Saffron Buns

Today I will start my 12 days of Christmas blogging! And we kick start with a Swedish tradition that’s served on Lucia, December 13th!!

Makes 30

This is what you need:

650g self-raising flour
100g caster sugar
7g fast action yeast
0.5g ground saffron
100g butter (unsalted)
330ml whole milk
1 pinch of salt
60 raisins
1 beaten egg for brushing

Let the Christmas baking commence….

Start by melting the butter and leave to one side, weigh out the dry ingredients and put everything in a bowl. Make sure you put yeast on one side of the bowl and salt on the other. Ground the saffron and add to the butter, then add the milk. Make a hole in the middle if the flour and pour in the liquid, mix everything together. Once everything is incorporated pour out on a lightly floured surface and knead for 10-15 min until you have a smooth yellow dough.
But it back into the bowl and cover in clingfilm, leave in a warm place until the dough has doubled in size.
Once doubled in size, punch the air out and dived your dough into 30 parts, roll out to a thing sausage and then form them into a Lussekat, see below.

Leave them to rest for 1 hour and double in size, whatever is first.
Heat your oven to 220, gas mark 6, when the buns are ready put two raisins in each and brush with the beaten egg, bake in the middle of the oven for 10 min and Christmas has started!!!

Double love biscuits

Makes 20 big ones….

Vanilla jammy dodgers just isn’t enough, lets put a chocolate layer on this!

This is what you need:

200g Self-raising flour
100g butter
50g caster sugar
1 egg
1tsp vanilla paste
1tsp corn flour
(make this dough again and add 2 heaped tsp of cocoa powder)
150g of raspberry or strawberry jam.

Let’s get baking!
Start by whisking the butter, sugar and vanilla paste, add the egg and whisk until you get an even mixture. Sift the flour and the corn flour (when you do the chocolate dough just add the cocoa powder at this stage).
Knead the dough until combined, don’t worry if it’s a bit sticky, wrap in cling film and let it chill in the fridge for about 1 hour.
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees, on a lightly floured surface knead the dough adding flour as you go along until the dough is smooth, make sure not to overwork the dough as the butter will melt and you will have to add flour for the rest of the day 🙂
Roll your chocolate dough out to around 0.5cm and use a 7cm cutter, I used a lid, and make 20 circles. Then take your vanilla dough and use the same cutter then place a small heart shaped cutter, or any other shape works too, in the middle.
Bake the biscuits in the middle of the oven for about 17 minutes.

Once they have cooled start putting the biscuits together,  put 1 tsp jam on the chocolate base and then chuck the lid on and voilà, you have a red heat in the middle of an epic biscuit!

This is a definite dunker so get your tea brewing.