Semla, the Creamy Story of the Perfect Bun

There are so many wonderful reasons to love Sweden and all things Swedish. But I feel that if you want to capture in a nutshell WHY you should indulge in a bit of amore Suecia it has to be in the little tradition we call fettisdagen and semla.
How many countries do you know that urges you to stuff yourself full of yummy cream buns, all in the name of tradition? And basically as often and as much as you want around this period in time?

The official fettisdagen (Fat Tuesday) is calculated according to ol’ Christian calendar tradition and this bun-eating extravaganza takes place the day before the start of a particular fast, which falls in February or March. In true hedonistic self-indulgent style, we dropped the tedious idea of the fast but kept up with the devouring of delicious cream buns. How appropriate!
So at this time of the year in Sweden there will be whipped cream-filled buns tempting you at every bakery, cafe and home. Many people bake their own, invite some friends and family for a bun-fest in the afternoon. Then the very next day you just roll into a bakery and pick another one to go with your coffee. ‘Tis the time, no questions asked, no guilt being placed upon your bun-munching self. There is no holding back, the nation is urging you, ‘keep eating these buns, you are part of living tradition’!

I have found an outlet in Sydney for my semla crave, Cafe Svensson makes some fantastic ones! But most of the time I happily bake them at home to wild delight of la familia. It’s an annual winner that put you in the good baking books for months, perhaps even years.

Here’s how you whip some up yourself.

Ingredients:
To make a dozen Swedish semlor, you will need:
• 25g of fresh yeast (or dry yeast if you can’t find fresh)
• 75g of margarine or butter
• 200ml of milk
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• Half a teaspoon of cardamom
• 500ml of sugar
• 700ml of plain flour
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
For the filling and topping, you will also need:
• Roughly grated almond paste
• Whipping cream
• Milk
• Icing sugar
How to make a semla:
• First, melt the butter or margarine in a saucepan, add the milk and heat until lukewarm.
• Crumble the yeast into a bowl, and add some of the liquid to dissolve the yeast. If you use dry yeast, follow instructions on the back of package.
• Add the remaining liquid, plus the salt, cardamom, 1 egg, sugar and 600ml of the flour.
• Work the mixture together into a dough.
• Cover with a cloth and leave the dough to rise for around 30 minutes.
• Mix together and work into a dough, a kitchen-machine makes this easy.
• Mix together the baking powder and remaining flour and work into the dough. Knead the dough until it becomes smooth.
• Separate dough into maximum 12 round balls.
• Lightly grease some baking sheets, put the buns onto the sheets and allow them to rise for 35-40 minutes.
• Beat the other egg and use a brush to glaze the tops of the buns.
• Heat the oven to 250 degrees C and bake the semlor in the middle for 10 minutes.
• Cover the buns with a cloth and allow to cool on a wire rack.
• Before eating your semlor:
• Cut a circular “lid” off the top of each bun. Use a spoon to scoop out the inside of the bun.
• Mix together the grated almond paste with the inside of the bun, add milk to make a smooth mixture and use this mixture to fill the hole.
• Whip the cream and spoon the cream on top of the bun filling.
Replace the lid of the bun and decorate with icing sugar.

Recipe courtesy of communityofsweden.com

The Mother of all Swedish mothers

In these celebratory times of the female ability to reproduce and mother a little critter or two, let’s not hold back in praising these uber-women. Let’s join the gush-party of all mothers and their significance to each and every living homo sapien skipping around this blue-green globe. And let’s, for the hell of it, lift the Swedish mother up above all others for a paragraph or two.

A Swedish mother is like no other. Not only does she work up to, and including, the actual day of giving birth. Not only does she hang around at home until contractions are 10 seconds apart before driving to the hospital, after the popping out, she has a cup of tea, with a bit of toast, before packing her belongings and driving back home within 12 hours of giving birth. With the waving hospital staff quickly disappearing in the rearview mirror. And she’s most likely to cook dinner for the family that very evening. A trooper in plain anglais.

A Swedish mother is also a bit of a unisex mother; she’s capable of most things. Breastfeeding? Sure. Changing a car tire? No problems. Homemade Christmas cards? You bet. Pruning the fruit trees? Goes without saying. You would be hard pressed to find something the Swedish mother isn’t capable of. And this includes pole dancing and yodeling. She is a regular domestic goddess, on top of pulling her weight in the workforce. Further, a Swedish mother can still catch public transport with her child. I know, crazy but true!

Also, a Swedish mother isn’t too precious. Following a fairly no-fuss delivery, she goes on to treat her child with respect and care, but is in general rather matter-of-fact about the whole mothering deal. For example, even though it’s minus 24 degrees Celsius, you will see lots of little babies sleeping rugged up in their prams outside, while the mothers are sitting inside drinking hot chocolate. Why? It’s the attitude that ‘fresh air never hurt anyone’. And guess what, it’s true. A Swedish mother also trust her motherly instinct that a sore throat and a temperature does not need the blessing of a doctor and treated with antibiotics. And yet these children survive. Unheard-of approach in many countries.


So hail to all Swedish mothers and all other mothers out there! Don’t despair though if you haven’t been blessed with a Swedish mother. You can always pick up a surrogate Swedish mother and buy her a present for Mother’s Day; she’ll love you for it. Or buy your non-Swedish mother something Swedish, it might rub off!

And in regards to presents, please spend a lot. We are worth it. If you have a little voice inside you saying, ‘it’s the thought that counts’, don’t listen. Spend big, go that extra mile. Tie yourself in a knot, bend over backwards, shower your mum with presents and flowers because she will LOVE IT.

White cabbage is the new rocket

Who invented the Swedish pizza salad?

Who ever it was, their image should be immortalised in a white cabbage sculpture.
Pizza salad is for the visit to a Swedish pizzeria like soy sauce is to a Japanese meal – a must. And on top of it, one could interpret this glorious delicacy as a culinary expression of Swedish socialism because the pizza salad is FREE. Amazing. Or not.
The pizza salad is made by one of the cheapest vegetables there is, white cabbage. It’s a vegetable that in general isn’t going down in history as the most sensual or exotic piece of nature. While asparagus could trigger erotic ideas and the lure of phallic horizons, white cabbage draws a blank. Or, for the breastfeeding masses out there, white cabbage could, at a stretch, trigger ideas about soothing breasts riddled with the agonies of mastitis. Therefore, the likelihood of asparagus and white cabbage ending up on the same plate is not very big.

To create this delicacy, the cabbage is sliced thinly and then doused in oil, vinegar, salt, pepper and if you’re lucky, a spot of pickled capsicum. Does this sound pretty lame? Just hang in there. The salad gets better the older it gets. A bit like a nice wine. It needs time. Just not too much time because then your Grange Hermitage of pizza salads turn into bad cabbage. And you don’t want to eat that, trust me.

In Sweden, it doesn’t matter how fantastic the actual pizza is, and how cheap it is, if you don’t get offered your free pizza salad, the likeliness of a return visit to that particular pizzeria is close to zero. Sounds strange, but then again, we can be kind of strange people. So when my craving for a good ol’ pizza salad to go with my Kebab pizza gets the better of me I head to Sven’s Viking Pizza in Bondi Junction. So good is his salad AND his pizzas that the Italian Association of Pizza Makers in Australia is looking for a way to close him down. Not bad for a guy with a viking helmet. Go Sven!

Why do we need a Swede?

Why do we need a Swede? They are pretty handy to have.
Just ask the Balkans. Or the Iraquis. Or the UN. When you need someone to drop in for some peace negotiations, or look for weapons of mass destruction, and you are really scraping the barrel for objective choices, searching high and low for people out there without too many stains on their national reputation. Or stains on their intern’s dress.
There is an answer. Go safe, go Swede.

A couple of favorite political pin-up boys to stir into the pot of dealing with messy situations around the globe are Carl Bildt and Hans Blix. Both did what they could with various results. Still, no damage was done to the reputation of the Swede.
Slick and smooth is all I can.