dough:

1 portion of basic sweet yeast dough
1 egg for glazing
chopped or flaked almonds for garnish
sanding sugar for garnish

almond paste
(dash of milk)
vanilla-flavoured whipped cream
icing sugar for garnish

Prepare and bake 8 large basic sweet yeast dough buns according to the instructions given here. Garnish buns with flaked almonds and sanding sugar before baking. Cover buns with towel after baking and let cool down.

Cut off about 1/3 of the top of the buns, see figure 1 below. Scrape out a bit of the inside of the bottom part of the buns and replace with a flattened disk of soft almond paste (figure 2). The almond paste should be very soft and moist  —  in fact it is usually mixed with the fine crumbs scraped out of the buns and a dash of milk, to make it lighter. If the paste is a bit hard and/or dry, it is grated finely before mixing with the crumbs and the milk.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Spoon or pipe a thick ring of whipped cream around the almond paste filling (figure 3). Gently position the cut off "caps" back on top of the buns and dust the tops with icing sugar (figure 4).

Additional information:
Shrove buns can be served as a pastry with coffee or tea, but the traditional way is to serve them on a deep plate filled with hot milk, the bun soaking up part of the milk (right). In this case, the bun is eaten with a spoon.

In Finland, Shrove buns are traditionally sold in bakeries or made at home and eaten at Shrovetide. The Shrove bun tradition originates from Sweden.