Vetebrod...Swedish cardamom buns

I have been making this bread for 30 years. Every time I make it, I wonder about the Swedish name for it, which translates as ‘Wheat bread, also known in English as sweet yeasted bread. What a boring name for these delicious little treats. It has only just occurred to me that wheat was perhaps a delicacy in Sweden which, until the middle of the twentieth century, was a very poor country. I wonder if the staple grain is rye: certainly unleavened rye breads and crackers feature in Swedish baking...?

1 quantity of bread dough. In the breadmaker, I put 1 cup of water, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 splash of oil or melted butter – approximately 1 tablespoon, 2 ¾ cups of plain flour, 1 scant teaspoon quick-acting dried yeast

After the dough has mixed and risen – 1 ½ hours in my breadmaker – slap the dough onto a large floured surface (up to 1 metre by 50cm if you need a definition of ‘large’). Roll it out as thinly as possible into the largest rectangle you can make: it will probably be approximately 60cm by 30cm.

Working as quickly as possible spread with 1 – 2 generous tablespoons of melted butter (10 seconds on medium high in the microwave – best not to let it ‘spit’, it makes a mess). Scatter with a handful of sugar – white or brown, it doesn’t matter. That’s probably about 3 – 4 tablespoons. The dough should be covered but not thickly.

Sprinkle with 1 – 2 teaspoons of ground cardamom – the more, the better. I crush 20 seeds in my Swedish brass mortar and pestle, because it’s hard to buy ground cardamom here.

Roll up along the short side into a long ‘sausage’. I feel the need for a diagram here, but will try to explain: the ‘long’ side is up to 60cm long, so the ‘sausage’ should be approximately the same length.

Flatten the sausage, smash the rolling pin on it a bit, fold it up like a pillowcase and then roll it out again as much as you can – it will be ‘springy’ by this stage as the dough will have started to rise again.

Dedicated bakers will roll and fold several times, brushing each layer with more butter as they do so and putting the dough in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes to calm it down and make it easier to roll out.

I don’t do that.

When you have a rectangle of approximately 20cm by 10cm, or larger, depending on what the dough feels like letting you do to it, pick up a SHARP knife.

Cut the dough into fingerwidth strips, one at a time. After each strip is cut, pick it up, twist it like a rope, knot it together (or mess it around in some other way) and put it on a lightly greased baking tray. Cut another strip and repeat the messing around, continuing until you have approximately 16 – 20 little knotted buns.

Let rise. EITHER, if you are well-organised enough, for at least an hour in a warm place OR for 20 minutes ditto, then put in the cold (electric) oven and let the pastries rise as the oven warms up. I don’t know what to do for gas, sorry.

Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 10 – 14 minutes, depending on the oven. The buns should be lightly browned on the top and bottom. If you have to choose, I think slightly undercooked is better – not so hard and dry.

Remove from the trays IMMEDIATELY. If you don’t , the lovely caramelly butter and sugar leakage on the oven tray will GLUE THE BUNS ONTO THE TRAY AND YOU DEFINITELY DON’T WANT THAT TO HAPPEN. Cool on a wire rack.

If you want, you can drizzle icing over them: either water icing (icing sugar and hot water) or white icing (1 tablespoon butter, 1 cup icing sugar and boiling water to mix). You could even sprinkle chopped or flaked almonds on top, too.

I never bother: too much faff, and I’d have to wait another five minutes. I never want to do that.