Today is fettisdagen (Fat Tuesday) when Swedes no longer make any excuse for eating as many semla's as possible. To prepare for Lent, Swedes have a tradition of eating semla, a plain bun (with cardamom) filled with almond paste and whipped cream and topped with powdered sugar. Sometimes they are eaten as is or sometimes in a bowl of hot milk (hetvägg). Traditionally, semla's were the last sweet treat eaten before the sobering season of Lent. However, as Sweden has secularized, semla's are now eaten every Tuesday from fettisdagen (Fat Tuesday) to Easter. They say you are cheating if you eat one before fettisdagen and one of my classmates sent out an invitation to a semmelfika over a month ago to get us all ready! (Don't tell him I tried one last weekend!)
So today, I went to my first semmelfika (fika (of course) with semla). Almost 20 of us showed up at my classmates little apartment where he had slaved away making semla for us. They were huge! And so tasty. I like that the bun isn't too sweet allowing the almond paste and whipped cream to really shine.
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