It's been a tradition in my family to celebrate St-Lucia Day, a Swedish holiday on December 13th. There are slightly different versions of how this day came to be and how it is celebrated, but basically, to celebrate the darkest nights of the year, and honor St-Lucia, young Swedish women put crowns of candles on their heads and visit neighbors and friends with sweets. But, you're not Swedish, you might say, and it's true, but years ago my mom decided it would be fun to celebrate the holidays the way they do around the world and we adopted this one quite happily. It was easy, because "Lussekatters" are deelish!
Lussekatters, meaning Lucia's cats are cardamom or saffron buns, shaped more like flowers than cats, with raisins squeezed in them. My mom got the recipe from a discard library book and as stated on the inside flap; " The perfect holiday gift, Feast-day Cakes from Many Lands will be a welcome addition to every housewife's culinary collection.
Yesterday, I made 3 batches of them because I had a bit of trouble with the yeast. Yeast is finicky; it doesn't activate if your liquid is too cold and easy to kill if it's too hot. The last batch was finally a success! We had some friends over to make them and had a lot of fun! There are different versions of the Lussekatter buns online if you are tempted to try them out, and while you wait for the dough to rise, you can watch this video of the St-Lucia celebrations in Sweden.
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