Kardemummabullar
Sometimes you want to be a baller. Shot caller. Other times, you just want kardemummabullar.
I first saw these Swedish cardamom rolls on The Great British Bake Off (Series 10). I don’t know about you, but I am astounded not only by the baking prowess of these “amateurs,” but also by their seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of the world’s baked goods. I consider myself something of a baked good connoisseur, but kardemummabullar?? Well played, young Henry Bird, well played.
Henry’s recipe is crazy hard (almost as hard as figuring out whether he is dating any of his co-stars. Answer: no), so I initially put kardemummabullar on the list of baked goods I’d like to buy from a bakery one day. But recently friend of the blog Abigail Deutsch baked these buns, and hers looked so delicious that they emboldened me to expand my horizons of “the possible,” much like Swedish bakery Fabrique expanded their cardamom bun empire to New York. And so I present to you, kardemummabullar.
RECIPE - Adapted from Feast, Fix, Flair
INGREDIENTS
Dough
1 c. + 1 Tbsp. (250 ml) milk
1 envelope dry active yeast (7 g)
1/3 c. + 1 tsp (packed) dark brown sugar
3 1/4 c. (406 g) all-purpose flour, plus more to flour surfaces
1 heaping tsp. ground cardamom
1/4 tsp. salt
5.5 Tbsp. unsalted butter (at room temperature)
Unsalted butter/Oil/cooking spray (to grease bowl)
Filling
5 Tbsp. butter (at room temperature)
1/3 c. (packed) dark brown sugar
2 tsp. ground cardamom
Pinch of salt
Topping
1/4 c. water
1/4 c. (packed) dark brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. whole cardamom seeds, ground with mortar + pestle
INSTRUCTIONS
Dough
Take butter out of the fridge so it can get to room temperature. In a small bowl, add milk and 1 tsp brown sugar. Microwave milk and sugar ~45 seconds (should be warm, but not hot). Slowly stir milk to dissolve sugar. Add yeast. Let activate for 10 minutes.
Always nice to get a rise.
Meanwhile, in the bowl of your stand mixer, use the whisk attachment to mix together flour, 1/3 cup brown sugar, cardamom, and salt.
Change the attachment to the dough hook attachment. After yeast has been activated, add your yeast/milk mixture to the flour mixture and mix on low until dough begins to come together. Increase speed to medium-low and add cubed butter in handfuls. Once all the butter has been added, increase speed to medium/medium-high and knead for about 5 minutes. Bask in the glory of a machine doing this work for you (thank you again, Kim Rachmeler, for the KitchenAid!).
I kneaded this (or rather, the KitchenAid did).
Scrape dough out onto a lightly floured surface and shape it into a ball, tucking the edges toward the center. Grease a large bowl and place the dough inside. Cover with a clean kitchen towel. Place bowl in a warm place and let it rise for at least 40 minutes.
Filling
In the bowl of your stand mixer, use paddle attachment to combine butter, brown sugar, cardamom, and salt, and mix together on medium-low until creamy and smooth. 🙌 for the KitchenAid!
Bites of filling can also be the breakfast of champions. Not that I would know…
Forming
Roll out dough into a 13” x 21” rectangle (approx) on a lightly floured surface. Spread filling onto the rolled out dough rectangle so that it covers the entire area from edge to edge (a silicon spatula works well for this if you have one).
Nothing like a slab of dough smeared with butter and sugar.
Envision your dough as three equal sections. Fold the left side to the middle, than fold the right side over the left side. Turn the dough so that the openings are on the left and right sides and roll out the dough slightly.
Folding the treasure inside…
The book of kardemummabuller.
Yes, this is my rolling pin.
Use a sharp knife to cut ~2 cm strands. You should have 15-20 strands.
Sliced is nice.
Watch the excellent gif in this recipe on how to wrap and form the buns and follow visuals. If you’re more of a verbal learner — starting from the end, wrap one strand around the tips of two-four fingers (depending on how long your strips are) twice, twisting slightly as you wrap, then slip your thumb out of the roll, loop the strand around one last time then tuck the end and your thumb loop into the bottom. Repeat with all strands. Space out buns. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise for about 30 minutes. While proofing, preheat oven to 435°F (at least 30 minutes before baking so that the oven is nice and hot before you put in the buns for a quick bake).
If you can’t have buns of steel, you can have buns near steel.
Topping
While rolls are proofing, pound cardamom pods to release seeds and then crush seeds with mortar and pestle. These will release quarenrage and give the final product a nice punch of cardamom. Blend cardamom with sugar in a small bowl and set aside.
Bash to release quarenrage.
Next make the glaze. Heat water, light brown sugar, and vanilla in a small saucepan on high until sugar has dissolved completely (don’t be tempted to form a caramel instead, as I did the first time. It will be too thick to spread nicely on the buns. You want more of a liquid glaze). Set syrup aside. Grease baking sheets with vegetable oil (or put down parchment paper / silpat if you’ve got it).
Bake
Bake proofed rolls for 7-8 minutes or until tops are golden brown. Immediately brush tops with syrup and sprinkle with cardamom-sugar (speed is important or the glaze won’t soak in properly, and the sugar won’t caramelize a bit to stick and give you crunch). Enjoy the kardemummabullar like the baller shot caller that you are.
I wish I were a little bit taller. I wisher I were a baller. I wish I had a kardemummabullar. At various points in my life, all of these wishes have come true.
I only have eyes for kardemummabullar.
The latest fashion accessory for Zoom calls.
