Hot Wedge Buns
Hot Wedge Buns, or Semlor. The traditional food for Lent. A slightly sweet bun with a whiff of cardamon, sticky, lovely frangipani and lashings of whipping cream... Lovely! And not as hard as you think.
100 g magarine or butter
3 dl milk
50 g fresh yeast
1/2 tbs salt
1 tbs ground cardamon
1 dl sugar
1 egg
1/2 tbs Ammonium carbonate"hjorthornssalt"
10dl plain flour
Frangipani:
2 parts blanched almonds, 1 part caster sugar, 1 part icing sugar. Liquid.
The Buns:
Put the fresh yest in a bowl.
Melt the margarin and add the milk and reheat until 37°C, i.e a hot bath. Add to the yeast and stir well until totally dissolved.
Add the salt, cardamon, sugar and egg. Add flour and "hjortronsalt" and mix well until it forms a smooth and glossy dough that is slightly tacky but doesn't stick to the bowl. Knead another couple of minutes on your kitchen work top and put the dough ball back in the bowl.
Cover with a towel and let it prove for 30 min. Knead the dough thouroughly on a table and make 14-20 round buns, not too big. Let them prove another 30 minutes on a baking tray with baking paper. Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes at 225-250°C.
Let them cool down on a rack, under a tea towel.
Frangipani/almond paste: In a mixer, combine sugars and almonds. When a grainy mixture is formed, add a little bit of water or eggwhite until desired stickness have been reached. You want it fairly dry, just so it doesn't crumble.
Assembling: Cut the top of the buns and take out some of the bread. Mix the almondpaste with the bread and a little bit of milk or cream. It should feel more puré than dough. Put the mixture in the bun and top with a dollop of whipped cream (do not sweaten!), the little hat you cut off and then sift icing sugar on top.
In some parts of Sweden you eat them in a bowl with hot milk and it's then called a "Hot Wall"!
You can freeze the buns. he best thing is to put the frangipani in first and have it all prepared for next Tuesday!
Enjoy!
