Swedish Bun “Semla” with Almond Filling and Whipped Cream

Semla in Sweden is more than just a bun and its popularity in this country cannot be overestimated. A traditional dessert, not only Swedish, but also Finnish, with a very long history. Semla’s recipe has changed over time. Now Swedish semla is a sweet bun with almond filling and whipped cream.

Servings: 8

Ingredients

For the dough:

• Wheat flour – about 320 g (2 cups of 250 ml)
• Milk 2.5% – 130 ml
• Egg – 1 pc.
• Butter – 50 g
• Dry fast-acting yeast – 5 g
• Ground cardamom – 0.5 teaspoon
• Sugar – 50 g
• Salt – 0.5 teaspoon

For filling:

• Almonds – 100 g
• Milk – 70 ml
• Sugar – 70 g
• Cream 33% – 250 g
• Powdered sugar – 60 g

To grease buns:

• Yolk – 1 pc.

Directions

1. We prepare products.
   The cream should be cold, we send it to the refrigerator. And we take out the butter from the refrigerator in advance, it will need softened.
2. We heat the milk to about 40 degrees.
3. Making yeast dough for buns. We do not use all the flour at once. We separate about a third of a glass (50 g) from the total. Pour yeast into the rest of the flour and mix.
4. Add salt, sugar to the flour with yeast and break the egg. According to the recipe, you also need to add ground cardamom (I did not add). We mix.

   

5. We pour in warm milk.
6. Knead the dough and knead for 8-10 minutes. The dough is sticky but smooth.
7. Cover the bowl with the dough with a towel and leave for 20 minutes.
8. Add softened butter to the dough. Add the remaining flour (leave a little for the work surface), knead the dough.
9. The dough will become non-sticky and elastic.
10. Cover with a towel and leave for 1.5 hours. During this time, knead the dough once.
11. Sprinkle the work table with flour and put the dough on it.
    We divide it into 8 parts.
12. Form each part of the dough into a bun.
13. We transfer the blanks to a baking sheet covered with parchment paper for baking. Cover with cling film and leave for 45 minutes.
    20 minutes before the end of the proofing of the buns, turn on the oven so that it warms up to 220 ° C.
14. Separate the egg yolk.
15. Grease the buns with yolk.
    We send to the oven for 10 minutes at 220 degrees. Then lower the oven temperature to 180 degrees and bake the buns for another 7-10 minutes.
16. Cooking the filling. To do this, pour boiling water over the almonds and boil for 1 minute. We put it in a colander.

    

17. We clean the almonds.
18. Combine almonds and sugar in a blender bowl.
19. Grind into crumbs.
20. Add milk to the almond mass, mix.
21. Let the buns cool for 5 minutes.
22. Cut off the tops from the buns and set them aside for a while.
23. We take out a little crumb from the buns.
24. Put the pulp into the almond-milk mass. We mix.
25. Fill the buns with the resulting almond filling.
26. Whip cold cream with powdered sugar until stable peaks. Set aside some icing sugar for decoration.
27. Place the buttercream on the almond buns using a cooking syringe.

    

28. Cover the buns with the cut tops and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
29. Swedish buns “Semly” (more precisely “semlur”, this is the plural of “semla”) are ready. They can be served with tea or coffee, but traditionally with milk.

Bon Appetit!