Swedish Trials and Challenges

Ever since i made the cinnamon rolls, I have been longing to make Swedish Semlar rolls and the Cinnamon rolls made the Swedish way with cardamom in the dough.  Am planning to make this along with Japan Pan this weekend.  Here are the recipes below with my adaptations for eggs and weights. Recipe taken from what's for lunch honey blog.

Prep Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours
Makes: 9 buns

Ingredients: 

• 300g all-purpose flour, sieved
• 160 ml milk
• 15g fresh yeast - replace with 2 teaspoons instant dry yeast
• 50g sugar
• 1 to 2 teaspoons ground cardamom (according to your liking) - this would be about 4 elaichi i think
• 30g butter, melted
• 1 small egg - replace with less than a scant 1/4 cup of thick curd
• Pinch of salt
• 150g lingonberry preserve - use up the strawberry jam in the fridge
• 200ml whipping cream - use up the milky mist cream
• 2 tablespoons vanilla sugar - replace with plain sugar but add a teaspoon of vanilla
• about ½ cup of milk sweetened with some sugar, for brushing

Method:

1. Heat milk to about 38°C. In a clean bowl mix yeast with sugar and warm milk. Place the flour, cardamom, salt, egg and butter in the bowl of a stand mixer attached with a dough hook. Pour the yeast-milk mixture and knead into a smooth dough - about 8 minutes. Alternatively if kneading by hand it will take a bit longer. Cover and let rise in a warm place for about 50 minutes.
2. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and divide into nine equal pieces. Briefly knead each piece between your palms and roll the bits of dough into buns. Place the buns on a baking tray lined with a sheet of baking paper. Make sure to leave enough space between the buns as they will rise to double their size. Cover the tray and leave to rise in a warm place for 30-40 minutes.
3. Preheat the oven to 210 degrees C. Brush the buns with the sweetened milk and bake in the oven for 8 minutes. Do keep an eye on them as they will brown quickly.
4. Remove the buns from the oven and brush again lightly with the sweetened milk then allow to cool on a wire rack. Cut the tops of the buns and scoop out the center of each bun (about 2 teaspoons). Fill the centers with the lingonberry preserve.
5. Whip the cream and the vanilla sugar until light and fluffy and dollop 1 or 2 teaspoons of the sweetened cream onto the preserve, filling the buns. Place the tops back on the buns.

Notes 
Serve with steaming strong coffee. 
A popular way to enjoy semlor is to dunk them in deep bowl with warm milk and ground cinnamon

Recipe for the Swedish kanelbullar is also below but this is adapted from Fond Bites Subhashini's recipe for cinnamon rolls (in turn taken from Pioneer Woman) but I'm adding cardamom to the dough.
Ingredients:

Milk – 1 cup
Sugar – 1/4 cup
Vegetable oil  or any oil used for cooking -  1/4 cup
Active Dry Yeast – 1 1/4 teaspoons
All Purpose Flour – 2 cups  (plus 1/4 cup – to be used at a later stage)
Baking powder – 1/4 teaspoon
Baking soda – 1/4 teaspoon
Salt – 3/4 teaspoon

Filling:

Cinnamon powder – 1 teaspoon
Soft Brown sugar or granulated white sugar – 3 tablespoons
Unsalted butter – 2 tablespoons, melted and cooled

Method:

1. Butter an 8 or 9 inch square pan/ two 8 inch round pans with butter. In a saucepan mix together milk, oil and sugar. Bring to boil and take it off heat. Let cool down to luke warm. You have to make sure the milk mixture is lukewarm. If the milk is very hot, or at room temperature  yeast might not start reacting. So ensure the milk is lukewarm. Add yeast and 2 cups of flour and mix well with a wooden spoon until everything is mixed well. It will be a sticky dough. Cover with a towel or cling wrap and place it in a moderately warm place and let it rest to double in size for about an hour or an hour and a half.

2. Sift together the 1/4 cup flour, baking powder and baking soda. Once the dough has doubled in volume, punch it down with your fist. Add the flour mixture and knead well until the flour has been incoporated. You can now refrigerate the dough until it firms up a bit, for an hour or so. Or you can also refrigerate overnight. Once dough is firm, flour your work surface and make a nice ball out of the dough, flatten it to a rectangle roughly and start rolling. Make a rectangle of thickness not less than 2 cms. Brush the top with the melted butter.

3. Mix together sugar and cinnamon powder. Spread it all over the top of the buttered dough. Start rolling from the long side carefully and finish rolling the whole dough.

4. Use a knife to cut the large roll into 16 smaller rolls. Place them carefully in the buttered pan with the cut edges facing top/bottom. Let it rise for about 30 minutes until it proves for the second time. During the last 10 minutes of this proving, pre-heat oven to 175 degree C. Then bake in oven for about 25 minutes until the top is golden brown. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack.

I'm also putting down below the recipe from What's for lunch honey for Cinnamon rolls just because i can't resist feeling  that these would be the original kanel bullar and it would or should taste different from the cinnamon rolls above.  This recipe should be quartered as it makes 40 rolls!

Ingredients:
For the starter dough

• 500 ml milk (125 ml)
• 500g all-purpose flour, sifted (125 g)
• 50g fresh yeast or 6 teaspoon instant dry yeast (1.5 teaspoon instant yeast)

For the buns

• 200g muscovado sugar (50 g)
• 1 ½ tablespoons ground cardamom (just 4 cardamoms should be fine)
• Pinch of salt (skip the salt)
• 550g all-purpose flour, sifted (137.5 g)
• 1 egg  or 1/4 cup yoghurt (hung or thick) (1 tablespoon yoghurt maybe)
• 200g butter, softened (50 g butter)

For the filling

• 200g butter softened (50g butter)
• 1 vanilla bean
• 200g muscovado sugar (50 g brown sugar)
• Ground cinnamon
• 1 egg, lightly beaten (skip the egg; since this is only a filling it should not matter so much)
• Pearl sugar or coarse muscovado sugar to sprinkle

Method:

1. Scald the milk by heating it in a small pan until it almost reaches boiling point, then allow it to cool. Scalding the milk makes the finished buns softer.
2. Crumble the yeast in a clean bowl. Pour in some of the tepid milk and mix to dissolve the yeast. Add the rest of the milk and the sifted flour and stir everything together until the mixture comes off the sides of the bowl. Leave to proof overnight in the fridge.
3. Once the dough has risen, remove from the fridge and work in the rest of the ingredients. Start by adding the sugar, cardamom, salt, flour and egg to the starter dough. Knead into a smooth and supple dough. It will take about 10 minutes if you are using a stand mixer, and longer if you knead by hand - about 15-20 minutes.
4. Finally add the softened butter to the dough. This will be hard to work into the dough but it will eventually incorporate, leaving you with a smooth and glossy dough.
5. Cover with plastic wrap and place the dough back in the fridge for another 30 minutes. In the meantime make the filling by beating the butter with the sugar and the seeds of the vanilla bean.
6. Divide the dough in half. Using one half, roll into large rectangle of about 1.5 cm in thickness. Using a spatula spread half of the filling over the dough dusting with ground cinnamon as desired. Fold the rectangle into thirds lengthwise: lift a third of the dough towards the middle, then fold down the top third as well, to make a very long and thin rectangle.
7. On the short side of the dough cut about 16 to 20 strips of dough each about 2 cm thick. Take one of the strips and cut right the way through stopping at about 2 cm from the top. Pick up a strip of dough and twist the two ends in opposite directions two or three times and then coil the strip in on itself, tucking the ends underneath and sealing them in place with a dab of water. Once you have twisted all the strips, place them in paper muffin cups on a baking tray. Cover with a clean cloth and allow to rise for another 60 minutes.
8. Preheat the oven to 220°C.
9. Brush each bun with a little bit of egg and sprinkle with pearl sugar or the coarser muscovado sugar. Bake the buns in oven for approx. 8-12 minutes or until light golden in color. Allow to cool on a wire rack before eating.

Notes:

• Butter usually prohibits gluten to develop in the dough so by adding it after the dough has been kneaded helps the gluten process to develop better.
• These freeze well, all you have to do is wrap in aluminium foil and keep in the freezer. Reheat in the oven at 150° C.

Brownie challenge

I always have a problem with brownie recipes.  If i were to tell the truth, i would say that i am not yet satisfied with any brownie recipe that i have made so far.  I never knew it could be so difficult to make a fudgy dense brownie that has a crackly crust and gooey interior but was still neatly sliceable and made without eggs.

I'm going to try three brownie recipes during this week and use up all the brownies at work i think.  Or maybe freeze them and use them at home where we have many brownie/chocolate fanatics among the family.  These are the three recipes that i'm going to try:

The first are from Subhashini's Fond bites - i might need to halve this for the trial.

Really Rich Brownies

Ingredients

1. • 3/4 cup ( 150 gms) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2. • 360 gms dark or bittersweet chocolate, chopped
3. • 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
4. • 1/2 cup granulated white sugar
5. • 3 eggs lightly beaten
6. • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
7. • 1 cup (130 gms) all-purpose flour
8. • 1/2 cup milk
9. • 1/2 cup walnuts, toasted and broken
10. • 1/4 cup milk chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180 degree C. Line 10 inch square cake pan with aluminium foil and leave an overhang to pull out the baked brownie later.
2. Melt the chocolate and butter in a heavy bottomed sauce pan until smooth. Add the sugars into the melted chocolate. Mix the sugars well until blended, it won’t get fully dissolved anyway.
3. Now add the eggs, vanilla extract, flour and milk and mix well until blended. Do not over mix. Add the walnuts and chocolate chips and mix just until incorporated.
4. Pour the batter in the prepared pan. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 25 to 30 minutes until a tester comes out nearly clean. It should be still gooey inside. If left to over-bake the brownies will become dry.
5. Once done, remove from oven and let cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Invert and then cool the brownies completely on wire racks. Once cool they are ready to be eaten, but they are great to eat while warm too. You can also decorate the brownies

Ingredients:  
Unsalted butter, chopped - 141 grams / 10 tablespoons/ 1 1/4 sticks/ 5 ounces
Sugar - 280 grams /1 1/4 cups / 9 7/8 ounces ( I have measured 1 1/4 in my cup) 
Unsweetened Cocoa powder , natural or Dutch-process - 82 grams /  3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons / 2 7/8 ounces 
Pure vanilla extract - 1/2 teaspoon 
Cold Eggs - 2, large (refer note)
All-purpose flour - 66 grams / 1/2 cup / 2 3/8 ounces 
Walnut or pecan pieces - 2/3 cup (optional, I did not use)
Salt - 1/4 teaspoon ( I omitted this)


Procedure : Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C / 325°F . Line the bottom and sides of an 8×8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper or foil, leaving an overhang on two opposite sides.

Combine the butter, sugar, cocoa, and salt (if using) in a medium sized microwave safe bowl and microwave on HIGH power for one minute, then 30 seconds each time, stirring in between ( Or place all of these in a heatproof bowl and set the bowl in a wide skillet of barely simmering water) Stir from time to time until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth and hot enough that you want to remove your finger fairly quickly after dipping it in to test. Remove the bowl from the skillet or microwave and set aside briefly until the mixture is only warm, not hot. It looks fairly gritty at this point, but don’t fret says Deb — it should smoothen out once the eggs and flour are added. Note: Mine was not completely smooth even after adding the eggs and flour. See the picture above.


Stir in the vanilla with a wooden spoon. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring vigorously after each one. When the batter looks thick, shiny, and well blended, add the flour and stir until you cannot see it any longer, then beat vigorously for 40 strokes with a wooden spoon or a rubber spatula. I used a wooden spoon. This is some amount of effort as the batter will be quite thick, don't tell me I did not warn you! Stir in the nuts, if using. Spread evenly in the lined pan.


Bake until a toothpick plunged into the center emerges slightly moist with batter,  mine took about 40 minutes. Check yours at 30 minutes, bake longer if needed. Let cool completely on a rack. I left my pan on the rack for quite some time, then left it in the fridge, covered with clingfilm overnight. I was determined to get cleaner cuts this time, kids away helped!

Lift up the ends of the parchment or foil liner, and transfer the brownies to a cutting board. Cut into 16 or 25 squares. These are quite rich, my suggestion - make it 25 pieces.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

pinch of salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Grease and flour an 8 inch square pan and line with butter paper.
2 Place a medium heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Place butter in the bowl and let it melt. Remove the bowl from the simmering water and stir in the sugar. It will appear grainy at this point.
3Whisk in eggs, one after the other and add the vanilla essence before adding the flour. Mix in cocoa, flour, salt and baking powder until no trace of flour is left, using a wooden spoon. Spread batter into prepared pan.
4 Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes. Do not overcook. When you find that the edges have gone slightly dry and the top is cracked, you know its cooked.
5 Cool on a wire rack. Cut into squares at room temperature and top with walnut (I sprinkled some brown sugar on top). Store in an airtight container.

Edited to add - I have now made Subhashini's recipe and it came out great when i replaced the eggs with two flax eggs.  I got a beautiful crackly crust for the first ever time and a gooey interior.  I was also able to slice it well.  But this is a really rich brownie and an indulgence.  This is not something that you sell at a shop but something you might by as a gooey indulgence or as a treat you serve after you have guests home for a special meal.  It would be great served along with icecream and hot chocolate sauce although it does not really need it.  It does need to be stored in the fridge and you are going to have sticky hands when you eat it without a spoon - all things that go against this being a simple snack but things which make it a rich indulgent treat.