Saffron Scones with Lime Cream

Whoop, whoop…Swedish Linn of Cardamom Buns fame is back in the house!  This time she is here to share a fantastic contemporary treat inspired by a Swedish Christmas classic. This recipe comes from chef Cecilia Vikbladh from her book Cecilias Fikastunder, which roughly translates to ‘Cecilias Coffee Brakes’ but it actually means much more.

The partaking of ‘fika’ is an institution in Swedish social life and a core concept in their hospitality – which they take seriously and deliciously. ( I personally have a theory that the more extreme your climate the higher the priority hospitality plays in your culture – just saying.) It can be as simple as a coffee break at work, but it is more often a social gathering usually associated with some baked sweet treats.  It holds a similar place in Swedish society as a High Tea would in British, but is much more frequent in occurrence.   However, If you invite someone to your home for fika, be sure to serve a minimum of at least three different goodies so as not to offend your guest.  Linn puts even that to shame as she thinks a proper fika, particularly when hosted between Christmas and New Year, should have at least SEVEN different baked goods with flavours including saffron, cinnamon, cardamom, nuts and dried fruit.  As I said, serious and delicious business is this fika hospitality!

Unfortunately, the source of these wonderful treats is not available in English as far as I could find, so we will have to rely on Linn and the other Swedish speakers in my life to share these and other glories!

I first encountered these golden-hued delicacies at a friend of Linn’s named Jenny Foley, who is also from Sweden.  As there was lots of chat going on I wasn’t entirely paying attention to what I was eating.   As the first bite of saffron hit my palate, only to be chased with a tart ever-so-slightly sweet cream, my head began to spin.  In term of taste reference,  up to that moment my taste buds had always associated saffron with seafood!  As far as I knew saffron was the flavour of bouillabaisse, paella and spiced garlicky aioli to accompany shrimp.  But not to the Swedish, to them the taste of saffron transports them straight to Christmas time, especially in traditional St Lucia Buns that feature on the 13th of December.  So after a quick re-calibration of the idione-like medicinal undertones shifting from savoury to sweet, I was in heaven!

So why is saffron associated with Christmas time in Sweden?  Whilst saffron was available throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, it was so horrendously expensive (as it still is today), that it was only used sparingly at very special occasions such as Christmas.  St Lucia Day became popular in Sweden after the reformation as the rise of Protestantism moved what had been the Christmas or Yule celebrations to the 13th of December, which was believed to be the Winter Solstice in the old calendar.  The celebration focuses on St Lucy who is represented by a young girl bearing lights and sweets. While the holiday is nominally saint-based, it is believed to incorporate many elements of  pre-christian mid-winter and Yule celebrations.  The modern interpretation of St Lucia Day is over 200 years old and is held very dear to Swedes all over the world.  Christmas is also a very big deal once again so December is one yummy party in Sweden and throughout Scandinavia.  Whichever you are celebrating, get ready to break out the saffron.

The technique for making these scones is a bit different from the basic scone method in both British and American baking, so once again I went overboard in my pictures.  It is quite straight forward once the different steps are explained, but I don’t think it would be very intuitive, so here we go…

As seems the norm in Linn’s baking, start by pre-heating the oven to 220 c/ 430 F/ or in general a really hot oven.

In a mortar and pestle place 1 Tablespoon of sugar and add your saffron threads or powder.  Apparently most saffron in Scandinavia is sold as powder, so you really are just using the sugar to help break it down a bit more to help to infuse the whole scone.

The image on the left is what you start out with and the image on the right is what you are aiming to achieve.  If you don’t have a mortar and pestle just put the sugar and saffron in a bowl and grind with a smaller bowl on top.

Next warm your 200 ml / 4/5 cup of milk gently until is it just warm to the touch.  Add your pulverized saffron sugar, mix and remove from the heat to cool completely.

In a large bowl mix your flour, salt and baking powder and stir or sift to combine.

Weight out and cube 75 g of super chilled butter and rub it into the dry mixture, leaving small little seed-sized  lumps.

Now, once your milk & saffron mix has cooled completely, crack a medium egg into the mix and whisk to combine.  Bring the mix over to your bowl of dry ingredients and stir to combine.

The mix will turn this fantastic yellow ochre colour from the saffron and smell just heavenly.  It is really quite a wet mix, but turn it out onto a floured surface and just bring it together incorporating a little flour at a time until it just comes together as a workable dough.  Be gentle and work quickly as you don’t want to overwork the dough or melt those little bits of butter that it help it to rise in the oven.

Add a bit more flour to your work surface and roll out the dough to about 3/4″ or 20 mm thickness.  Cut into whatever shape might sing to you and place on a baking sheet lined with oven proof paper.

Now you are in the home stretch, so simply brush your cut out scones with milk and top with a generous pile of sliced hazelnuts and demerara sugar for extra post-baking sparkle and crunch.  Place into the super hot oven (which was too messy to photograph) for approximately 12 minutes.

Those 12 minutes should provide ample time to whip up this lime cream which is positively sublime (get it ?!), that is sure to become a fast favourite for all sorts of culinary needs.  I am already eyeing it up for a smoked salmon bagel canape with my pickled fennel, mmmmmmm.  Anyway, simply place a small tub of softened cream cheese into a bowl, add the zest of 1 lime and 2 Tablespoons of icing/powdered sugar.  Add the juice of half a lime and stir to combine.  It should become a super thick cream and not be too runny, so only add the juice from the other half of if you think it can take it.

Serve the warm wonderful scones with the chilled lime cream – don’t forget the coffee like I did – and transport yourself to a cool, hip Swedish fika.  The flavour combination will seem unexpected and exotic at first, but will quickly unite into a new classic for sure.

A big thank you to Linn, Jenny and of course Cecelia Vikbladh, who may have single-handedly inspired me to start learning Swedish!

Enjoy!