Authentic Swedish Cardamom Buns (learn why you should use a pre-dough!)

My daughter and I made this last night after comparing with another recipe (at womanscribbles.net). I was surprised by how different these two recipes are. But we liked the idea of your all-cardamom (no cinnamon) dough and filling, so we used yours.

As others have mentioned, your conversion from grams to cups of flour and sugar are way off. 690 grams of flour was ~4.5 cups for me, not 5-3/4. Is there a European cup that’s smaller? Using the weights of flour is essential (as it usually is for baking).

I was confused at bit by the kneading instruction “15-20 minutes by hand or 12-15 minutes in a stand mixer”. Kitchen Aid says kneading with its dough hook at speed 2 (it’s only recommended speed for kneading) for 2 minutes is equivalent to 10-12 minutes of hand kneading. With this large volume of dough, I found that the dough-hook just dug a hole and didn’t work on the entire mass … so after 5 minutes of that, I resorted to hand kneading.

One thing I did like about the other recipe was spreading the filling over the entire rolled-out rectangle and letter-folding it by thirds, rather than half-half. This would seem to give more lamination, but next time I think I’ll double the filling amount, as our schmear ended up being very thin.

We had no trouble with the dough cutting or bun assembly, but your three small “tutorial” photos that show some important details are quite hidden and unlabeled. I never would have noticed them if I hadn’t read your reply to a comment and then searched diligently through all the text, ads and other photos. It would be much better if you could make them larger and place them earlier and more prominently in the main text of the recipe. BTW, we ended up getting 44 buns about 3 inches in diameter. We cooked a third of them and froze the others for future baking.

In the oven at 450F (my oven is usually a little cooler than the dial temp), mine started to burn after 6 minutes. So I lowered the temperature to 400 and put on the convection fan (which lowers the temp still further, but evens out the heat). I took them out after two more minutes, as I didn’t want them to burn up. They had good color, but were not cooked through. Are they supposed to be a bit raw in the middle?

I see that your December 2017 recipe for Orange Cardamom buns — which I’ll likely try since I have orange trees and the fruit is ripe now; and I’ll add zest to the syrup, too — called for only 7-8 minutes baking at 425F. The womanscribbles recipe mentioned above has her buns baking for 22-25 minutes at 350F. It looks like we’ll be experimenting some more with our next batch, using our frozen uncooked buns. 🙂

Your directions for the sirup don’t say to heat the water/sugar mixture … but we did (on simmer) to enable the sugar to dissolve completely. Also, you say to dissolve the vanilla pod. Perhaps this is a mistranslation, as the pod will not dissolve or even disintegrate in this procedure. Possibly you meant “steep” instead? That’s the process ( (as in steeping tea) by which a liquid extracts flavor from an immersed solid, which is left behind or discarded when the liquid is used.

Finally, how did they taste? Frankly, we were underwhelmed. The flavor was quite bland, which surprised us, since both the dough and filling contained lots of cardamom. I had only the spice powder, not fresh … so I used about 1.5 TB in each in an attempt to compensate. It was clearly not enough. Next time, we’ll use more.

I’m also intrigued by Kristi’s comment about using half whole-wheat pastry flour. I might try that in the future. American all-purpose flour has a higher protein content (10-13%) than European flours, I’m told by European friends who’ve been frustrated when their home recipes don’t taste well when made with American flour. Never having been to Sweden, however, I don’t actually know what these should taste like. 🙂 Lower-protein flour makes much better biscuits (especially Southern biscuits, which use White Lily flour: 9% protein).Maybe the same will be the case for Swedish Cardamom Buns.

BTW, here’s a photo of one of our buns: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49793657413_8177a70abe_n.jpg

I’ve made this recipe many times, always to rave reviews. I have three observations/experiments to share:

1) I noticed a significant improvement in the tenderness of the recipe when I switched to measuring the dry ingredients by weight rather than scooping into the measuring cup.

2) I also tried half all purpose flour and half whole wheat pastry flour with another improvement in the tenderness and texture of the bun.

3) For a now vegan friend, I converted the recipe to vegan with no significant change in texture or flavor. I used Silk coconut-almond milk to dissolve the yeast. This was not too successful because the yeast turned into a slimy mass, but I was able to blend it into the appropriate consistency. A different vegan milk might be a better choice….or even possibly water. To replace the butter in the bread I used 1/2 c of applesauce and 1/2 c of coconut oil. To replace the egg I used a “flegg:” 1 Tbls ground flax seed mixed with 3 Tbls hot water left to sit for about 30 minutes. To replace the butter in the filling, I again used coconut oil. We were anxiously awaiting the finished product and all thrilled with the end result. Very happy this worked out so I can make it for my vegan friends too!

Does one brush the rolls before or after baking? Thanks! These look wonderful!

Je me souviens avoir goûté des “smabullars” ou quelque chose comme ça en Suède, il y a 20 ans… c’était à la cardamome aussi, est-ce différent?