{"id":7247,"date":"2013-12-13T10:56:59","date_gmt":"2013-12-13T10:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesojournseries.com\/bavaria\/?p=7247"},"modified":"2014-12-17T17:45:17","modified_gmt":"2014-12-17T17:45:17","slug":"st-lucia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesojournseries.com\/bavaria\/st-lucia\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Lucia"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Ask the 8 year old\u00a0what her future Master Mind subject might be, and I would hazard a guess it might be different celebrations and festivals.\u00a0 Whether it’s because she is exposed to so many (yesterday she bought home a dradel, I actually had no idea what one looked like) and has a learned affinity, or perhaps it’s because\u00a0she has a natural leaning towards anthropology, who knows?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Whatever the reason, she actually knows an awful lot more about such things than I do…<\/p>\n

On my recent Aebleskiver<\/a> making day,\u00a0 I learned\u00a0that the Swedish celebration of Saint Lucia <\/a>was on December 13th, and madam completely surprised me with how much she already knew about it…\u00a0\u00a0 Luckily granny was still staying with us, so she came up with the goods in the form of a home made headdress, and I found a few Christmas candle holders and a few tiny white candles.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For health and safety reasons, we ignored the pleas of her younger brother\u00a0for the candles to be lit on the headdress itself whilst it was on her head,\u00a0and she was instead\u00a0content to hold a fairly chubby lit candle, and pose for a photo…<\/p>\n

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Apparently the one bit\u00a0about the tradition she’s not overly keen on is the bit about the\u00a0eldest daughter serving\u00a0the rest of the family breakfast on St. Lucia Day, \u00a0in the form of coffee, chocolate and Lucia Buns (although she was happy to wear the headdress whilst eating her cornflakes\u00a0this morning!) which is a shame, because I made the buns just in case….\u00a0 (and I took the\u00a0series of pics above to \u00a0prove it as they are for sale in the freezers of a certain blue and yellow scandinavian household furniture company\u00a0right now,\u00a0and I wouldn’t want you thinking I had been cheating now would I?!)…<\/p>\n

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As with the aebleskiver, I slightly adapted the recipe from my beloved copy of\u00a0The\u00a0Scandinavian Cook Book.\u00a0 \u00a0 Seriously, if you don’t own\u00a0a copy, do put one on your Christmas list…<\/p>\n

Swedish Lucia Bread (makes 10-12)<\/strong>
\n20g fresh yeast (or dried equivalent),
\n250ml warm (not hot) milk,
\n3g saffron,
\n100g butter melted,
\n500g plain flour,
\nhalf teaspoon of salt,
\n50g\u00a0caster sugar,
\n50g raisins.<\/p>\n