Swedish Donuts

Last month, Noam came to visit Jerusalem from San Francisco. On his way here he made a stop in Sweden for a quick family visit. While he was there, he wrote me the following word: “Kardemummabullar”. A Google search taught me it wasn’t a curse, but a yeast pastry baked and coated with cardamom. In fact, it’s the Swedish brother of the American cinnamon roll.

Noam finally arrived and together we baked Kardemummabullar according to fixfeastflair’s wonderful recipe. The pastries were delicious, especially right out of the oven and straight into our belly. I baked them once more when I visited my family that same week.

I sat down to eat mine, and while I was enjoying the first bite I asked my brother: “Say, doesn’t this remind you of the donuts we used to love when we were kids, those sugary donuts?” He agreed.

An idea suddenly popped into my head: making those sugary donuts with Kardemummabullar dough. What’s so genius about it? The donuts are baked and not deep fried in oil. And the flavor? Pretty similar if not better than the original.

I replaced the cardamom with cinnamon so my young nephews wouldn’t kill me. But I think you can make these with cardamom only instead of cinnamon, with no problem. Or better yet, combine cardamom with cinnamon for a fun, flavorful donut.

Ingredients

Dough
250 g milk
7 g dry yeast (2½ tsp)
65 g light brown sugar
405 g all-purpose flour
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp salt
75 g butter (at room temperature)

Coating
220 g white sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
50 g butter

Equipment
Brush
Round cookie cutter, 8.5 cm wide
Round cookie cutter, 3.5 cm wide
Rolling pin

The recipe makes about 9 sugary donuts

Dough

Lightly grease a large bowl and set aside. Warm the milk a little bit just so it’s lukewarm and not cold. Add dry yeast and 1 teaspoon light brown sugar to the milk. Mix well. Keep aside for about 10 minutes to activate the yeast.

In the meantime, put flour, light brown sugar, cinnamon and salt in the mixer bowl. Mix well using a whisk. Attach the dough hook to the mixer. Once the yeast are ready, add the milk mixture to the flour mixture. Mix on low speed until the dough starts to form.

Increase the mixer speed to low-medium and add the butter gradually. Once all the butter has been added, increase the mixer speed to medium-high and knead the dough for about 5 minutes. Be careful not over knead, you want the dough fairly loose and elastic.

Lightly flour the work surface. Remove the dough from the bowl and place it on the surface. Create a ball from the dough by tucking the edges to its center. Transfer the dough into the greased bowl and cover it with a clean kitchen towel. Keep in a warm place and let the dough rise for about an hour-hour and a half. It should double in size.

Line 2 baking trays with parchment paper. Flour the work surface again. Gently transfer the dough from the bowl to the surface. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough gently to a thickness of 1 cm. Flour the large cookie cutter. Cut out circles from the dough as close to each other as possible. Flour the small cookie cutter and cut out holes from the center of the larger circles to create donuts.

Bake

Gently transfer the donuts and their holes to the baking trays and place them 3 cm apart. Cover the donuts with a kitchen towel and let them rise for about 40-60 minutes at room temperature, until they double in size. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 180 ºC /355 ºF.

Bake each tray separately for about 8-10 minutes until the donuts are puffed and the top is lightly golden. The donuts will sound hollow when you tap their bottom. Let cook for about 3 minutes outside the oven. In the meantime prepare the coating.

Coating

Melt the butter. Mix sugar and cinnamon together in a medium deep bowl. Using a brush, spread a thin layer of melted butter around the donuts. Place each donut in the bowl and coat with sugar and cinnamon all over.

Donuts don’t keep for too long. In my opinion, they’re at their best the day of baking. You may serve them hot, warm or at room temperature.

Additional sources:

“Donuts” by Tracey Meharg