Fat Tuesday - let's celebrate it the Swedish way!

In Italy everybody is celebrating carnival and people are getting ready to dress up and be someone else for a day. Streets are full of merry people and the bakery stores are ready to sell the typical pastries like frittelle and chiacchere.

Here in Sweden there no such thing as carnival but I don't care, this is the perfect time to eat a semla, and the Swedes do it like there's no tomorrow.

The semla is a cinnamon bun which has been filled with almond paste and
whipped cream. You can find this bun with different variation in the
Scandinavian countries, Finland and Baltic.

This bun is associated to the period that precedes Easter, lent, and in particular the fat Tuesday. That's why the bun can also be called fettisdagsbulle (fat Tuesday bun).

After the fat Tuesday, the ritual fasting begins (the 40 days before Easter). In the past, on fat Tuesday people should eat richer, fatty food before the ritual fasting. That can explain why the day got that name.

It seems that the semla arrived from Germany and Denmark in 1600. Then it spread in the south of Sweden, since at that time it was part of Denmark. At the beginning the bun was without almond paste and cream but it wasn't something accessible to everybody. Rumor has it that, in 1771, the king of Sweden Adolf Fredrik, addicted to the taste of the semla, died after he ate 14 pieces of them.

The famous fat Tuesday has arrived and the pastry store and cafes are already selling these little sugar bombs.

Like every year I'm waiting impatiently this period only to buy one (or more) semla and eat it together with a good coffee.

For you, my dear reader, I thought I could share the recipe to bake the semla, since I'm pretty sure you won't find it where you live.

Let me know if you bake it yourself!

Preparation:

-  Combine the milk and the melted butter.

-  Add to the mix the crumbled yeast.

-  Add the rest of the ingredients: egg, sugar, salt, flour and cardamom.

-  Put the dough under cover for 30 min.

- Preheat the oven at 250 C.

-  Punch down dough and turn it out onto a floured surface. Then form ten balls, put them on pan and let them under a canvas for about 20 min.

-  Using a pastry brush, coat the top of the buns with the egg wash and put them in the oven for 10 min.

-  For the filling: cut the bun in two (not in half, just remove the "hat" of the bun).

-  Grate the almond paste and mix it with the milk. Then fill in the bun with it.

- Add some whipped cream on the bun then cover with "hat".

- Powder the buns with some sugar.

In Sweden Semla is served with a good cup of coffee but I would like to
taste it with a glass of dessert wine like Moscato d'Asti!