I don't know about you, but lately it seems as though I'm living in perpetual darkness. When I wake up in the morning it's dark. As the day progresses, the sky lightens somewhat to a dirty grey and even if the sun fleetingly appears, it is pale and weak. And by three in the afternoon, it's dark again.

When the greyness of November is over and the Christmas lights are twinkling in the increasing darkness of December, your mind turns to baking - well mine does anyway. I love the traditional buns that are made here for Lucia day (December 13th), the saffron giving them a cheerful golden glow that helps brighten up the darkness. As with many yeast based buns, they are best eaten freshly made on the day you bake them. In these modern times, we can bake them and freeze them as soon as they are cool, taking what we need and zapping them in the microwave to restore their aromatic goodness.

It's not easy to be the apprentice baker around here. I feel the master's presence breathing down my neck (and we all know how good he is!), but despite this I was determined to make the Christmas saffron buns all by myself. Little did I know that the kitchen appliances were plotting my downfall. Paranoid, me???

These buns are easy to make and I've given the recipe before. I was confident as I happily measured out and sifted the flour, ground up the saffron with the sugar and a little alcohol and heated up the milk and butter and crumbled in the fresh yeast. I added the wet ingredients to the flour, switched on my mixer and..... SILENCE. Not a sound. Not a movement of the beaters. I frantically checked the power point, I jiggled it a bit and even threatened it, but all to no avail.

The master baker, hearing my wails came to the kitchen and kindly took over, handmixing and kneading the dough expertly and putting it under a cloth to prove. We then turned our attention to the renegade mixer. We only bought it one year and one week ago! As I said that out loud, I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach - "Oh no, please don't let there be only a one year guarantee!" I howled (yes, I'm a real drama queen). And where were all of the guarantees, anyway? I hadn't seen them since we moved. Fortunately my cool headed Swede went to the desk drawer and in a jiffy was back with the TWO year guarantee! While he rang the shop we bought it from in Nynäshamn to check their return policy, I rolled the buns into their lusse-shapes, added the raisins and left them to prove a second time.




It seems that there was good news and bad news. The good news was that yes, we could return it. The bad news was twofold - we had to return it to the Nynäshamn branch of the shopping chain (I hate you, Konsum!) and that they no longer sold them, so we had to just get a refund. We are going up that way for Christmas, so we can get the money and leave the machine. But that leaves me mixmasterless. This was a pain because it took me a while to find the machine I liked and I wasn't looking forward to searching all over again.

But search we did, thanks to the internet! While the buns proved, we looked at what was available at the appliance shops in Sweden and I finally decided to get this Bosch machine. It was a similar price to the machine I was returning and would seem to be of a similar size. So we searched for the best price and found it in a tiny electrical shop in Borensberg, a small town nearby. While Lars-Göran rang them, I ducked into the kitchen, brushed the buns with beaten egg and popped them into the oven to bake.




Good news. They had one mixer in stock! So I mentioned that we could pick it up in the morning. I had read about two Christmas markets at Brunneby and Skänninge, so it would work in really well as Borensberg is near both of these towns. We'd have to get going early to go first to Motala for an errand, then to get the mixer and after have the day to mooch around the markets. Before he could object, the oven timer rang - saved by the bell yet again! *runs quickly to the kitchen*




Hmmmm..... fresh saffron buns that we just couldn't resist sampling. Despite the earlier panic, they were light, fluffy and so, so delicious. But I was very good, sharing only the one with Lars-Göran and cooling the rest and putting them in the freezer all ready to enjoy in the coming week.