Solboller

The story

Solboller means sun buns: soft, cardamom-scented Norwegian yeast buns with a round of yellow vanilla cream baked into the center, so that each one looks like a small sun. The recipe site Matoppskrift files them as vaniljeboller, vanilla buns. A Visit Norway photo of Easter snacks shows sun buns beside oranges, Solo orange soda and Kvikk Lunsj chocolate, and Matoppskrift opens its Easter baking feature with the line that Norwegians think of sun and orange when they think of Easter, and a lot of yellow. The buns belong to the large Norwegian family of sweet yeast baking made from wheat flour, milk, butter, sugar, egg, yeast and ground cardamom. Filled with vanilla cream, the same dough becomes skoleboller, school buns, when the yellow center is ringed with white icing and grated coconut. Solboller leave out the icing and coconut, so the cream stays in view. The cream can be cooked the evening before and kept cold, and the dough mixed in the morning; the buns are at their best on the day they are baked, with coffee or packed for an Easter outing.