Another thing that is quintessentially Christmas to me is saffron. I rarely use it at other times of year. The usual way of using it is in sweet rolls where you shape the dough into s-shapes and decorate with raisins.
I plan to do that too but yesterday as the storm Sven raged outside I made almond paste filled saffron rolls.
I made a standard sweet roll dough. The recipe was printed on the back of the flour bag. I let it rise for 40 minutes and then divided it in two and rolled it out.
I just love that colour! So wonderful.
I grated a stick of almond paste and mixed it with butter and vanilla sugar then rolled it all up into a long snake. I did take a picture with the almond paste mixture on but it just looked the same as before I spread it on.
Cut the snake into 20 or so pieces an put them in little paper cups (I can’t remember the name for that).
Let them rise for another 40 minutes then brush them with an egg wash and sprinkle pearl sugar on them. We had run out of eggs so I had to use milk instead of an egg wash, but it turned out just as well.
This is pearl sugar. Coarse grains of sugar that is mostly used to sprinkle over sweet rolls.
I got 43 rolls from this recipe. The end pieces that turn out a bit smaller than the rest I put two and two in the same liner.
You get used to the smell of it when you’re at home, but I anticipate our house will smell really good today when I get back after having been away for a few hours.
