As a result of making hot cross buns for Oscar over the last few weeks, I have a large container of yeast that has hardly been used. Last year, in the same situation it didn’t get used and was thrown out when the best before date passed (in December!). This year I’m going to make an effort to use it up, so there will (hopefully) be some baking recipes posted in the coming months.
I decided to start off by pulling out my pile of Swedish recipes (I was an exchange student there when I was 16) and found a nice simple recipe for custard filled buns – Vaniljbullar (Vanilla buns). Swedish baking is wonderful; they have some of the best buns because of all the spices they use, but this one has only vanilla. The recipe is from a pamphlet called “Svenska Folk Baka Mera”! (Swedish People Bake More!) and it was a good work out for my brain to translate it into English, which must have been OK as the buns turned out delicious. I took most of them to work the next day and they were all gone in 10 minutes. There was no problem substituting dry yeast for fresh, and I also made them with Nutelex since I had run out of butter (and was too lazy to go get some). The recipe is very simple, and while the entire process takes a long time, there is nothing difficult about it. The buns look more difficult than they are, so they are good for impressing people.
This recipe uses vanilla sugar, which I had completely forgotten about, but is really yummy in baking and easy to make.
Oscar helped me make the buns, and showed that he takes after his Mum, by photographing the process as we went.
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Sorry, I think vanished is a better spelling. 🙂
As I am a novice cook I have a novice question about the Swedish Vanilla Buns. I made these as exactly to your recipe as I could. The buns are very good indeed and mine looked like yours. However, I was hoping to find a center that was clearly vanilla pudding – like a Berliner bun, or a donut tht had been filled by injection. I found that my pudding filler had vanashed into the dough itself. Did I do something incorrectly or is this to be expected? I want to try again but improve upon my start. Congratulations on your site. I do hope to have some advice. Thanks
Hi David, the buns should have a custard filling as you described. I had this happen to a few buns as well, and I think your problem may be with the sealing of the buns. The bun has to be closed with a good seal and placed sealed side down, otherwise the custard leaks out and gets absorbed by the dough. Hope this helps with your next attempt.
Yum! They look good. I just literally finished a disasterous experiment where I tried to get TT to “help” me transform a Miss Roben’s sugar cookie mix into a dough that could be rolled out and used with cookie cutters to make shapes. Epic fail on every count 😀
LOL! Don’t worry, we have disasters too, and sometimes that little helper is just too helpful.