On 27 February the Embassy of Sweden in Hanoi hosted a gathering together with Vietnamese journalists, celebrating a very special Swedish occasion. Swedish Ambassador Mr Pereric Högberg and former Ambassador Mrs Camilla Mellander (now the Head of Trade Promotion at the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs) held presentations over a ‘fika’ (Swedish for coffee break), where everyone got the opportunity to try the delicious Semla bun, in celebration of ‘Fat Tuesday’.
There the embassy also announced the winners of the Semla Facebook competition: Congratulations to Phuong Thao & Nguyen Tra for following the Embassy’s Facebook and winning the quiz! They got to join in on the Semla tasting at Fika Café, 50 Lo Duc in Hanoi.
Furthermore, following questions from many of the fans of Sweden about what it takes to make a Semla, Ylva Jansson, Deputy Head of Mission shared her insights into what makes a really fantastic Semla.
Her secret recipe is surprisingly simple: “First of all you bake buns with cardamom and you cut off the hats. Then you make a small hole in the buns and remove a piece of the bread and mix it with grated almond paste and whipped cream. You put one knob of this mixture in the hole and on top of that you put whipped cream, use a nozzle if you have one, and put on the hats. On top of the hat you sprinkle icing sugar. Voila!”
Source: Embassy of Sweden in Hanoi
