It is Semlor time!

Today (8th March) is Shrove Tuesday and in Sweden we celebrate this by eating Semlor. A semla has many names in Sweden, semla, hetvägg, fastlagsbulle and fetistasbulle. There might be many more. 

Semlor are immensly popular this time of the year with cafes starting to sell them sometimes as early as just after New Years. Swedish newspapers run features of best semla of the year in the local towns.

A semla can best be described as a bun flavoured with cardamon, filled with a marzipan, topped with whipped cream and then dusted with icing sugar. It's eaten on "ShroveTuesday" (or rather appropriatly "Fat Tuesday") which falls on 8th March this year. 

A traditional way to eat this bun is to put the 'semla' in a bowl with hot milk, also known as ‘hetvägg’ translated as ‘hot wall’, rather discusting if you ask me. My grandfather used to do this and it's not for me, the bun disolves into a soggy mess with warm melted cream floating like lava streams into steaming milk.

Swedish semla

If you're in London you can find Semlor in the wonderful Scandinavian food store, Scandinavia Kitchen on 61 Great Titchfield Street near Baker Street and Marylebone. Rather dangerously this place is just around the corner of the VisitSweden office so it is hard to resist buying a semla or two on your way to work every morning!