Posts Tagged ‘Mardi Gras’
Go Stuff Yourself with Semlor!
Happy Fat Tuesday – in my world, known as the Dfficial Day of Stuffing Yourself with Semlor. The iconic Swedish baked good served before Lent is one of my favorite things to make this time of year, and I have a whole article about semlor up on Paste this week in celebration. There’s also a great article on the topic on NPR’s The Salt by fellow food writer Anne Bramley which is definitely worth a read.
Here’s a little dirty secret for you: there’s a recipe for semlor in my book Fika, which is out on April 7 (yes, I have already started counting down). But if you can’t wait that long, and you really want to make some today, you can use this recipe.
Semlor: Sweden’s Fat Tuesday Celebration
This week marks Fat Tuesday. Which in Sweden means it’s high time for semlor, a pastry full of almond paste and whipped cream. After all, it’s not called Fat Tuesday for nothing.
So honored that Johanna over at Kokblog (my new favorite food illustration blog) asked me to write a guest post for this favorite Swedish tradition of mine.
A semla, also known as fastlagsbulle or fettisbulle, is a flour bun filled with almond paste and topped with whipped cream and powdered sugar. Historically the decadent pastry was intended for consumption on fettisdagen, Fat Tuesday. But in modern day, the tradition of semlor has gone far beyond just fettisdagen, allowing for Swedish pastry shops and bakeries to fill their windows with the baked good from just after the New Year all the way through Easter. Several months of pastry bliss.
Read the full post — with more fantastic illustrations and my mother’s recipe — here.
