Swedish semlor are one of our absolute favorites when it comes to pastries. And even though the classic semla tastes fantastic, we can’t help but fall in love with some of the new variations that trend every year. This year, a semla with candied almonds has gotten our attention. The extra crunch from the almonds in this otherwise soft pastry is insanely good. If you find it too sweet with the candied almonds, just replace them with dry roasted almonds and you’ll still get that lovely crunch.

Looking for some more inspiration for Swedish Semla? Go to our Semla Cake, Traditional Semla or our Semla Wrap.

Recipe

You will need:

Dough:
• 50 g yeast
• 1,3 cup / 300 ml milk
• 150 g butter, soft
• 1 egg
• 0,5 cup/ 1 dl sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp ground cardemom
• 600 g flour

Filling:
• 300 g marzipan
• 150 g almonds chopped
• 1 tbsp ground cardamom
• 2 tbsp vanilla sugar
• 90 g icing sugar
• 150 ml milk
• 2 cups / 500 ml heavy cream
• 1 tbsp vanilla sugar

Candied almonds:
• 100 g almonds
• 60 g sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla sugar
• 25 ml water

Decoration:
• Icing sugar

Tip!

Make some extra candied almonds for drizzle on ice cream or just eat them as a sweet snack.

How to:

Dough:

  1. In a bowl of a stand mixer, crumble the yeast.
  2. Heat the milk till it gets finger-warm.
  3. Mix a little bit of the milk with yeast and make sure that yeast is dissolved.
  4. Add the rest of the milk, cardamom, sugar, egg, and half of the flour.
  5. Work the dough, using the dough hook on your stand mixer for a couple of minutes.
  6. Add butter and the rest of the flour and work the dough for another 6-8 minutes.
  7. Add salt at the last minute. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes.
  8. Form balls of dough, about 60 g, for each bun or 15 g for each bun if you want to use them for our Semmeltårta.
  9. Cover with a cloth and leave to rise for 60 minutes.
  10. Preheat the oven to 225° C.
  11. Lightly brush the buns with beaten egg.
  12. Bake in the middle of the oven, big buns for 8-10 minutes and small buns for 4-5 minutes or until golden brown.

Filling:

  1. Mix all ingredients for the filling.
  2. Whisk the cream with vanilla sugar until light and fluffy.

Candied almonds:

  1. Boil water and sugar in a saucepan.
  2. Add almonds and turn so that they are covered in sugar. Let it boil and keep on stirring until the almonds start to snap, and they are all covered with a fine layer of sugar. It will take approx. 1-2 minutes.
  3. Spread out the almonds on a baking sheet, covered with baking paper, and allow to cool.

Make the semla:

  1. Cut a lid off the top of each bun and remove some of the crumbs so that you get a hole for your filling.
  2. Fill each bun with almond filling.
  3. Chop the candied almonds and drizzle over the almond filling.
  4. Use a piping bag, pipe the whipped cream on top of all buns.
  5. Replace the lid on top and sprinkle with icing sugar.