butter and leave to cool.
• Warm the milk to between 37-42 degrees Celsius (optimal degrees when using fresh yeast).  Add the yeast and milk into a bowl and mix until yeast has dissolved.  Add the melted butter.
• Add sugar, salt, cardamom to the mixture, then start to work in the flour.  As with all yeast baking:  never add the flour all at once.  Add and mix until you have a firm, but sticky, dough.  If you add too much flour, the buns will be dry and they will not rise properly.  
• Once you reach a firm but still sticky consistency, keep kneading/mixing for about 10 minutes (ideally with a mixer, dough hook attached, for best result), then leave the dough to rest until doubled in size (30 minutes).
• Once the dough has risen, add enough flour to give you a workable smooth dough, then cut into 20 equal sized pieces and roll to smooth into buns.  Please on a baking tray, cover with a damp tea-towel and let rise for at least a further 30 minutes, ideally longer.  Again, they should double in size.
• Brush the buns with egg, then bake in a hot oven (210-220 degrees) for about 10 minutes.
• Remove from oven and onto a baking rack.  Cover the buns with a tea towel to prevent them from drying out while they cool down.

To assemble the Semla bun:

Cut the top off the bun, about 2 cm from the top.  Reserve the lids.  Hollow out about 1/3 of the bun and place the “inside bits” into a bowl.    To this bowl, add 200g gram of Mandelmassa and a good 200 ml a good ready-made high quality crème patisserie.  Mix really well into a paste then fill each of the semla holes with the mixture. 

Whip the cream to a firm consistency then pipe it all around the top – and place the “lid” gently back on the cake.  Dust with icing sugar.  Serve.  Close your eyes, enjoy, and do not think about calories.   

TIP:  Some people prefer a more “airy” bun.  You can add a teaspoon of baking powder to the flour before you mix it in if you want the buns to feel less heavy.

You can get the recipe here in PDF format  Download 1201 Semlor