Semla time starts February 2nd!
Most Scandinavians are not practising Christians, even though it might be the official state religion. What we do adhere to though are our traditional holidays where, as in so many other cultures, food takes centre stage.
For Sweden, Norway and Finland, one of the most popular food centered holiday days is Shrove Tuesday. When we traditionally fatten ourselves up for lent. The lent part is for most people forgotten nowadays, but we sure make certain to uphold the tradition of fattening up.
The best way to do this is to indulge in a semla, or 5, or 10… although we would recommend keeping it under control so you don’t end up like the Swedish king Adolph Fredric who on Shrove Tuesday 1771, died after indulging in a massive food gorge, finished off with a light dessert of (according to sources) 14 semlor served the old fashioned way submerged in a bowl of warm full fat milk / half-and-half.
The semla was in it’s initial form a sweet wheat bun with an added rich filling, often served in warm milk (a clever way of making stale bread more appetizing). It then got the addition of almonds, cardamom, and freshly whipped cream and that’s the base of our modern semla.
Although there are many versions; in Sweden bakeries go a bit nuts trying to reinvent the staple, such as semla wraps and giant semla cakes to serve 20 people, Finns often serve theirs with berries instead of almond paste, and the Danish fastelavnsbolle is a completely different take on it - our 2020 version is the classic Swedish with a nice little Scandibunz-twist.
The bun is filled with a soft almond paste filling, generously piped with lightly sweetened whipped cream and finished off with a dusting of icing sugar. Soft, rich, sweet and most definitely messy to eat, these babies are available for private orders and at our market stalls from February 2nd to March 8th. Shrove Tuesday falls on February 25th this year, but we will only be delivering a small amount of buns this year, so it’s strictly first-come-first-serve for Shrove Tuesday orders.
Let’s get eating!