HAPPY EASTER!!!!

I hope you all spent the past few days indulging in ridiculous amounts of chocolate eggs, hot cross buns and tasty roast lamb. If not, don’t worry, you still have one day left to catch up;-). And congratulations to everyone who successfully completed Lent yesterday – now go and do or eat whatever you have been painfully missing out on these past 46 days!

This year’s Easter has been, apart from spending some of the days surrounded by IV-drips, syringes and wounds, all dressed up in scrubs (yes – some people actually have to work on bank holidays), an unhealthy brunch crawl for me. Nothing wrong with brunching 4 days in a row is there?

For the final brunch of the lot I decided to bake something slightly different than your usual, with a Scandinavian touch – Cardamom Rolls. NOM! As I already mentioned in a previous post – Cardamom is the new Cinnamon. If I haven’t won you over yet, I’m sure baking these will. I’m also sure half of you have been invited to yet another an Easter brunch for today, said they would bring something and popped into M&S for some hot cross buns. If so – tut tut tut – freeze your bought buns and make these! Everyone will love them!!

Swedish Cardamom Rolls

makes about 18 rolls

You’ll need
75g butter
1 cup milk
1 tbsp active dry yeast
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 cup caster sugar
3 cups flour
1 egg, beaten
pearl sugar

For the filling
120g marzipan/almond paste, ground
2 tsp ground cardamom
50g butter, softened

1. Melt your butter in a saucepan and add the milk, heat until lukewarm. Stir in your dry active yeast until dissolved.
2. Transfer this into a large bowl along with the salt, sugar, cardamom and about 2 cups of the flour, mixing to combine.
3. Knead the dough until smooth and elasticy – you may have to continue adding flour as the dough will probably be sticking to your hands by this point. Once the dough no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl, cover with a cloth and set aside in a warm place to rise until doubled in size (about 1 hour).
4. Mix your marzipan with the cardamom and butter until smooth. Line a muffin tin with paper baking cups.
5. Once risen, punch the dough and knead again for a few minutes. Turn onto a floured surface and roll out into a flat triangle, about 7mm in thickness.
6. Spread your filling evenly over the dough, roll it up into a long log and cut into even slices. Place the slices, cut side up, into your baking cups. Set aside to rise for another 30-ish minutes.
7. Preheat the oven to 225°C fan. Brush your rolls with beaten egg and sprinkle with the pearl sugar. Bake for 8-9 minutes until golden.
8. INDULGE. IMPRESS YOUR FELLOW BRUNCHERS!

 Rating: 9.5/10

I don’t know what Swedes would say to these, but if Starbucks served them I’d be a regular.