summary: Recipe for Solskinnsboller turned into Citronboller; lemon butter instead of vanilla custard; adding wild yeast to commercial yeast; butter and sugar galore; information about Bread Baking Babes;

Bread Baking Babes June 2026: Solskinnsboller (Norwegian Sun Buns)

Spring has sprung! The chives have flowered; sage, thyme, and oregano managed to survive over the winter; the romano beans I planted have sprouted; the Swiss chard seedlings have adjusted to their new outdoor space; the clematis is flowering; and cardinals, robins, chickadees, woodpeckers, and flickers are calling and calling and calling happily.

This really is the best season. There is so much promise.

This month, thinking about the upcoming longest day, Karen K chose Solskinnsboller (Norwegian Sun Buns – or literally “sunshine buns”) for us to make.

These Norwegian sun buns, so named for their sunny yellow custard centers, wrap the greatest hits of Scandinavian baking into one treat: They’re swirled with cinnamon, like kanelbolle (cinnamon rolls); they’re topped with a sweet vanilla custard, like skolebrød (school buns); and, of course, they’re scented with cardamom, a beloved spice across the region.
 
King Arthur Baking, Sun Buns (Solskinnsboller)
In parts of northern Norway, to mark the return of the sun after the dark time (mørkentiden) these solboller or “sun buns,” also known as solskinsbollerr, or “sunshine buns,’ are often enjoyed. Egg custard with its yellow hue sits front and center surrounded by sweet dough as a palpable symbol of the sun. Some variations sit the custard atop a plain bun, while others, including mine, place it on a cinnamon bun. It’s a very sweet way of welcoming in the lighter days.
 
-Nevada Berg, Norwegian Baking | Through the Seasons (Prestel Publishing, 2023), Winter Light, ‘Sun Buns’, p.15

J’adore cardamom!!

But. Do I feel the same about cinnamon? Or vanilla custard? Even if we do have real vanilla pods to make real vanilla custard?

I don’t know why, but I am suddenly off cinnamon and off vanilla.

How’s that for foreshadowing? Here is how things went with what I did to the BBBabes’ June 2026 recipe:

BBB Solskinnsboller Diary:

13 May 2026, 17:18 These are perfect for June! Imagine having those in Scandinavia for a midnight celebration on 21 June…. I might have to bake them twice to have here around 10pm or so on the longest day.

The shaping method on the Scandinavian Cookbook is interesting! I wonder how many people make their Sunshine Buns that way.

Lately I’ve found myself most often reaching for solskinnsboller, or “sunshine buns” in English, also called solboller, or “sun buns.”
      Solskinnsboller are made with a sweet cardamom dough, rolled with cinnamon and sugar, filled in the center with vanilla custard, and drizzled with icing on top. Norwegians make many different kinds of custard buns
[…]
Some Norwegians also call these buns solboller, but you don’t want to confuse them with the solboller Northern Norwegians eat when the sun returns after the polar night. Those solboller are more like doughnuts than buns.
[…]
□ Roll out the dough into a large square. Spread the cinnamon butter mixture across all of the square, leaving a few centimeters (couple of inches) at the top and bottom of the square.
□ Roll the rectangle from the bottom up into a long cylinder. Use a knife to cut (~1 inch) slices out of the cylinder. This should make about 22 buns. Set the buns spaced apart on baking sheets.
□ Press down a large well in each bun. Be sure to press the dough all the way down and make a bigger well than you’ll actually need, as the dough will puff back up a bit.  
– Silvia, Scandinavian Cookbook | Solskinnsboller – Norwegian Sun Buns (Solboller)

The Scandinavian Cookbook’s Solboller look amazing too! They remind me of the Polish Paczki that are made for Fat Thursday (like Mardi Gras or Pancake Tuesday in North America) (I’ve only bought those at our favourite Polish deli that is just down the street from us. The ones we get are filled with a preserved plum and are amazingly wonderful.) When I was a kid, we called that sort of filled doughnut a Jellybuster.

(To continue with my offtopicness, here’s a recipe for Paczki (Polish Doughnuts) and for jellybusters:)

Hmmm. I wonder if these would work with lemon butter (lemon curd) instead of vanilla custard?

11 June 2026, 13:03 I really am not the biggest fan of vanilla custard so I looked on the internet to get permission to use lemon curd instead.

Yay!! The internet came through. I’ve decided to base our recipe on the one at King Arthur Baking, North Wild Kitchen’s “sitronboller”, Det søte liv’s “Sitronboller”, and Skandibaking’s “Lemon Meringue Buns”.

Å smaksette deig med nystøtt kardemomme er et must for meg, men fyllet varierer jeg gjerne etter behov. Denne gangen ble det sitron og pistasjenøtter. [Flavouring dough with freshly ground cardamom is a must for me, but I like to vary the filling as needed. This time it was lemon and pistachios.]
 
– Christopher Sjuve, Oppskrifter | Sitronboller med pistasj
[Lemon Buns with pistachios]
These lemon custard buns ‘sitronboller’ are inspired by the season. Bright and sunny, they add a bit of liveliness to the kitchen. Lemon zest is added into dough for a subtle nod, whereas more zest and fresh lemon juice turn a traditional custard into a tangy and vibrant filling perfectly sandwiched into the layers.
 
– Nevada Berg, North Wild Kitchen | Lemon Custard Buns (Sitronboller)

Nevada Berg’s cookbook “Norwegian Baking through the Seasons”, has a recipe for tradition Sun Buns. I have her book on hold at the library, so don’t know if she also includes Sitronboller.

Skandibaking’s Lemon Meringue Buns have cardamom in the dough; Det søte liv’s Sitronboller have cardamom in the dough and are filled with butter, lemon, and hazelnuts; Oppskrifter’s Sitronboller are similar but have pistachios instead of hazelnuts.

14 June 2026, 11:29 I have just mixed the dough – so far so good. Except. This morning, just as I was writing down the recipe, my computer suddenly and not so inexplicably crashed (I’m still running Win7). Mercifully, I can get in in Safe Mode (so far). Fingers crossed that I’ll be able to post my voluminous report in time without the computer crashing even if it’s in Safe Mode!

When I was mixing the dough, I decided to ignore the following advice:
Solskinnsboller dough has a lot of butter in it. And while usually it’s best to add butter to dough towards the end of kneading, in this case you should add in the melted (and cooled to room temperature) butter at the beginning.
 
– Silvia, Scandinavian Cookbook | Solskinnsboller – Norwegian Sun Buns (Solboller)

Here’s why: I’ve had TERRIBLE experiences with dough that has egg, sugar, and lots of butter. I decided to follow the traditional plan of kneading in the butter later.

Once I finished looking at the BBB recipe again, I shut the computer down. To let it rest.

15:10 What a perfect day to choose to make these buns! It has been pouring rain all day. Perhaps when the buns appear, their sun-like appearance will make the actual sun appear.

Just after breakfast, T made lemon butter (he is way better at making lemon butter than I am…). We talked about it and decided that we would spoon the lemon butter into the indentations after the buns are baked. It just doesn’t make sense to cook lemon butter twice.

15:59 First of all, the computer is working just fine now! Not even in Safe Mode! (I hope I haven’t jinxed anything by saying that!)

Wow!! Are these buns ever easy to shape!! (Or rather, they will be the next time when I don’t feel compelled to run up and down the stairs to look at the handy photos that King Arthur Baking posted, to remind myself a.) how large a square to roll out, b.) how many slices, and c.) what was I supposed to do with the little amount sliced off??)

For the indentations, I used a fork to poke holes. If that part of the dough has risen again, I’ll poke holes again. We neeeeeeeed room for the filling!

It was bothering me that the filling I’m making isn’t really that different in colour from the dough. Then I suddenly realized that I should use brown sugar! It’s still not that marked a difference, but there is a little bit.

The shaped buns are now rising (I hope) in the oven with only the light on.

16:00 T really wanted me to add sour cherry jam to at least one of the buns. At first I said no. Lemon butter is the colour of the sun!

But then, I thought, why not? The cherry jam bun will be like a red sun:
Red sky at night
[Bakers’] delight

17:14 Oooh!! Look how beautifully the buns have puffed!

I decided to use one of our bread stamps to encourage the buns to hold onto their indentations.

bread stamp

18:10 The buns are out of the oven now. And, oh oh! The indentations have disappeared entirely. There are zero wells for the lemon curd! They’re pretty though!

We’ll wait until they’ve cooled before deciding what to do to remake the indentations.

That night, we decided we neeeeeeeeeded to try the Sun Buns for dessert. With one of the buns, I pressed down the center with my thumb before spooning in some lemon butter. T removed the stamped top of the other bun and ate it (approving its flavour: “Good! Really good!”) before spooning in lemon butter.

We’ve decided that we’ll store the buns without putting lemon butter (or cherry jam) onto them. That way they can be a.) stored easily without smearing the topping all over the place, and b.) warmed up without ruining the topping.

Thank you, Karen! That was really fun! And delicious!!

Here is the June 2026 BBB recipe that we were given. And here is what I did to it:

They look like Solskinnsboller….
based on King Arthur Baking’s “Sun Buns” (traditionally made with cinnamon swirls and vanilla custard), North Wild Kitchen’s “Sitronboller”, Det søte liv’s “Sitronboller”, and Skandibaking’s “Lemon Meringue Buns”.

These Norwegian sun buns, so named for their sunny yellow custard centers, wrap the greatest hits of Scandinavian baking into one treat: They’re […] scented with cardamom, a beloved spice across the region.
 
– King Arthur Baking | Sun Buns (Solskinnsboller)
These lemon custard buns ‘sitronboller’ are inspired by the season. Bright and sunny, they add a bit of liveliness to the kitchen. Lemon zest […] and fresh lemon juice turn a traditional custard into a tangy and vibrant filling
 
– North Wild Kitchen | Lemon Custard Buns (Sitronboller)

makes 8 round buns

STARTER

• 50 grams no-additives 100% whole wheat flour
• 50 grams water
• spoonful Jane Mason 100% whole wheat wild starter from the fridge

DOUGH

• 2 grams cardamom seeds, ground (about 20 cardamom pods, shelled and ground; from King Arthur Baking site: “to make 1 teaspoon coarsely ground seeds”)
• 240 grams unbleached “no additives” all-purpose flour
• 10 grams wheat germ
• 35 grams granulated sugar
• 30 grams (4 Tbsp) instant milk powder
• 100 grams water
• 3 grams active dry yeast
• all of the starter
• 1 egg, lightly beaten, divided (25 grams for the dough and the rest for the egg wash, or part of an omelette if you are lazy and can’t be bothered to remember the egg wash.)
• 7 grams seasalt + 10 grams water
• 70 grams unsalted butter, softened

LEMON ZEST FILLING

• 100 grams unsalted butter, softened
• 50 grams brown sugar
• 45 grams ground almonds
• finely grated zest of 1 or 2 lemons
• 4 grams seasalt

LEMON BUTTER

• 2 eggs
• 2 lemons, zest and juice
• 100 grams (1/2 cup) sugar
• 56 grams (4 Tbsp) unsalted butter
• seasalt to taste

1. STARTER: On the evening of the day before you will be baking the buns: Put the whole wheat flour, water, and starter from the fridge into a smallish bowl. Mix with a wooden spoon until the flour is stirred in well. Cover the bowl with a plate then place it (still covered) in the oven, with only the light turned on, overnight.
2. DOUGH: On the morning of the day you will be baking: Be thrilled that the starter is bubbling furiously, even though you know you will be adding some commercial yeast as well. Set the bubbling bowl aside as you deal with the rest of the ingredients.
   1. Place a sieve over a bowl large enough for the final dough to triple in volume, and dump in the ground cardamom seeds and all-purpose flour to sift them. (You want to remove any lumps of glue that might have slipped in after the struggle to open the flour bag. With some of our bags of flour, there have been at least 5 or 6 suspicious looking lumps left in the bottom of the sieve.) Add wheat germ, sugar, and skim milk powder. Use the dough whisk (or wooden spoon) to whisk it all together.
   2. Using a smallish container, whisk water and active dry yeast until the yeast has dissolved. Set aside for a moment.
   3. Scrape in the bubbling Jane Mason starter, and add the yeasted water. Use the dough whisk (or wooden spoon) to mix everything together, making sure that all the flour is absorbed. Notice that everything seems a little dry. Dribble in a little more water if there is a lot of stray flour. Mix it all into a rough ball. Cover the bowl with a plate and allow to rest for about 30 minutes.
   4. ADDING THE SALT AND BUTTER: Smear the butter on top of the ball of dough. Then, in a small bowl, whisk the salt into 10 grams of water. Pour the salt mixture over the dough.
   5. KNEADING: Run one of your hands under water and use it to squoosh the butter and salt water into the dough; use the other hand to steady the bowl – this way you always have a clean hand. The dough might feel a bit messy and quite buttery. Do NOT add more flour. Cover with a plate and leave for about 30 minutes. If the kitchen is cold, put it in the oven with only the light on.
   6. e.) STRETCHING AND FOLDING: About 30 minutes after adding the salt and butter, run your working hand under water again. Notice that it already seems more like dough than buttery glop. Reach down along the side of the bowl and lift and stretch the dough straight up and almost out of the bowl. Fold it over itself to the other side of the bowl. Turn the bowl and repeat four or five times more. Stop if it’s a little difficult to stretch the dough up any more. Be thrilled that it is now relatively smooth. Cover with a plate and leave on the counter for about 30 minutes.
   7. Repeat this step once or twice more, with 30 minute intervals between. You’ll notice that after each time, the dough feels significantly smoother.
   8. PROOFING: Making sure that the dough bowl is covered with a plate, leave the dough in the oven with only the light turned on (or if the kitchen is hot, on the counter) to allow the dough to almost double.
3. While the dough is rising, get the lemon zest filling ingredients ready and make lemon butter.
   1. LEMON ZEST: Zest the lemons and put the zest in a small bowl along with the ground almonds. Set aside until it is time to shape the buns.
   2. LEMON BUTTER: Over a double boiler, cook eggs by beating constantly with whisk until they are thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. (This is essential. It takes away that unpleasant proteiny, eggy taste.)
   3. Add the other ingredients and continue to stir with spatula over double boiler until it is thick.
   4. When the lemon butter is the desired thickness, remove from heat. Pour into a clean glass jar and leave to cool. Set aside until it is time to serve the buns.
4. ASSEMBLE THE BUNS: When the dough is smooth and silky and has almost doubled, turn it out onto a very lightly floured board.
   1. Roll it into a 12×12 inch (30.5cm x 30.5 cm) square. Spread the butter for the filling over half of the dough. Evenly spread brown sugar, salt, ground almonds, and lemon zest over the butter. Then fold the clean half of the dough over the filling to form a rectangle. Using a pizza wheel, trim off the folded edge (Reserve the trimming).
   2. Cut the dough lengthwise into 8 equal strips. At the same time, cut the trimming into 8 equal pieces.
   3. Twist each strip by twisting the ends in the opposite direction. Then, coil the twisted strips into a single circle. Tuck any ends under. Into the center of each circle, use your thumb to press in a piece of trimming. Place each shaped bun well apart on a parchment lined baking sheet and cover with a clean tea towel. Let rise for an hour or so, in the oven with only the light on, until they are puffy and have almost doubled.
5. PREHEATING: Preheat the oven to 450F.
6. INDENTATIONS: Do this just before putting the buns in the oven
   Use your thumb or the back of a spoon to press down the center of each bun. The indentation should be about 1 inch (2.5cm) wide. If you have a handy bread stamp from making Uyghur-style Naan, use it to poke holes into the indentation. If you don’t, use a fork.
   1. This is where the indentations for traditional Solskinnsboller are filled with about a tablespoon of vanilla custard. Because these lemon flavoured buns call for lemon butter (aka lemon curd), we’re spooning that into the indentations AFTER the buns are baked.
   2. Realise that you used up the extra egg in that morning’s mushroom omelette (it was delicious!) Otherwise, you could have brushed it onto the buns just before putting them in the oven.
7. BAKING: Just before putting the buns in the oven, turn the oven DOWN to 400F. (There’s a lot of sugar in the buns; you don’t want things to get out of hand!) Bake the buns for 15 to 18 minutes until they are golden brown.
8. COOLING: When the buns are done, remove them from the pan and allow them to cool on a well ventilated rack. Wait until they are cool before proceeding. They are still continuing to bake inside!

   If you wish to serve warm buns, reheat them after they have cooled completely: To reheat any uncut bread, turn the oven to 400F for 5 minutes or so. Turn the oven OFF. Put the bread into the hot oven for about five minutes. This will warm the crumb perfectly.

9. ADDING THE LEMON BUTTER: Just before serving, spoon the lemon butter into the indentations. (Let’s pretend that the indentations stayed as indentations instead of rising beautifully as the buns baked.)

Notes:

:: Starter and what kind of yeast: The BBB recipe calls for using “2 teaspoons instant yeast”. But I cannot NOT use our Jane Mason starter that is thriving in the fridge. I prefer to use less commercial yeast and bolster it with our wild yeast. As for what kind of commercial yeast: active dry please. Because that’s what Mum always used.
Beyond their role in fermentation, yeasts in the sourdough starter also influence the flavor and aroma of the bread. Through their metabolic activities, yeasts can produce compounds that contribute to the overall flavor profile
 
– Richard Wilson, CookedByTaste | Unveiling the Microbial World: What Organisms are in Sourdough Starter?
A general method for incorporating yeast into bread dough that maximizes the effective fermentation time and flavor production is the use of pre-ferments or starters […]. The starter may be a piece of dough saved from the previous batch, or [a dough] made up with a small amount of fresh yeast and allowed to ferment for some hours, […] a culture for “wild” yeasts and bacteria obtained without any commercial yeast at all.
– Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking, Chapter 10, page 827
I strongly recommend trying to create your own starter, […] that you can have for the rest of your life as long as you feed it. […] [I]f you make bread with this starter, […] the results are astounding. There is just so much more flavor. […] I mean, yeast is fine, but it’s a monoculture. It’s like this thoroughbred microbe that does one thing, which is add air to bread. But all these other, you know, members of that little sourdough community add so much more, not just yeast. There are yeasts in it, but they add a tang to things and a really complicated flavor.
 
– Michael Pollan, The Bread Exchange Blog | Michael Pollan on Sourdough

:: Flour: The BBB recipe calls for “bread flour“. I am allergic to a.) buying “bread flour”. The only kind we can get easily is laced with chemicals. I know I can add high gluten flour to all-purpose flour to mimic bread flour. But instead, I chose to use a mixture of unbleached (no additives) all-purpose, 100% whole wheat (no additives) flour, and wheat germ. The idea of using only white flour really goes against the grain (I promise: no pun intended).

:: Cardamom: It’s essential to use pods rather than pre-ground bottled cardamom. (Who knows when that was ground and bottled before arriving on the store shelves – and how long it has been sitting around gathering dust??) It’s also better to get unbleached cardamom pods. We buy our cardamom in Indiatown, where the turnover of spices is high.
      We use an electric coffee spice grinder. I always make sure that Someone, who shall remain nameless, hasn’t used it to grind mustard or cumin in it. In those cases, I run it with some grains of uncooked rice to get rid of the smell.

:: Custard: The BBB recipe calls for using a vanilla custard in the center of the buns. But these are “sun” buns. Vanilla custard is merely blonde. Lemon butter is sunny yellow! And. It tastes better.

:: Salt: Repeat ad nauseum: Please weigh your salt!
[O]ne teaspoon of table salt weighs 6 grams, but depending on the brand, one teaspoon of Kosher salt weighs 3, 3.5, or 4 grams. One teaspoon of salt flakes (depending on the size of the flakes) weight 2.5 grams.
– me, blog from OUR kitchen |
Waste Not, Want Not (BBB January 2023)
(For even more raving about this, please see Salt is salt, right?)

:: Why the focus on weights: I always measure bread ingredients by weight. There really is no other way to go.
WEIGHING VERSUS MEASURING […] [H]abits are hard to change. Your mother and grandmother probably didn’t use scales, and you may even have their measuring cups in your kitchen drawer. But using a scale will change the way you cook and bake for the better in many ways.
 
– Thomas Keller, ‘Throw out your measuring cups’, Bouchon Bakery
Kitchen Scale An absolute must, the single tool that is not optional. Weighing your ingredients, as opposed to measuring by volume, is far more accurate, and this is the first tool I recommend any baker purchase. Measuring flour (and salt!) by volume using measuring cups is incredibly inaccurate
 
– Maurizio Leo, ‘the Must-have tools’, The Perfect Loaf
[S]alts differ widely, so that a given volume of some salts will weigh less than others. For example, fine table salt is generally heavier per volume than coarse salt; and even within those two categories, there are large variations.
 
– Naomi Duguid, The Miracle of Salt

 

• Bread Baking Babes June 2026 recipe
  » Karen K, Karen’s Kitchen Stories: Norwegian Sun Buns (Solskinnsboller)
  » King Arthur Baking: Sun Buns (Solskinnsboller) (recipe by Trine Hahnemann, author of “Scandinavian Baking: Loving Baking at Home”)
• Information and Tools
  » Scandinavian Cookbook: Solskinnsboller – Norwegian Sun Buns (Solboller); Northern Norwegian Solboller (Sun Buns) (like Jelly Busters)
  » Det søte liv: Sitronboller (Lemon buns); Lemon Curd-boller (Boller med sitronkrem); Solskinnsboller; (på norsk (in Norwegian) – thanks to Google Translate for the English!)
  » North Wild Kitchen: Lemon Custard Buns (Sitronboller)
  » Oppskrifter: Sitronboller med pistasj (Lemon buns with pistachio; på norsk (in Norwegian) – thanks to Google Translate for the English!)
  » Skandibaking: Lemon Meringue Buns; Lemon Curd
  » Tasting Table: Flour Guide – Everything you need to know about types of flour; 15 Creative Ways To Use Lemon Curd
  » Calculator Site: Cooking Calculators; Cups to Grams; Teaspoons to Grams (various commonly used baking ingredients)
  » CoolConversion: Volume to Weight Converter – Cooking (various commonly used baking ingredients)
  » Little Spoon Farm: Baking Conversion Chart (volume to grams for various ingredients)
  » Traditional Oven: Baking units conversion tools for culinary arts (Conversion of measures for bakers’ cooking ingredients)
• recipes from OUR kitchen:
  » bread index
  » blog recipes index
  » recipes index

Last night, for dessert, we decided we both neeeeded to try the cherry jam version.

We get this jam at our favourite Turkish grocery store.

That was good too. But. I must admit (and T agrees) that the buns with lemon butter are our favourites.

This recipe is another keeper. Especially the shaping method! It’s so simple. And not nearly as messy as rolling up the butter/sugar filled dough into a big log and cutting discs.

 

We put in two clematis plants a couple of autumns ago. This year’s blooming is so promising! I don’t even mind that the garden centre didn’t have any of the really deep purple kind available at the time (there were a couple of sad versions in the pots on for half price but they really didn’t look like they would survive for much longer than a couple of weeks).

I can’t wait for the darker flowers to open so we get the contrast.

• Related:
  » Swedish Cinnamon, etc. etc. Buns: Sweet!! (BBB December 2024)
  » Shape Shifting (BBB February 2019)
  » Ceux-ci ne sont pas des cinnamon rolls… (BBB April 2016)
  » Exploring my Celtic roots with Kouign Amann (BBB February 2015)
  » Brioche et un petit Gateau a la Creme (BBB March 2013)
  » Pulla: Finnish Cardamom Bread (bookmarked recipe)
  » Banana Cinnamon Buns are delicious! (Bookmarked Recipes #24)
  » not hot cross buns… cinnamon buns please (WTSIM…#4)
  » Lucia Cats – really late or really early?
  » Stamp! Stamp! Stamp! (BBB February 2021)
  » And we have a new pet… (Jane Mason whole wheat starter)