Did you have plans today? Cancel them, because you are going to need the entire day to make these cardamom buns. I'm serious. You might be able to read a New Yorker article while you're waiting for the dough to rise, or maybe catch up on an episode of 30 Rock, but this triple-rise dough -- or the homemade almond paste, or the hand-ground cardamom -- will hold you hostage for the next seven hours.
Also, be warned that this recipe yielded 72 cupcake-sized buns. 72! But this is good, because you will not want to make them for a long time once you realize how jobbigt (an adjective meaning much hard work) they are, as the Swedes would say.
But oh gentle marzipan sweetness, sultry slow-burn cardamom and rich, salted butter filling! The pärlsocker (pearl sugar), looking like little crunchy bits of snow melting on a golden brown pillow! "They're like chips," said La Doug. It takes an uncommon amount of willpower to eat just one.
These bullar are sturdy yet seductive, never cloying, like a seasoned belly dancer gently stoking a fire you didn't know you had in you, leaving you wanting more. With coffee for fika, or toasted in the oven in the morning, nothing brings me back to Sweden like this flavor.

This recipe is adapted from the beautiful Vete-katten cookbook. Vete-katten is the unbelievable konditori that was just down the block from my Stockholm office. This is the second recipe I tried -- the first, from another book, was not nearly as good. The dough requires THREE rises -- the first rise apparently makes the yeast stronger, and the long second and third rises make for a lighter dough. Or something like that -- my Swedish isn't that good.
Swedish Cardamom Buns
A few tips:
1. Use a scale to measure the dry ingredients.
2. You must use whole cardamom -- not the pods, but the kind that are little black B.B.'s. And you must hand grind, preferably with a mortar and pestle, so you get some big bits and some tiny bits -- think cracked black pepper.
3. The recipe calls for 375 grams each of butter and almond paste for the filling. I only used about 3/4 of the filling I made, so I'm cutting down the amount by a little here.
4. In Sweden, you can get mandelmassa, or 50/50 almond paste, from any grocery store. I could only find atrocious looking canned crap at my local shop. I've included a simple recipe for mandelmassa I found online which worked really well and was probably the easiest part of this very long recipe.
5. I also used Doug's mom's rolling technique instead of Vete-katten's, which I didn't really understand through translation. The picture above features buns wrapped in the Vete-katten method, which is to take a wide strip and wrap it in a knot around your finger. I much preferred the swirl to dough ratio of Doug's mom's method, detailed (but not pictured) here.
Translated from the Swedish and adapted to American measurements and ingredients. I hope you had a good breakfast this morning because you are going to need some energy.
For the almond paste:
Adapted from CHOW
1 1/2 cups whole raw almonds (make sure they're fresh)
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
5 Tbsp. light corn syrup
1. Boil water in a medium pot. Blanch almonds for one minute. Rinse under cool water. Squeeze the skins off.
2. Pulse in a food processor until it's a coarse meal, 20 seconds.
3. Add powdered sugar. Pulse again until sugar is blended in. Add corn syrup and grind until you get a pretty smooth almond paste, 40 seconds. Set aside. Makes 1 1/2 cups of almond paste. Are you tired? I hope not. There are a gajillion more steps.
For the starter dough:
1 block (50g) fresh yeast (or 1 packet dry yeast)
1 cup (250g) finger-warm whole milk (80 degrees F or 26 degrees C)
3 Tbsp. (50g) sugar
12 1/3 oz. (350g) flour
1. Dissolve yeast in the milk. Mix in the sugar and flour and work the dough until it's elastic, about 5 minutes in a mixer or 10 minutes by hand.
2. Cover the dough and let it rise in a warm place until it has doubled in size, about 30 minutes.
For the second rise:
starter dough above
1 cup (250g) whole milk
Scant 1/2 cup (150g) sugar
Scant 1 cup (200g) room temperature salted butter, cut into pieces
2 tsp. (10g) salt
1 1/2 Tbsp. (20g) whole cardamom, coarsely-ground (mortar & pestle work best for this)
26 1/2 oz. (750g) flour
1 egg
1. Mix the starter dough with the rest of the ingredients for the second rise. Work the dough until it is elastic again, about 15 minutes by hand or 10 minutes in a mixer. You know the dough is ready when you can stretch it into a thin film without it breaking.
2. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes. Watch some TV. Grab a magazine. Maybe grind some more cardamom -- you're gonna need it later.
To make the buns:
Dough above
About 1 1/2 cups (340g) almond paste from above
About 1 1/2 cups (340g) room temperature salted butter
1 1/2 Tbsp. whole cardamom, coarsely ground
2 eggs, beaten
Pearl sugar (pärlsocker), available at European markets like Eagle on 5th Ave. and 17th St. in Brooklyn
Foil cupcake liners
Baking sheets
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C).
2. Drop a bunch of foil cupcake liners onto your baking sheets, with about an inch of space between each cup.
3. Blend almond paste, butter and cardamom in food processor into a light and airy filling. You can grate the almond paste to make it easier to mix up.
4. Divide the dough in half. Working quickly, roll out one half into a rectangle a bit thinner than 1/4 inch (4mm) thick and 12 inches (30cm) wide.
5. Spread half the filling over the rectangle. Starting with the long edge, roll the dough into a tight log.
6. Using a sharp paring knife, slice through the log in 1/4 inch increments but leaving the last 1/4 inch intact. Every third cut, slice all the way through the log. It's like you're making a bunch of pieces of dough in the shape of the letter "E".
7. Take the middle slice of each "E" and flip it over so you have a "Y" instead.
8. Drop the Y, swirly side up, into a foil cupcake liner. Don't worry if it's a mess, it'll work itself out in THE NEXT RISE. Yes, there's still another rise.
9. Repeat with the other half of the dough, still working quickly.
10. Brush tops of buns with some egg and sprinkle with the pearl sugar. Cover with plastic wrap.
11. Let the buns rise AGAIN for about 45 minutes or until they are double the size.
12. Bake in the middle of the oven for 5 minutes. Then reduce the heat to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) and bake for 10 more minutes until they are golden brown. Do not overcook or you will have dry buns and you will cry because you worked so very hard all day.
Makes 72 little buns. If you aren't going to serve them right away, as soon as they are cool, freeze immediately in single layers in Ziploc bags. Then reheat in the oven any time you are sugen för något söt (craving something sweet), as they say.
Oof, even writing that out made me tired.
Recent Comments