Första Advent

Dear Imaginary Future Readers,

yesterday was a day that is known in Sweden as Första Advent: the first Sunday of the four advent Sundays before Christmas.  Well, I dont know very much about advents, or any of that, but I do know about pastries and other tasty baked treats, so I decided to make some very traditional buns called Lussekatter, or saffron buns in English.  As you can see, I made a great heaping mound of buns:

It turns out its not a real great idea to make 50 pastries on a holiday-ish Sunday when you are home all alone.  You end up eating a lot of buns and feeling slightly depressed.  But it turned out alright, my mum dropped by today and I foisted a good lot of the remaining buns off on her and all is well.  Although I am totally, utterly failing in my resolve to eat very healthily in the weeks leading up to the holiday so I can blissfully indulge when I get back to Sweden.  Oh well!

I used this recipe which has both quark and an egg in it, and promises to deliver an extra soft and yummy bun as a result.  I think the results make good on this promise.  Shall I translate the recipe into English for you, Imaginary Future Leaders? Well, okay, I will.  Meanwhile, heres another picture of my little robot climbing Bun Mountain:

Saffron dough:

• 50 g yeast (for sweet doughs)
• 150 g butter or margarine (but butter is better!)
• 5 dl (500 ml) milk
• 250 g quark (fresh cheese?)
• 1 egg
• 1 g saffron
• ½ tsp salt
• 1.5 – 3.0 dl (150 – 300 ml) sugar
• 17 dl (1.7 l) flour

Glazing:

• 1 egg

Decorating:

• About 1 dl (100 ml) raisins 

Pre-Direction:

Preheat oven to 225 °C (435 F). 

Directions:

1. Break up the yeast in a big bowl
2. Melt the fat (i.e. butter or margarine) in a pot. Pour over the milk, stir and warm slowly until it reaches 37 °C (lukewarm).
3. Pour a bit of the liquid (i.e. milk and melted butter) over the yeast and gently stirr until the yeast is dissolved.
4. Add the rest of the liquid, quark, the egg, saffron, sugar and salt.  Work the dough with a machine or by hand, gradually adding almost all the flour, until the dough leaves the sides of the bowl and comes together. Cover the bowl loosely with a dish towel and leave to rise for about 30 minutes.
5. Get the dough out of the bowl onto your floured work surface.  Knead well (until smooth and satiny).  Separate into five pieces.  Divide each of these into 10 small pieces and make them into Lucia cats: i.e., roll each small piece into a narrow, long roll, then curl it up into a funny S shape (see photo for ideas).  Stick a raisin in each curly end. Lay the Lucia cats on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper.  Cover gently with your dishtowel and let them rise until they double in size, about 20-30 minutes.
6. Whisk the egg.  Brush the top of each bun with whisked egg.
7. Bake in the middle of the over for about 8 – 10 minutes, until golden on top.
8. Let cool under the dish towel.  These freeze well but if you’re going to freeze them, do it the same day you bake them. That way they’ll taste very nice and fresh when you eat them later!

I hope my future readers are comfortable with metric in the kitchen!

I will probably not get any baking done next Sunday, and will more likely be hunched over my desk, working furiously on the 30 pages I need to have done by Monday.  But if I do, it will certainly be one of these really tempting recipes by wonderful Underbara Clara, especially the cardemummy chocolate cookies, which Im really dying to make! I do love cardamom.  Its my favourite spice, besides cumin.  In fact, I eat it every morning on my breakfast.  But you know, breakfasts probably deserve a post of their own, so I had better hold that thought.

Now, let me apologize for the Instamatic-ness of my photos, a feature that will be prominent over the next few posts.  I have made the grave error of letting the charger for my proper camera get out of my sight, and am paying the price for it.  Oh well.  Ive seen great iphone photos from lots of people, so I am inspired! Also, please allow me to apologise for the absence of apostrophes in this post.  My keyboard is being uncooperative.  

Tune in soon for a post about sewing! Ive been making a lot lately, and sometimes remembering to take photos! 

  Your pal,

Dawn

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