Lucia buns (4 baking sheets)

• 200 g butter
• 4 dl milk

1. 3 1/2 hours before baking
2. Put the butter on the tabletop, and pour the milk in the mixers bowl. Let it temperate.

• 50 g yeast
• 200 g sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 beaten egg
• saffron water
• 900 g wheat flour

1. 2 1/2 hours before baking
2. Crumble yeast into the milk og whisk it around.
3. Mix sugar, salt and beaten egg in the bowl.
4. Mix well together.
5. Put the saffron water and the flour in the bowl.
6. Mount a dough hook on your mixer, and put the bowl in the machine. Run it at low speed.
7. Continue when the dough is fairly even.
8. Put the butter in the bowl.
9. Let the machine mix for 20 minutes. The dough should now be one cohesive mass that has wrapped itself around the dough hook. There should not be any dough on the sides of the bowl.
10. Take the bowl out of the machine, and let the dough rise for about an hour. It should double in size.

• Zante currants

1. 1 hour before baking
2. Divide the dough up into small portions.
3. Roll them into pencil-thick sausages.
4. Shape the desired figures. Place them on baking paper.
5. Let the buns do a second rise for 40 minutes.
6. Baking
7. Add the Zante currants. Push them deep into the dough so that only just the top is above. Like an iceberg.
8. Bake in a 225°C oven that has a tray of water at the bottom.
9. Take the buns out of the oven as soon as they get a hint of light brown color. It takes around 8 minutes. Be careful that they dont get too dark.
10. Let the buns cool on a wire rack.

Dont sprinkle the tabletop with flour when you are rolling the dough-sausages. That will only make it harder. If the dough is made properly, its internal adhesion is so good, that it doesnt leave residue on the things it touches. The large combined figures are easiest to assemble on the baking paper.

Eat the buns cold. When they are warm the taste is weaker. The buns taste well both buttered and unbuttered. I prefer buttered myself.

🎄 Lucia buns are eaten at Christmas time. It is an old recipe and there is no consensus on its origin. But it most likely came from Middle Age Italy, where saffron bread was distributed to the poor on Santa Lucia. The recipe was adopted in Scandinavia, where it was mixed with nordic traditions. It became particularly popular in Sweden. The yellow color of the buns represent the sun, which will chase away the forces of darkness.

It is technically possible to knead the dough by hand, but for your own sake, use a mixer. If you want to knead by hand prepare yourself for a very long and sticky adventure.

A normal oven takes a long time to heat up to 225°C when there is a tray with water in it. So start it well before it is to be used. For me it is when the buns start their second rise.

If you make more dough than you can use, you can freeze some of it down. Do it right after step 9. Do it in portions that matches one baking sheet. It is a good idea to push the dough flat before freezing it. Be sure the packaging is air tight.

One or two days before you are going to use frozen dough, put it in the fridge. Two to four hours before you start making the buns, unpack the dough, put it in a bowl and place it somewhere warm, so that it can temperate and rise. When the dough is ready, proceed from step 11 in the recipe.