Introducing the Rainbow Semla!

Just as I was getting to know Max early last year, I saw that one of my favourite bloggers, Bri Emery of Designlovefest, had recently gone to Stockholm and documented her journey on her blog and on her Instagram account. I fell in love with the architecture and colourful captures of her hotel stay and stops at all of the iconic artsy subway stations on her feed, but what caught my eye the most was a photo she took of a pastry shop window. In the photo was a table filled with Semlor (plural for Semla), a traditional Swedish pastry made up of a cardamom flavoured wheat bun filled with almond paste and cream. As soon as I saw that photo, I thought to myself, "I NEED TO TRY THESE!!" not even quite knowing what they were, and of course, did my best to find them when I finally got to visit Sweden in May of last year. But sadly I quickly learned that these delicious treats were only sold between February and March for a holiday known as "Fat Tuesday" (which just so happens to fall on February 13th, a day before Valentine's Day this year). I'm a pretty hopeful person, so every time I visited throughout the rest of the year, I continued to search for them. And then finally, when I came over for Christmas, I got to see them in person! They were being sold even earlier than I had thought they would be at the local most traditional bakery in town, and I got to taste one when I came back to move here in January. And yes, they were as delicious as I had hoped they would be.

I've always been one for testing the limits on traditional recipes, and I knew I would HAVE to put a spin on these guys considering they basically have little to no colouring on them. So, I decided to make rainbow coloured Semla, because, why not? I'm not going to lie, I know NOTHING about the metric system, and I'm also kind of afraid of baking bread (I once tried to make cinnamon rolls and had to re-make the recipe four times because I kept screwing up the dry yeast portion of the recipe), so I asked Max's sister to help make these happen, and they turned out great (albeit a little small as I'm not sure I had the dry yeast portions totally correct; I eyeballed it).

I first found THIS recipe which seemed fool-proof, but quickly realised that we would need to go with a Swedish recipe since we didn't have any US measuring cups to use, so we found THIS and used elements from both recipes. For the whipped cream, we just took a container of heavy cream and mixed it with a little sugar, whipping until it formed a nice semi soft peak, and added in different food colourings to create all the fun colours. I piped them into a piping bag and voila! The first step once they were ready to be filled was cutting the top off to create a little "hat", then added in the almond paste (we just took a couple pats of it and mixed it with a little milk so that it would be softer and less strong), and then piped on the cream. The finishing touch after putting the "hat" back on was a generous dusting of powdered sugar and they were good to go.

This would be a super fun project to do for Valentine's Day as well! You can make them the more traditional way by omitting food colouring and just throwing in some pink & red sprinkles into the cream.

If you decide to try your hand at these (which, duh, you totally should!), I would definitely stick with the US recipe if you are unfamiliar with the Metric system. It's so confusing to me that it makes me want to cry. But I know at some point I will understand it and that will be a great feeling!

Also, the recipe says to bake for up to 10 minutes. In retrospect, I wish I had taken them out after 8 minutes, but they were still really good - just a little extra crunchy (they're traditionally softer).

Getting ready to let these guys rise before putting them into the oven

If you make these, please tag me! I'd love to see your creations and I'll be posting some of my favourites on my instagram stories! Tag: #circusofcakestreats

I Moved!

OUTFIT DETAILS

Striped Knit Sweater (Can't find on website but I've linked similar one here)

Denim: 9" High Rise in Patty Wash    

Bag: old Kate Spade

Boots: Dasia

Well, as you can tell from the title of this blog post, I did it, I moved. It's funny to think that only two weeks ago I was just getting back from my visit here for Christmas and New Years, and that I was able to sell off all of my furniture (except for my couch!), re-home my kitty, and say goodbye to all of my friends and family by myself and super quickly. I'm quite proud of myself, really. It was not easy and I am so glad that it's over, and now I'm here and starting a brand new life and it's pretty cool. It definitely has not been all sunshine and roses, though.

When I first returned back to LA, I figured out pretty quickly that I would not be able to bring Ringo back with me to Sweden. So I spent the first two days back sobbing and having terribly swollen eyes, which was was not fun. I begrudgingly put him up on Next Door (an app that you can use to connect with the people in your neighbourhood). I HATED doing it. I felt awful, sick to my stomach. I had never imagined not being with my cat. I'd had him since 2010 and he had become a major source of comfort for me in the last few years and just always been.. my best friend, my pal, my partner in crime. But after thinking about it long and hard, I knew giving him a new home was what I had to do, even though it tore me apart inside. After only a day or two, a woman wrote to me who happened to live in my neighbourhood. She worked from home, had a really cool job, a beautiful and big house, and... 4 dogs. Ringo had never been around other animals before, so this idea of him now being around a bunch of animals really freaked me out. But at that point I had no other choice, and I had a very good feeling about her, so I brought him over. Right when I met her, I had a good feeling, but Ringo was not so sure. First he hid under a bed for a while, and later on, sat in a corner hissing and growling, but the dogs got used to him very fast and eventually they all sat in the room quietly. After two hours of gabbing with the owner and seeing Ringo in the house, I knew this was where he needed to be. Leaving him in LA has probably been the hardest part of this whole process, but I received the cutest update last night: a photo of him sitting in his new bed, leaning over to the smallest dog of the bunch, Ruby. He's made a friend!

In other news, my mom joined me when I flew here last week, and we had SO much fun. Our flights to Sweden and Norway were very empty so we had the rows to ourselves, and SAS fed us and gave us free wine, so that was cool. We landed fairly early in the day, and somehow I ended up not having any jet lag which is rare. Anyway, Max and I spent the following 5 days driving her around the neighbourhood, took her to our favourite restaurants, and she met Max's family as well. I'm so proud of my new town and the company I'm in here with Max and his friends and family, so it was exciting getting to show that off.

It's weird to think that now that she's gone, I won't be seeing anyone from my own circle until we come back to LA again in May. I've always been very independent and easily adaptable to new situations, so I've been ok with being on my own, but it does feel lonely at times. Max works every day, and I'm still unemployed as I wait for all of my official documents to be in order, so I've been spending my time watching a LOT of tv (including the full season of Big Little Lies, a season of Girls, and Swedish tv), napping, and planning blog posts. I'm excited about all of the ideas I have, though and I can't wait to share my new life here.

If there are any topics you'd like to see me cover here such as living in Europe, packing tips, outfit posts, etc, feel free to post them down below!