- So mom.
- Let me just figure this out first.
- Are you looking up how to do a bread?
- Yes.
- Hi guys, I'm Matt.
Welcome back to my kitchen.
It's almost Christmas time, which means it is the time
of year for one of my favorite treats, Swedish bread.
Now, if you've never had Swedish bread before,
it's crunchy and sugary on the outside.
It's sweet and pillowy on the inside.
Tastes a little bit like cardamom
and you can have it with jam on top.
You can have it with ricotta on top, whatever you want.
I love it so much, but unfortunately this year,
I won't be traveling home for the holidays.
So I'm joined by my mom.
Who's gonna show me how to make it.
- Hi everyone.
This is Laura.
I'm really excited to be sharing our family
special Swedish bread recipe with you today.
This recipe was gifted
to us many years ago from our late friend, Mimi.
And I really hope you enjoy it as much as our family has.
- I've never actually made this before mom.
So you're gonna have to help me out a little bit.
- It can be tricky, but it's really worth it.
- Well, I'm ready to start cooking.
Are you ready?
- I am ready.
Let's do it.
(upbeat music)
- Mom I have a pot in front of me,
what do I need to do?
- You're gonna add your milk,
your salt, your butter, sugar, and cardamom.
- I can really smell the cardamom in this.
- So cardamom is a very pungent spice.
So start out with a little bit
and if you like it you can amp it up a bit.
We're going to heat the milk and all the ingredients
until the sugar is dissolved and the butter is melted.
- I wasn't very smart
and I throw all my butter in is one block.
I should have cut it up into pieces.
- I threw it in as a block too.
It must be something familiar.
- Oh my God this smells so good.
Did you grind your own cardamom up?
- I did grind my own.
Can you see that?
- Oh, nice.
- Can you see the seeds?
So this is white cardamom.
- But it's green.
- It's not green, it's white.
- Is this one of those things
where I can't see colors again?
I think my sugar is pretty much dissolved
at this point and my butter is completely melted.
- Yes I think mine is as well.
And I'm gonna just turn it off.
We're gonna set this aside to let it cool
and get ready for the next step.
Remember, this is a really old recipe.
This recipes is probably over 50 years old.
Proofing the yeast,
a lot of times you don't need to do that anymore
but that's what the recipe says to do.
Proofing the yeast was a way
to tell if your yeast was active.
- We just need to wake these guys up.
- You're just making sure that the yeast you have is potent.
We're gonna add some warm water.
If it's too cold, the yeast won't activate.
So we're gonna add that to our bowl.
One package of active dry yeast.
- Got it.
- And a teaspoon of sugar.
You just wanna mix this up and it should begin to foam up
because it's got sugar and yeast loves sugar.
Let this rest for a few minutes and it should foam up.
- Cool cool, we'll be right back.
Oh, wow, it's already foaming up.
All right, mom, my yeast looks really, really happy.
It's foamed up.
It almost looks like a pint of beer.
- Mine looks like fireworks going off in it to cycle.
We need to pour the warm milk mixture into a bowl.
- Mine's already in a bowl.
- Gonna add the yeast.
- It's like latte art.
- We're going to add one egg lightly beaten.
You're gonna whisk it all together
until everything's blended.
- And Mimi only made this for Christmas?
- She only made this for Christmas.
Every Christmas, she would come over to our house
and gift us a beautiful loaf
of this bread wrapped with ribbon
and a nice jar of raspberry preserves to go with it.
Okay, so next step is we're going to get a larger bowl
and we're going to add
and transfer our everything mixture to the big bowl.
- Oh, this smells so good.
- It does wait until it's done.
- Literally smells like our house.
- At Christmas.
- Yeah
- Next we're going to sift the flour
and gradually add it to the mixture.
The reason why we're doing a cup at a time is because
as you're mixing the flour into the liquid,
you're shooting for a texture
that is springy when it's pressed
and not too sticky.
We're gonna have to get it to a point where we can knead it.
- Uuu she getting thick.
Oh no, I just made one of those jokes.
I'm gonna start using my hands.
It's still, Oh, actually it might be close.
- I'm putting another half a cup in.
You'll feel the texture change.
When you get close.
- I feel like I'm right on the cusp.
- It's still a little sticky.
So I'm gonna just add a little bit more flour.
- I'll tell you what,
this is more work than I thought it would be.
I'm gonna transfer mine to the cutting board and knead.
How long are we gonna knead this for?
- Gonna knead it about 15 minutes.
- Okay
Well, we'll be right back.
I am working up a sweat right now.
- Need to exercise more.
- What's the texture we're looking for again?
- If you notice it's not sticking to your hands,
this surface is clean and it's tacky, but not sticky.
And when you poke it with your fingers,
it should spring back.
You should have a ball of dough like this.
Can you see?
Good.
You've got a large bowl,
a little bit of room temperature butter
probably about maybe a tablespoon.
And we're just gonna smear it around the bowl to coat.
- My bowl looks pretty well greased, how's that?
- Looks good.
And what you do is you're gonna take your bowl dough.
You're gonna put it in
and just make sure you get some butter around all of that.
I just take it and roll it around the bowl.
So next we're gonna let it rest,
cover it up until it's about double in size.
- All right, I will see you in a little bit then.
- Sounds good.
(upbeat music)
- So it's been about an hour
and as you can see, my dough has doubled in size.
- All right.
It's still pillowy,
this is more fun than I was thinking.
All three of my pieces of dough rolled out.
They're all relatively, even and uniform.
They are pinched together.
Now they are all pinched together.
So I've got all three of my pieces pinched together.
How do I do a bread?
- You take the right strand,
bring it over the middle
and pull the middle strand to the right.
Then you bring the left strand over
and pull the middle strand to the left.
- Oh, this is easy.
- Cinch them together.
And then you kind of tuck them under.
Does it looked like a bread?
- Yeah, you wanna see?
- Oh yeap, yours looks good.
- Yay.
- So now you take that
and you're going to put it on a lined baking sheet.
I don't know if you can see it.
- Oh wow, yours is way longer than mine.
- So now we're going to cover this again with a damp towel
and set it aside while we do our second one.
And then we're gonna let them rest again
just like we did before.
(upbeat music)
So we're almost ready to bake our bread.
And what we need to do is do a quick light water wash.
Don't wanna give it a bath.
You just wanna give it a light coating,
gently no pressure,
because you don't wanna deflate the bread.
- You can see all the little specks of cardamom in it.
- You just wanna do a light coating,
so the sugar sticks to it.
So next we're gonna give it a light sprinkling
of course sugar.
And it should stick to the bread.
- What kind of sugar are you using?
- I'm using decorative sugar.
- How liberal can I be with the sugar?
- As liberal as you want.
- Nice.
I think my loaf looks good.
- That looks good Matt.
Can you see mine?
- Oh, yours is big.
- So we're going to repeat what we did with this loaf
with the last loaf and bake them at 350 degrees.
You'll know that they're done
when they turn a nice golden Brown.
And when you tap them on the bottom, they (indistinct).
(upbeat music)
- It's actually the next day,
we let our bread cool overnight.
Mine looks really good.
- Mine looks really good too.
That looks really nice Matt.
- Thank you thank you.
I learnt from the best.
- Aww.
- What so we cut these in half
and take a look at the inside.
- Sounds good.
- Oh, wow.
- Yours looks really good.
It's got more height than mine.
- It's so spongy.
- It's the sign of a good bread.
- This looks great.
It looks nice and Brown on the outside.
It's nice and fluffy on the inside.
Let's toast these up.
How do you like your bread?
I love mine with jam.
I also like it with a little bit of ricotta
and some honey on top.
Can you see that?
What say we give it a shot.
All right.
Really good.
I don't think it's quite as good as yours.
The cardamom is really subtle.
And it's fluffy on the inside.
The cardamom is not too strong.
It's sweet, but it's not too sweet.
It's very spongy.
Thank you so much for showing me how to make this.
This is one of my favorite things to have every year.
- It's important to have things
that remind you of family and friends and good times.
And when you make them
it reminds you of people who you care about.
I think we're fortunate that we can do this virtually
and feel like at least we shared a ritual
that's important to our family together.
And then I really liked fact
that it's been passed down to another generation.
- And now we shared it with all of you.
I hope you guys enjoy the recipe as much as I have.
And as much as my family does.
- Let us know what you think in the comments below
or message me on Instagram.
I wish everyone a happy and safe holiday.
Thanks again, bye.
- Bye guys, happy holidays.
Oh, yes.
(upbeat music)