Fastelavens Boller

So rose tea it is, together with "Fastelavens boller" - buns filled with cream, eaten on the last Sunday before lent.

Buns

1/2 litre soy, rice or oat milk ( I don't believe in pasteurized cow milk products and not pasteurized milk is hard to get here)

fresh yeast or a packed of dried yeast (fresh is nice)

some rapeseed oil

sugar to taste, possibly brown cane sugar (this is hard, I haven't used a recipe for years, taste the dough)

wheat flour or spelt flour until the dough gets nice and sticky (a little less than a kilo)

a little salt?

cardamom (half a teaspoon)

some seeds from a vanilla pod?

Warm the milk until 35C, mix with yeast (if dried, use a little 40C water and a little sugar to "wake" the yeast, leave until frothy and add to other ingredients)
Add other ingredients and leave to swell. Make buns on a floured surface, swell on baking plates before put into the oven.

Bake in 200C oven until brown

The buns tend never to taste the same. Use your instinct to try out a new taste.

If Fastelavens boller, cut the buns into two and put whipped soy cream in in between the halves.

Enjoy!

The Sacred Lake

It feels like a long time ago, but it is no more than 23 years, how time flies, when M and I went to see the movie made after E. M. Forster's book A Room With a View. We were romantic teenagers back then, and dreamt of a beautiful, intellectual hero sweeping us off our feet. The lovely actor in the movie fit the mould perfectly. We were enraptured. One of the funniest scenes in the movie was when the hero, the heroines brother and the reverend ran naked around the bathing "puddle" called The Sacred Lake.

There used to be a nice, little lake close to where I live, but it got drained a few years ago, possibly in the name of progress. Last year, though, my boyfriend and I went for a walk in the woods nearby and found the "lake" in the picture by accident. It's not really a lake, and it was by far too cold for bathing or running around naked for that matter, but it was secluded and the light was interesting. My boyfriend is very different from the heroes of my teens, thankfully. I'm lucky to get to know him even if our relationship does not resemble a romance novel. Life doesn't, and that's quite good actually. It would be too syrupy otherwise, but here is our Sacred Lake.