Veganized Traditional Swedish Saffron Buns
These S-shaped raisin inserted saffron buns, lussebullar, are a must at any occasion during Christmas in Sweden especially on the 13th of December when Lucia is celebrated.
- Yield: 16 larger ones, 30 smaller ones or one very long braid 1x
Ingredients
Scale
- Optionally, but recommended 25g / 1 oz margarine or oil of choice
- 2 ½ dl/ 1 cup milk of choice
- 125 gram / 4,5 oz / 1/2 cup thicker yoghurt of choice (I used Alpro’s Go on)
- At minimum 60g / 2 oz sweetener of choice (I used honey)*
- 1g / 1/2 tsp saffron
- 50g / 1,75 oz fresh yeast
- 450g / 15,9 oz finely milled whole grain flour
For garnish
- 1 beaten egg or a couple of table spoons plant cream or plant milk for “egg washing”
- A couple handfuls of raisins
Instructions
- Start with soaking a handful of raisins in warm water for at least 10 minutes.
- On the stove top, combined the margarine, milk, yoghurt, sweetener, and saffron in a sauce pan, over low-medium heat. Once the mixture is lukewarm, which when it’s around 38ºC/100ºF, take the mixture off the stove. (If the mixture is too warm it can kill the yeast, and then your buns won’t rise!)
- In a large bowl, finely crumble the yeast, pour over the saffron mixture, and give it a good stir, so the yeast dissolves.
- For the next step, I used a stand mixer, but you can knead by hand as well. To the saffron yeast mixture, start adding a couple of spoonfuls of flour at the time, and let the machine work, until the dough can be kneaded by hand. It should still be moist, so be careful with adding the flour at the end. If you have some flour over, you can use the left overs when kneading the dough and shaping the buns.
- Preheat the oven to 450°F (225°C). Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead for a couple of minutes, shape the dough into a baguette, divide into 16 equal pieces and, using your hands, roll each piece into a long medium-thick sausage. Then, to each sausage, roll both ends tight in opposite direction, into an S-shaped bun. (See video above!) Place buns, well spaced apart, on 2 baking sheets, cover with a cloth and set aside in a warm spot to rise for at least 30 minutes.
- Brush the buns with an egg yolk, plant milk or plant cream, and then insert one or two raisin in the middle of each “swirl”. Bake the buns for 7-9 minutes, until golden brown on top. Transfer to a wire rack to let cool slightly. Enjoy!
Notes
*If you use less than 60g of sweetener your risk not feeding the yeast enough, which will result in your dough and buns not rising.
If you want to make it into a braid here’s a link for a great video made by BakaMedFrida. When braiding the dough, I decided to incorporate the raisins into the dough.
Keywords: Lussebullar, lussekatter, Swedish Saffron buns, saffransbullar, veganska, vegan, nyttiga