While on Fat Tuesday, some dance and others dress in costumes; in Sweden we eat buns; in fact, 4 million Semlas will be consumed in Sweden today.
We usually visit a bakery for ours, but, this year, I flipped tradition on it’s head and created mini semla cake pops. I think these pasties are already such sweet treats to look at, shrinking them feels natural to me; but, I realize that sizing these traditional Swedish buns down and popping them onto cake pop sticks fully exposes me for the ex-pat that I am but, I promise the taste is 100% Sweden!
Jump with us for more…
Semla Recipe:
Makes 32 Mini Semlor
1 T Cardamon1 1 /4 Cups Milk — 3 Deciliters Milk | 300 grams |
50 grams Yeast
3/4 Cup Sugar — 1 1/2 Deciliter | 150 grams
1/2 teaspoon Salt
3/4 Cup butter — 150 g | 1.5 Deciliter
Egg — 1
4 3/4 – 5 Cups flour — 11-12 Deciliter Flour | 1100 gramsFilling:1 3/4 Almond Paste | 400 g
Dash of cream
3 1/4 Cups
Whipping Cream | 8dl | 800 grams
Egg for wash
Powered Sugar
Topping:
32 Cake Pop Sticks or Popsicle Sticks
Whipped Cream
Nutella, optoinal.
Crush Cardamon with pestle and mortar. Add spice to milk that has been heated to room temperature. In a separate bowl, place yeast. Mix the yeast with the slightly warm milk, sugar, salt, butter and egg. Add the flour and combine. Knead lightly. Set dough in bowl. Cover. Let rise until double which will be approximately 45-60 minutes. When you are ready to bake, make small balls (2 inches) on a lightly dusted surface and place each bun on a baking sheet. Beat egg with the water and brush the tops of the buns.
Bake at 375 F / 180 C approximately 20 minutes, until golden brown.
Remove from pan and cool.
Assembly:
Prepare almond filling. To do so, in a small bowl, whip the almond paste with a small dash amount of cream. and the whipped cream: Set aside when well combined.
Slice off the top of the bun. Loosen a little of the center interior of the bun and remove so that you have a little nest for the almond paste. Place a small piece of marzipan into this place.
(The marzipan that we used was a 3/4″ wide circle) Top with whipped cream and cover with the top of the bun that had been removed.
When ready to serve, dust with powdered sugar.
Gently slide the small semla into the cake pop stick. These can be too messy if over filled so keeping the bun size and gentling filling is optimal.
Serve immediately.
Happy Semla Day!
I baked the buns ahead of time, but, these are a really fun baking project for kids. Perfect for kids, in fact. These are very simple to bake and fun to assemble.
For a party or just for everyday festivity, like we did today, I pulled out the buns with all of their fillings for everyone to assemble their own perfect semla. Some like lots of cream, others like none and one modern lady in the house, added a dollop of Nutella!
Served at a party, semla propped on cake pop sticks are super festive and fun Scandinavian bites! The key to serving these up, as cake pops is to make keep the bun size very small. Ours were no more than 2 inches wide and then, dare to hold bake when adding the fillings. A little filling will go along way and make a delicious bite with room to have just one more.
