Park Bageri & Konditori

Rating: 4/5

Taking pride of place on the top shelf of the counter display at Park, this large semla was 177g, 9cm wide, and 8cm tall. It had a round-ish lid. Untrimmed round is perhaps what I should describe it as.

The cream is smooth and piped as a mound. A Svedjan and Sebastian Boudet style mound.

There are no visible chopped or whole nuts before tucking in, but the medium brown paste makes an appearance and looks grainy from the fine almond bits.

The bun is a little wrinkled, slightly collapsed and a little compact (which I quite like) and it has a nice external colour plus a generous amount of cardamom.

The resulting semla has very even proportions. One third bun, one third paste and one third cream.

I found nuts! There were four pieces of chopped salted almonds hidden under the lid and on top of the cream!

The paste has a lovely roast almond flavour to it, sweet and grainy.

I love how there are so many ways the cream can be piped in order to give semlor contrasting appearances.

The first time I saw a smooth mound on a semla I raised my eyebrows, but it's a fun alternative and given how few bakeries do it, it creates quite a bit of character.