A friend invited me to a goodie exchange party. Bring three dozen of your favorite Holiday treats (she specified cookies or candy) and after eating and talking, everyone will get to take a variety of goodies home. I usually don't go to social things, partly because I can't justify the time away and partly because I feel guilty for allowing anything to take me away from what I need to accomplish as a mother.
Alright, so the first reason is a cop out. Regarless, I don't get out much socially but this really sounded fun. I decided to not follow the instructions, I'm rebel that way and chose to make instead saffron bread. Lussekatt or the Swedish saffron bun, is eaten on the Saint Lucia celebration (13 December). An extra curly "S" shape is dotted with a raisin at the center of each Swirl.
Due to the Saffron being the most expensive spice in the world, I don't make lussekatt every year. But every now and then, I do indulge. They are one thing that I can easily make that remind me of Sweden. So I decided that I should make them for the exchange tomorrow. Even though the Holiday is an unofficial Swedish holiday and is non-existent one in the U.S. I still wanted a reason to make one of most favorite Swedish treats.
I started in the Late afternoon but it was still early enough I would be able to easily finish by bedtime. My first hitch was being unable to find my tried and true saffron bun recipe. My Swedish cookbook is missing and I know it'll show up. It's one of those things that never leaves the house but it's still frustrating to not have it when I need it. I found a recipe on allrecipes.com and although it's similar, I believe my old recipe is truer to the saffron bread I ate in Sweden.
My second hitch wasn't figured out for another four hours.
Yeast breads are an art form and I've baked enough that I have a really good sense to know how to accomplish what I want with the dough. Dough that is to hot will kill the yeast, dough that is to cold will not rise. To much flour will lead to a really heavy, dense and drier bread. To little gives a dough that's sticky and if it's to light, it won't hold it's shape, leaving flat and unattractive bread.
The Swedish Saffron bread dough is super light and sticky. Much more so then any American recipe I have tried. This makes it harder to shape and work with after rising. However it was reaching the step of shaping the buns that I was struggling with.
My dough would not rise.
Boy did I try. I had my biggest mixing bowl in the oven, I was turning the oven on to it's lowest setting every half hour and turning it off as soon as it was hot. This left the oven at the perfect temperature for yeast growth. The yeast didn't seem to agree with me.
It was very frustrating. The texture was perfect. The dough had the right amount of springiness. It was stretchy and beautiful to look at but it just wasn't rising. I thought maybe I had killed the yeast but honestly I wasn't sure how I could have because I had monitored the ingredients. Between the butter and the saffron, I had over twenty dollars worth of ingredients in that bowl, I wasn't taking any chances!!
I even invited my friend Marja over to give her two cents and she agreed, the dough looked like it should rise. There wasn't anything outward to suggest something had gone wrong.
So I went into the freezer, brought out new yeast and carefully measured about two tablespoons into the bowl. By careful, I mean I dumped two tablespoonish piles into my palm and sprinkled over the dough. Then I kneaded the dough for about fifteen minutes to work the yeast in, turned the oven back on and sat back to see what would happen.
Yeah, I had bad yeast because after twenty minutes the dough texture had changed and I could see little yeast bubbles under the surface. Of course this meant that all my careful planning so I could go to sleep at a decent time was out the window.
So here it is 2:00 AM and finally I am done. The bread rose, I shaped the rolls although I took a shortcut and didn't put the raisin garnish in. So they don't look right. I also didn't brush some egg on them so the buns lack the beautiful shiny coat that's usually there.
But they taste like saffron bread and that is what counts.
I can confirm that my original recipe is better. So I need to find it before next year.
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