Swedish Semla Vegan Waffle Cake
This Swedish Semla Vegan Waffle Cake is the perfect way to celebrate Shrove Tuesday. Fat Tuesday (or Shrove Tuesday) is one of the most beloved days in Sweden. Swedes traditionally eat ‘semlor’ (Semla singular, semlor plural) on Fat Tuesday, and last year on this day alone Swedes consumed about 6 million semlor. There are just over 10 million people in Sweden to put that in perspective for you haha. The beloved and traditional semla is a cardamom flavoured bun with almond paste and whipped cream filling, and an icing sugar dusting on top. YUM. During ‘Semla season’ last year about 50 million semlor were consumed…that’s a lot of semlor.
I think it’s fun to try new semla alternatives so this year I made a waffle cake using all the components of a traditional semla. It turned out SO GOOD. Instead of the cardamom bun, I added freshly ground cardamom and some vanilla to the waffle batter to take the place of the bun. Then I just layered the waffles with the usual semla filling of almond paste, and vegan whipped cream. Thin and crispy waffles with creamy almond filling and some crunch from roasted almonds? Yes please!
This Swedish Semla Vegan Waffle Cake is perfect if you want to enjoy a semla, but aren’t really keen on all the steps to bake the buns etc. This is super quick and easy and most importantly…DELICIOUS. 🙂 All the good semla flavour with only a fraction of the effort. Dreamy! I hope you like this recipe as much as I do!!
Swedish Semla Vegan Waffle Cake
Equipment
- Waffle Maker
Ingredients
Almond Paste
- 150 g almonds
- 150 g icing sugar
- dash of ground cardamom
- splash of pure vanilla extract
- 3 tbsp water
- 3-4 tbsp oat cream
Waffle Ingredients
- 350 ml white flour
- 1 ½ – 2 tsp freshly ground cardamom depends how much you like the cardamom flavour!
- 1 tbsp raw sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 100 g melted vegan butter
- 250 ml water
- 200 ml vegan milk
- pinch of salt
Toppings
- vegan cream for whipping
- roasted almonds, chopped
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 150°C to roast the almonds.
- Spread out the almonds evenly on a baking tray. Roast them in the oven for 10-15 minutes. Stir about half way. Don't let them burn so keep an eye on them.
- Remove the almonds from the oven and let them cool.
- Grind the cardamom with a mortar and pestle.
- Mix together all the dry waffle ingredients in a medium sized bowl. Add in the wet ingredients and mix together until everything is completely combined and the batter is smooth.
- Make waffles in the waffle maker following manufacturers instructions. My machine makes fairly large waffles so I only made about 5 with this recipe. Either enjoy the extras separately as a snack or make more layers on the cake!
- Add the almonds to a food processor or high speed blender, but keep a few spoonfuls of the almonds separately. This will be coarsely chopped later. Mix the almonds until it's coarse sand texture, then add icing sugar and the other ingredients. Mix the almond paste ingredients until you get a thick paste. Adjust the flavouring to your desire, or add more oat cream if the paste is too thick.
- Whip the vegan whipped cream. It should be quite stiff so it's easy to decorate with.
- Chop the almonds to rough pieces. Keep some for decorating the top of the waffle cake, and stir in the rest in the almond paste to give more texture.
- Assemble the waffle cake by spreading first almond paste on a waffle, then vegan whipped cream, and then place another waffle on top. Either repeat this step or simply decorate the top waffle with dollops of cream and sprinkle more freshly ground cardamom and almond pieces on top. Beeaautiful!
- Serve and enjoy immediately! 🙂
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