Semlor

Yesterday it was Fat Tuesday or as it is known in French: Mardi Gras. Here in Sweden the ultimate treat on Fat Tuesday is semla, a sweet cardamom bread roll, filled with almond paste and cream. It is supposed that you eat a semla on Fat Tuesday and every Tuesday until Easter. It is so delicious, even King Adolf Frederick of Sweden died after consuming too many in the 1700's.

Every year before Fat Tuesday, bakeries, cafes and supermarkets are filled with semlor, but I couldn't resist making my own. Try it and you will not be disappointed. Accompany it with a cup of hot coffee or tea, or you can eat it like in the old times in a hetvägg, that is in a plate with hot milk around it. You will enjoy it any way you eat it.

So, here is the recipe I used:

February 2014 Daring bakers challenge: Beautiful breads: Cherry jam and almond paste bread

Beauty surrounded the Daring Bakers this month as our host, Sawsan, of chef in disguise, challenged us to make beautiful, filled breads. Who knew breads could look as great as they taste?

Well, this challenge was surely challenging for me as I hadn't tried this before. I am pleased with the result even though I know it is not perfect. But, if you saw how it looked before I put it in the oven and the mess around it in the kitchen, you wouldn't believe it would look like that after it was baked. So, no complaints here. The taste of the bread was very nice although it felt a little dense for me, so I think it needs the sweetened condensed milk that is suggested on the original recipe and I did not use. Overall, I would make this again and experiment with more recipes and different fillings and of course try to master the shapes. The recipe I used was the recipe given at the challenge with a different filling and very small adjustments.

January 2014 Daring Bakers challenge: Baumkuchen

The January 2014 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Francijn of "Koken in de Brouwerij". She challenged us all to bake layered cakes in the tradition of Baumkuchen (tree cake) and Schichttorte (layered cake).

This was an interesting challenge. I hadn't heard of this cake before, so, it was nice to try something different and unknown. What was more interesting is the baking technique. You start baking one layer of the cake and then you add one layer at a time and bake it and when you cut the finished cake you can see the different layers. They look kind of the lines that you see inside a trunk and that is why it is called Baumkuchen (tree cake). You normally do that on broiler and because I don't have in my oven I was a bit worried that I will end up with a half-burnt cake but in the end it turned out perfect. The consistency and the taste were both amazing. I used the given recipe with some small changes and I loved how soft the cake turned out and I liked that it has marzipan since I love almonds. Here is the recipe then:

Almond paste, orange and chocolate buns & cinnamon buns (kanelbullar)

Here in Sweden, bullar (sweet buns) are the most usual company for coffee. It is a sweet yeast bread with usually, an intense cardamom aroma. There are a lot of different kinds of bullar. The classic one is kanelbulla, the cinnamon bun that you can find everywhere. Of course the homemade version is always the tastiest. This time,except the classic cinnamon buns I made a successful experiment with almond paste, orange and chocolate filling that it has now become one of my favorites. For the dough I used a recipe that I found behind a flour package.