Lucia Buns
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Author: jgraham Status: published license cc-by-nc tags: Recipe, Bread, Saffron, Buns,
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Share on TwitterI made an approximation to the popular Saffron buns that seem to be an essential part of the Swedish Christmas experience. The recipe was somewhat improvised and almost certainly not authentic :)
500g strong white flour
200ml milk
100g caster sugar
14g (2 sachets) dried yeast (or an appropriate amount of fresh yeast)
2 eggs
~100ml lukewarm water
A large pinch of saffron
A few rasins
1. Place the milk butter and saffron into a small saucepan and heat gently, stirring occasionally, until the butter has melted. Then leave to stand for about 10 minutes
2. Meanwhile mix together the flour, yeast, and sugar in a large mixing bowl
3. Add the milk mixture to the flour and stir until the liquid has been absorbed. Add an egg and continue stirring.
4. At this point the mixture ought to have nearly combined into a coherent, but not sticky, dough. To form the final dough mix in enough lukewarm water that the mixture add just sticks together. If the mixture becomes sticky, mix in a little extra flour to absorb the excess moisture.
5. Knead the dough until elastic (it should spring back when pressed in). I got it started using dough hooks on an electric mixer which might work well with this kind of enriched douch, then finished it off by kneading for a few minutes by hand.
6. Place the dough in a large covered container in a warm place and leave to rise untill it has rughly tripled in volume (the time this takes will depend on the temperature of your warm place; assume at least an hour if not two)
7. Knock the air out of the dough and knead again for a few minutes. Divide the dough into about 10 pieces for the individual buns.
8. To form the buns (this isn't really the authenti shape but it's not a bad approximaion), roll a dough piece into a long sasuage, work together the ends of the sasuage to form a loop and put a twist in the loop to form a figure 8 with the join on the bottom. Place on a greased, floured, baking tray.
9. When all the buns have been formed, cover and place the baking tray in a warm place and allow to rise. Once the buns have roughly doubled in size preheat the oven to 200°C. After a further few minutes of rise time, beat the remaining egg and carefully brush it over the buns. Then place a rasin in each of the two holes in the 8 shape of each bun.
10. Place the buns in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes until the tops are golden brown and the buns sound hollow when tapped.
11. Eat fresh or store in an airtight container.
Things to try differently next time:
Probably only need 1 sachet of yeast
Add some salt
Add more egg
