On a recent, free, covid-inspired bake along by Zoom, we baked these special, Swedish buns to get ready for lent. They are delicious with home made marzipan and lashings of whipping cream. Add a smear of jam if you would like to.
Semlor – Shrove Tuesday cream buns
This recipe was given to me by Signe Johansen and I have adapted it only very slightly. For people who think they hate marzipan, I implore you to try this home made variety. If you like almonds, you will like this.
Equipment
- scale, spoons, bowls, baking tray, piping bag if you want to be fancy
Ingredients
- 500 g Plain white wheat flour
- 2.5 g Instant yeast or 5g dry yeast or 10g fresh yeast
- 300 g Whole milk Heated to boiling point and cooled right down
- 75 g Caster sugar
- 1.5 tsp Ground cardamon
- 10 g Fine sea salt
- 50 g Butter
Glaze
- 1 Egg beaten with 1 tsp of water and a pinch each of salt and sugar
Filling
- Marzipan see the recipe for home made marzipan and cut it in half
- Whipping cream sweetened with a bit of sugar
- Jam
- Icing sugar
Instructions
- Measure the flour into a bowl and make a well. Sprinkle in the yeast and 1 tablespoon of the sugar, and pour over the cool milk. Flick some flour over the well to close it and cover the bowl. Leave it to rest for one hour.
- After an hour, the yeast should be all foamy. At that point, all of the rest of the dough ingredients and knead well by hand or machine for 10 minutes.
- Cover the bowl and let it rest for 2-4 hours until the dough has doubled in size. Alternatively, pop it in the fridge and let it sit over night.
- Pull the dough out of the bowl, divide it into 12 pieces and roll each piece into a tight ball.
- Place the balls, about 2 cm apart, on a baking tray that is lined with baking parchment. Cover and let rise for an hour if they are warm or 2 hours if they are cool from the fridge. They will double in size.
- Preheat the oven to 220 degrees.
- Mix together the ingredients for the glaze.
- Glaze each bun and then pop them in the oven. Bake them for 15-20 minutes (check after 15 so they don’t get too brown – if they are getting too brown, cover them with some parchment paper.
- Let them cool completely on a wire rack and then cut them in half across the bun, anywhere from 3/4 to 9/10 of the way up the bun. Spread the bottom half with a smear of jam if you would like that and then a layer of marzipan. If you want the buns to look fancy, pipe on some whipped cream, or just blob it on with a spoon. Put the hat back on the bun and dust with icing sugar. I dare you to only eat one.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!