What would the thirteenth of December be without Lussekatter,Lussebullar ( practically the same thing) or a gorgeous lusselängd?

For all of you who want to try making the Swedish Lussekatter this year, here is another recipe for you. It isn’t difficult at all, and very delicious.

Lusselängd

Makes about: 30 buns or two längder

Ingredients:

50g fresh yeast (tastes better that way, but if you only have dry yeast, well, that works too)

150g (1,3 stick or 2/3 cups) butter or margarine

5 dl (1/3 cup) milk (or soya/oat milk)

250g (8,8 oz) cottage cheese

0,5 tablespoon salt

2 dl sugar (3/4 cups)

1 g saffron

1 egg

16 dl (6 and 3/4 cups) flour

optional:

1,5 dl raisons for adding on top

Marzipan for filling of braid

Nuts to sprinkle on top of lusselängd

Lussekatter

Instructions:

1. Crumble the yeast into a bowel. Melt the butter, add the milk and let warm until tepid/luke warm. (Swedes like to point out in the recipe that it should be 37°C). Add saffron to liquid and stir. Add milk and Saffron mixture to bowel with yeast and stir until yeast has dissolved.

2. Add the cottage cheese, salt, sugar and egg to the mixture and stir.

3. Work the flour and liquid to a dough, only use the amount of flour needed for the dough to not stick to the side of the bowel. Sprinkle a little bit of flour over the dough and let rise for 45 – 60 min in a warm place cover with a clean towel.

Lucia Terminology during rising time

Lussekatter and Lussebullar are like buns, they can be creatively shaped but are in essence the size of a normal bun.

A Lusselängd is like a braid, twined together.

Glögg – a spicy sort of sweet drink, heated and served during December month with pepparkakor (gingerbread). Many people put almonds and raisons into their glögg but it is of course optional. Glögg is in fact low alcohol wine and even though most kids drink it there are alcohol free options as well.

4. When risen, put the dough on a floured surface and kneed for a couple of minutes. Then divide the dough into reasonable sizes for wanted shapes. You can make braids, buns or any other shape you feel like. The traditional form is the eight-shaped bun.

5. If you want to make a braid you roll out half of the dough to a long rectangle (as long as you want the braid to be and between 15 and 20 cm wide.) If you want to fill the braid with raisons and marzipan you should divide the filling over the middle stretch of the rectangle leaving enough space on the sides of the rectangle to be able to cut slits in and fold over to make a braid.

6. Place all buns/braids on a greased tray and let rise for another 30 -35 minutes under a towel. They should have doubled in size after rising.

7. Brush the buns with the whipped egg, and press the raisons into the buns if you want raisons.

8. Stick tray in oven and let smaller creations bake for about 5-7 min at 225-250°C and braids and cakes for 15-20 minutes at about 200°C. It is very important to not let them stay in too long or the buns turn extremely dry. A good way to test if they are done is too check if the undersides of them are slightly colored. Unlike other baked goods they should be taken out almost a little bit before they turn golden to be as moist as possible.

Let cool slightly before eating, or let cool completely before freezing for later occasion.

Perfect for the Lucia celebrations, to be eaten with some hot Glögg (Mull wine) and some pepparkakor.