Swedish cardamom buns are a deliciously soft yet crunchy bread with a subtle cardamom flavored filling, but this recipe is more than that! It’s a sweet vanilla bread dough with a warm, caramelly, brown butter cardamom filling that deepens and elevates the flavors altogether!
I’ve been seeing the Swedish cardamom buns take rounds across social media and for someone who loves to bake bread, I knew I had to make them at home. To my surprise, the texture wasn’t anything like a soft bread dough. It was crunchy on the outside and soft in the inside, but delicious nonetheless!
For my recipe, I wanted to add more flavor and excitement to these buns so I tested them with a hint of vanilla in the dough and brown butter in the filling and let me just say… if you enjoyed these already with plain butter, you will LOVE them with brown butter! It adds incredible warmth, richness, and depth of flavor to these buns!
The dough
The dough is soft, sweet, and buttery and made of simple ingredients just like any other bread. For my recipe, I added a bit of vanilla to the dough for subtle flavor and used the cardamom only in the filling. This made it a lovely combination of vanilla flavored bread and a warm, caramelly, cardamom butter.
Detailed instructions are on the recipe card but here are step-by-step pictures to help you shape them into buns. Refer back to my videos on Instagram and Youtube for a video tutorial.
Folding and shaping the dough can seem daunting at first, but it’s much easier than you think. However, if you’re unable to shape them as I’ve shown here, then feel free to shape them into something you’re more comfortable creating. Baking can be a nice therapeutic experience so take it easy and enjoy the process. No need to fret or stress over it.
The Brown Butter Filling
The most delicious part of the recipe…the brown butter cardamom filling! You toast the butter until it’s brown and aromatic, then mix it with the ground cardamom and brown sugar. The mixture will seem runny at first so you have to set it in the refrigerator for a bit. This will give it more structure and make it firm enough to be easily spreadable when you put it on the dough.
Every refrigerator has a different coolness setting so check on the butter mixture as it chills. It needs to be solid but still soft, similar to the softness of room temperature butter. If you accidentally end up leaving it in there for too long and it becomes very firm, just set it out in a warm area to bring it up to room temp.
For the cardamom, I did not have ground cardamom on hand so I just took the seeds out of whole green cardamom pods and ground them into a powder using a mortal and pestle. You can do the same if you have whole cardamoms at home, or simply use the ground cardamom powder if you have that instead.
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Swedish Cardamom Buns
Ingredients
For the dough:
- 2/3 cup (160 ml) warm milk
- 2 tbsp white sugar
- 1 tsp active dry yeast
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 cups (260 g) all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp (28 g) unsalted butter – softened
For the filling:
- 5 tbsp (71 g) unsalted butter
- 4 tbsp (50 g) brown sugar
- 1 tsp ground cardamom
Instructions
To make the dough:
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the warm milk, sugar, and yeast. Let it sit for 5 minutes, until it becomes frothy.
- Mix in the vanilla and then add the flour, salt, and softened butter. Combine everything to form a dough ball and knead until it becomes smooth and elastic. You’ll know it’s ready when you gently tap on it with a finger and it bounces back.
- Place the dough in a lightly-oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rise for 1 hour, or until it doubles in size.
The filling:
- Tip: start working on the butter about 30 minutes after setting the dough to rise, so that the butter is ready by the time the dough has risen.
- To make the filling, add the brown sugar and ground cardamom to a bowl and set it aside.
- Add the butter to a saucepan over medium heat. Cook for 5-7 minutes, stirring frequently, until it becomes golden brown and fragrant and you see brown milk solids on the bottom of the pan. Keep an eye on it since butter can go from brown to burnt very quickly.
- Pour the brown butter over the sugar and cardamom and mix it all together.
- Put it in the refrigerator to chill until it solidifies enough to the point where none of it remains liquidy (took about 15-20 minutes for me). You want it to be solid but still soft enough to be spreadable (just like regular room temp butter). If it ends up becoming too firm, just leave it out to soften up to room temp.
To make the buns:
- Once the dough has risen, gently punch it down and transfer to a lightly floured work surface.
- Roll the dough into a rectangle (about 15 in x 12 in) and evenly spread the butter mixture over two thirds of the dough.
- Then fold the dough into thirds, starting with the portion that has not been buttered. Fold that over the center, then fold the other side (buttered) over it. (like folding a letter)
- Cut the dough into 6 equal portions. Then cut each piece in half, lengthwise, but don’t cut all the way through, leave one end joined.
- Grab each end of the dough and starting from the joined side, turn/twist the dough so that the strips fold over each other and it looks like a spiral. Alternatively, you can fold the strips with the other like a braid. Then circle it and tuck the end under. (see pictures for reference)
- Place each piece onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, leaving a few inches of space between each, so that it has enough room to rise and spread during proofing and baking. Cover and let it rise for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 375℉ (190℃) and then bake for 15-17 minutes, until golden brown.
- Let them cool slightly before serving and enjoy!
