Forget Pancakes its Semla Day

 

I kept seeing adverts for semla at 7/11 – it looked like a cream bun to me but I had no idea it was seasonal and very Swedish.

Semla is a traditional pastry eaten in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Estonia, it is associated with Shrove Tuesday and Lent.

‘The semla consists of a cardamom-spiced wheat bun which has its top cut off and insides scooped out and is then filled with a mix of the scooped-out bread crumbs, milk and almond paste, topped with whipped cream. The cut-off top is then put back as a lid and dusted with icing sugar. It is nowadays often eaten on its own, with coffee or similar, but there are still those who eat it in a bowl of hot milk.’

I went out and bought 20 semlas for my colleagues which were gratefully received. We had to get them from the supermarket as most of the bakeries had big queues and were running out of semla!

Poor King Adolf Frederick died after eating semla! But he did have 14 of them after a big meal!

Todays Swedish word of the day is bageri – bakery.

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