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Rating: 5 stars A historical comment! These buns are traditionally eaten not for Christmas but for Saint Lucia's day (December 13). She is the patron saint of Sweden so her day is celebrated widely there. A girl of the family will dress up as St. Lucia wearing a long white gown with a red sash and a crown of holly with candles (nowadays mostly just electric candles) and will serve the "Santa Lucia Buns" to the rest of the family. They can also be made with two overlapping "S" shapes to make a cross with curled ends. I often prefer to make my Santa Lucia buns with just a bit of large crystal sugar or Scandinavian pearl sugar (which is a bit harder to find). I also like the look of longer strands of Saffron they really do add lovely color and taste to the buns.:) Happy Scandinavian Baking!!! Thumb Up Helpful (35)

Rating: 4 stars Excellent old-fashioned recipe although a bit bland for the seasoned pallet. For the second batch I added sugar to the top before they went into the oven. A little dip into some butter and they are such a delight. My parents want me to show them how to make them and they're very picky- so that's saying something! Thumb Up Helpful (19)

Rating: 5 stars A wonderful recipe that makes the lightest most delicate breakfast bread! The saffron gives it a golden hue and the dough is manageable enough to shape into just about any shape you can imagine! We made these to celebrate St Lucia Day but I know we will be eating this bread many times throughout the year now. I may add candied lemon/orange peel next time I bake these to make them into a slightly more sweet breakfast bread... Thumb Up Helpful (16)

Rating: 5 stars Excellent recipe for moist saffron buns. I did add a tad more salt and also some cardamom. Either way this recipe results in moist fluffy buns. I made mine with quark. Also added pearl sugar on top for the additional bit of sweet crunchiness. Mine definitely had to bake longer than the time in the recipe to get a nice golden color. Thumb Up Helpful (7)

Rating: 5 stars Excellent recipe that gives tasty traditional Swedish saffron buns. I did only use 6 cups of flour and they turned out very moist and nice. Thumb Up Helpful (6)

Rating: 5 stars This was an AWESOME recipe. Here are some things that I learned making them the first time: *I wanted to make these for our family's St. Lucia Day breakfast, and so I made the dough the night before, let it rise, formed the rolls, and then put them on the pan in the fridge to finish rising overnight. This worked like a charm and we had hot rolls first thing in the morning. *I didn't have access to fresh yeast cakes, so I substituted 2 1/4 tsp instant yeast for each cake. This worked well. *I added 1/4 tsp cardamom and sprinkled the dough with pearl sugar, like other reviewers suggested. *I was using saffron stamens from Palestine, which are different than Spanish saffron (slightly less intense). I crushed them myself and ended up with 1/2 tsp. *I didn't divide the dough up beforehand, and just did it as I went. This means that my rolls ended up bigger than they would've if I'd divided them beforehand. (I got one big pan full). I will pre-divide next time. Truly, these ended up delicious and moist and just *perfect* for our St. Lucia Day celebration. I think I will use it as my go-to sweet roll dough from now on. Thank you!!! Thumb Up Helpful (4)

Rating: 5 stars These are really tasty fluffy buns with a delicate Saffron flavor. I am not Scandinavian I made these for my Kindergarten class when we studied Norway and the author Jan Brett. I used 3 packs of yeast instead of the cake yeast and 1/4 teaspoon crushed Saffron threads because that is what I had. Thumb Up Helpful (4)

Rating: 4 stars Yes a good recipe but lay the saffron “steep” in the milk for at least 30 minutes to get all the flavor from this expensive spice. (I actually use 1/4cup boiling water and steep in that and sub for 1/4 cup milk. This will make a huge difference in flavor and color. Thumb Up Helpful (3)