The Fat Tuesday Fever

Man this one was grueling... but what can you do? Must uphold tradition!

I've been eating these for something like fifteen years straight at this point, and I was of no mind to let this year be an exception, but it just so happened that I woke up this Tuesday feeling... not so great.

Mom was apparently down with a fever the weekend me and good buddy Bear were in Albania - the weekend before last, and I came home on Sunday after a tiring trip to an empty fridge, after midnight, with an early work day awaiting....

I set my alarm even earlier than I'd planned to fix up some lunch for the office, went on with a grueling day there, came back home, finally had a full night's sleep, and the next morning I had indeed caught that virus too.

It may have been (and still be) the flu.

Baking semlor turned out a more arduous task than I thought it'd be this year, but since mom was still incapacitated and I too sick to head out and actually buy something (which I tend to avoid doing anyway these days) I had no choice but to bake something!

I looked for a random 'gluten-free semla' recipe online, and found this.

Notice how the recipe doesn't say anything about how long said recipe takes to make? It probably took me around ~3 hours.

I whipped up fresh cream, melted the butter, thawed the yeast, ground the cardamom seeds, whisked the egg, warmed the milk, ran the almonds through the grinder, mixed 'em with honey and milk (recipe says sugar but FUCK SUGAR), added in sea salt and saffron, worked the dough like a mofo and let it thicken (10 minutes), rise (30 minutes) and rise again (30 minutes more) and then into the oven they went!

After two times the intended oven time (I think I made the buns bigger than intended + hadn't warmed the oven fully + the saffron paste I used messed up the flour/liquid ratio entirely but did end up making the dough even better than I'd expected) and voila (same semla - different angle)...

They tasted great. :) The recipe was aight after all! Possibly the best gluten-free variant I've tried so far - except maybe for the wonderful one I bought at renowned Bro cafe Mazarin before they closed down.

Anyway we got our semlor! I made one for all of us. Mom couldn't eat more than one half, so I had more, and there's more in store!

Then I got the fever for real and was totally out of it for three days.

WORTH IT. 👍✨

I'm a bit late with this post again this year thus, but know: These pictures were taken on Tuesday! And the foodstuff depicted on them was eaten then too. I haven't had an ounce of cream or sugar since, since I'm trying to get rid of this ongoing infection quick now cause this coming Friday:
Banja Luka. We're off again. Do wish I had a bit more recoup time...

Happy Fat Tuesday y'all!