Week 48 – 2020

This is another post from the series “I tried something new this week”.

Sunday blues are even more real in lockdown, in late November. Friends and family are far away and the overcast skies make it seem like it’s always 4pm on a winter day. Now more than ever it’s time to bring warm light and winter smells into the flat!

In Sweden the Lussebullar are eaten throughout the Advent. The first Sunday of Advent is today, so we lit the first advent candle and started baking!

We found a recipe online and we adapted it a little bit to what we had in the home so I am going to share it here. The recipe will yield around 30 buns.

Ingredients

Dough:

• 3 x 8g dry yeast sachets
• 6dl milk
• 2 sachets of saffron
• 150g butter
• 2 dl sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 16 dl wheat flour

For spreading on top and garnishing:

• 1 egg
• sultanas

Method:

Add the yeast and saffron to a bowl, with the melted butter and the milk warmed to the body temperature (37°C). Mix together until the yeast is dissolved. Then add the sugar, salt, egg and almost all the flour. Save a little bit of flour for the baking. Mix the dough with a hand mixer and set aside for about 45 minutes.

After that, divide the dough in about 30 small balls, then roll each ball into strands using a bit of flour. The strands should be around 20cm long, enough to be able to roll each end until you make the buns into an S shape.

After letting them sitting for another 20-30 minutes in the tray, spread some beaten egg with a brush and add one sultana in the middle of each side roll. Then bake at 220°C in the middle shelf for 8 minutes.

Tips:

• if the saffron is old and it has changed colour try and add a bit more, the older it gets the less strong it is
• freeze all the buns that you are not planning to eat in the next couple of days, when defrosted in the microwave or oven they taste almost like the fresh ones
• if you like the buns a bit smaller add around 20g of dry yeast instead of 24g. We used 3 sachets but you could spare a half of sachet, ours turned out a bit on the big side. The dough was so fluffy that they almost lost shape.
• if you don’t have a brush for the egg, use kitchen towel, it works pretty well
• if you like them a bit on the sweeter side you can add pearl sugar on top

I hope you enjoy this recipe. Saffron buns make every house smell like a home!