Loading…
Why Sweden gives buns their own days, how the dough actually behaves, and what changes when all of it is baked in Port Melbourne.
Four departments, and no schedule. I write when there is something worth saying.
24 stories, across all four departments.
12 stories
On the cover
The rule says one bun, on Fettisdagen, and the rule lost. What a semla actually is, and why the king did not die of one.
Fettisdagen
A thumb, some shortcrust and a spoonful of raspberry jam. Hallongrottor are the easiest Swedish biscuit to make and the easiest to get wrong.
Hallongrottans dag
Saffron, an S with a raisin in each coil, and a morning that is much less ancient than it looks. The bun is Dutch and the cat is a mishearing.
Luciadagen
Knäckebröd is not a diet food that happens to be Swedish. It is a storage technology, and the hole in the middle is the giveaway.
Knäckebrödets dag
Oats, butter, cocoa, coffee and coconut, chilled rather than baked. A chokladboll is on every Swedish counter and has been through two names.
Chokladbollens dag
Almond paste, butter and egg in a shortcrust shell with a flat white lid. A mazarin is not a frangipane tart, and it is probably not named after the cardinal.
Mazarinens dag
Green marzipan, chocolate-dipped ends, and two names that Sweden has never chosen between. Both explanations of the nickname are folklore.
Punschrullens dag
Three ingredients and one technique, and the technique is entirely about heat. Why a rulltårta cracks, and what actually prevents it.
Rulltårtans dag
Surdegsdagen falls on the second Saturday in April. It was started by four people on a Swedish baking forum in 2011, which is a better pedigree than most.
Surdegsdagen
Half a millimetre thick, three-quarters of a minute in the oven. Whether tunnbröd comes out soft or hard is decided after it is baked, not before.
Tunnbrödets dag
Hembakatdagen was invented by a magazine in 2014 to promote its own subject. It is on this calendar anyway, and the reason is not sentimental.
Hembakatdagen
1 story
5 stories
A starter instead of commercial yeast, and a night in the cold. Neither is a flourish. Both are doing work that cannot be done faster.
Kardemummabullens dag
The knot is the part everyone gets wrong, and most of the advice about it is bakers' lore rather than anything anyone has measured. Here is which is which.
Kardemummabullens dag
Larry came to me in 2023, but I have no idea how old he really is. That sounds like a missing piece of his history. For a sourdough starter, it turns out to be almost beside the point.
It is slower, less predictable and harder to schedule around. What it actually delivers is narrower than the internet claims and better than the sceptics allow.
The received wisdom is that Swedish recipes need adjusting for Australian flour. The labels say otherwise, and the real difference is not where it is usually placed.
6 stories
Sweden's heaviest baking months are Melbourne's hottest. That inverts more than the mood — it changes what the dough does while you are not watching.
By the time the oven is on, every decision has already been made. The interesting part of a bake day happens days earlier, on a list.
It does not disappear into the bun, which is the whole point, and the usual explanation of why is wrong. It is also easier to buy in Melbourne than its reputation suggests.
Bröd means bread, and the bay is Hobsons Bay. The suburb they meet in has been receiving people off ships for most of its history.
Bröd is not health food. It is ordinary baking made with ingredients that have a reason to be there — and enough butter, sugar and time to taste properly good.
In Sweden, the traditions are already around you. In Melbourne, I have to put them on the kitchen bench.
Baking, Swedish traditions, and when the oven is next on. I write when there is something worth saying.
