I was excited to see a special/optional reading for Santa Lucia Day in Shadow and Light. I don’t have many memories from living in Norway but one of them is celebrating Santa Lucia day at school and being VERY JEALOUS that only the older girls got to wear the candle wreaths.* I also remember singing the song—I looked it up on Spotify and turns out there are a bunch of lyrics but in my mind I just hear “Santa Lucia” over and over again to the melody. What a bop!

Anyway for the day I decided to make lussekatter, saffron buns. Saffron? In this economy???? Luckily I only needed 1/2 tsp. I left the raisins out because I didn’t have any (because I didn’t buy them, because they’re gross) and I added some extra cardamom. I should have doubled it. That’s just personal preference; I love the stuff. They have a very mild sweet taste, kind of like Hawaiian rolls–Bren wants me to make a non-saffron/cardamom version for burger buns. 😋 10/10 would make again next feast day.

*According to legend, Lucia of Syracuse brought food and aid to Christians hiding in the Roman catacombs, wearing a candle lit wreath on her head to light her way and leave her hands free to carry as much food as possible.

Recipe

From Simply Recipes.

• 3/4 cup milk (175ml)
• 1/2 teaspoon saffron threads
• 1 teaspoon plus 1/4 cup (50g) white granulated sugar
• 1/4 oz dry active yeast
• 3 1/2 to 4 cups (490g to 570g) all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• The seeds from 3 cardamom pods, ground, optional who has time to grind their own cardamom? I put in 1.5 tsp of ground cardamom and wished I had put in twice as much.
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick, 4 tablespoons, 56g) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/4 cup sour cream (or quark)
• 2 large eggs
• Raisins no, gross
• 1 additional egg for egg wash

Heat the milk with teaspoon of sugar until steamy; add saffron and remove from heat. Once it’s lukewarmish, add the yeast and wait a few minutes until gets foamy. Whisk together dry ingredients, then everything else. I just use the dough hook on my mixer. Let dough rise until doubled, shape dough into the S’s, let rise again, apply egg wash, bake until golden.

I made mini-buns so I could get more of them and take them into work—I got 22 bunz by rolling the dough into 7-ish-inch ropes before rolling into the S-shape.