Rosenmontag aka Shrove Monday is a huge fest here in Germany (especially Cologne where Karneval is THE thing of the year). So happily, since all my coworkers were busy partying I had the day off.  

As I mentioned during my tooth removal recovery, I found lots of fun food blogs and found some delicious looking Scandinavian recipes to make. I am not sure if this recipe for Finnish Pulla (or Bullar in Swedish) could be considered the traditional Shrove Monday Semla, but this sounds pretty similar:

“Today, the Swedish-Finnish 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 serves as a lid and is dusted with powdered sugar. Today it is often eaten on its own, with coffee or tea.”

I skipped on the almond-whip cream filling, and unfortunately didn’t have spelt flour on hand, but they still tasted great and I am considering them Shrove Monday buns anyways! I found the original recipe on Scandi Foodie, but here is the half-recipe I used and translated from Metric.

Starter: 1 cup warm milk, 1 heaped Tbs dry yeast, 1 Cup Flour: Mix together, cover, and leave for 20 minutes to get bubbly.

Mix together dry ingredients: 3 Tbs sugar, 1/2 Tbs cardamom, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 Cups flour. Knead the flour mix into the starter, and then work in 5 Tbs melted butter and half an egg (keep the other half for brushing the tops) and then just see how it looks, but I added about another 1/3 Cup flour.

Cover and let it sit for 30 minutes. Roll into 10 buns and let them rise on the baking sheet another 20 minutes while you preheat the oven to 350F (180C). Brush tops with rest of egg and sprinkle with 1/2 Tbs cinnamon mixed with 1 Tbs sugar.

Bake for 15 – 20 minutes and let them cool on a rack. Or eat ’em while there hot. That is what we recommend!