Norway’s Viral Skoleboller (School Buns) from Lille Betong

Skoleboller, or school buns (also called skolebrød, or school bread) are probably Norway’s most beloved buns, both by Norwegians and international visitors to Norway. Norwegian skoleboller are made with a sweet cardamom dough, filled with vanilla custard in the center, and then coated in icing and dipped in coconut flakes. They’re so popular that they’ve even made it to the Norway Pavilion at Epcot in Disney World!

But recently a new version of school bread has taken Norway by storm. Lille Betong bakery in Oslo recently went viral on social media here for their extra tall school buns filled with a heaping portion of vanilla custard. Their buns quickly became so famous that people would wait in long lines outside of the bakery to try them.

And in true Norwegian fashion, Lille Betong issued a statement asking visitors to chill out with the skoleboller, because they didn’t want the high stress of long lines of customers.

But if you don’t want to travel to Oslo and wait in a long line, you can make these tall school buns yourself at home!

You’ll need either a mini cake form like this one or a jumbo muffin pan like this one to make these buns.

As the buns need to rise in the form, you can only make as many buns as your form has space for. My recipe makes six (really big!) skoleboller, but if you would like to make more you can double the recipe, or move the “Servings” slider in the recipe to the number of buns you would like to make.

I’ve shared my recipe for traditional skolebrød (school bread) here.

Tips

I’ve also shared a video to show you exactly how to make these:

You’ll start off by heating the milk until it’s lukewarm. Then dissolve the yeast into the milk.

In Norway I usually use fresh yeast to make skoleboller dough, simply because it’s more commonly used here than dry yeast. But when I make these in the US I use instant yeast and they turn out the same, so you can use whichever you are most comfortable with or have available.

However, if you use active dry yeast, be sure to follow the instructions on the packet and proof the yeast before adding it to the other ingredients.

Then add the sugar and cardamom to the milk mixture.

And of course I always have to make a special note about cardamom, because it’s one of the most important ingredients in Norwegian sweet buns!

You can use ground cardamom for this recipe, but if you have a mortar and pestal I highly recommend grinding cardamom seeds instead, as freshly ground seeds are much more flavorful. I wouldn’t bother unless it really made a difference, but it really does.

Next you’ll add the vanilla and about 2/3 of the flour to the mixture. Mix the dough together either by hand or in a mixer with a dough hook, slowly adding the rest of the flour. I add the flour slowly so that I don’t add too much flour, as then the dough can get tough. You want just enough flour so that the dough isn’t too sticky too knead.

After kneading the dough for about 5 minutes, add in the softened butter. Adding the butter at the end lets the gluten develop a bit before adding the extra fat, but it does make the kneading a bit messy. You can add a bit more flour at this point if your dough is too greasy to knead.

I always knead the dough by hand, so don’t worry if you don’t have a mixer. Continuing kneading for another 5-10 minutes until the dough is nice and elastic.

Then roll the dough into a cylinder and cut it into six buns. Roll each bun into a sphere and let it rise in the muffin or cake form until doubled in size (about an hour). I always grease my muffin form really well just to make sure the buns don’t stick.

And then immediately get started on the vanilla custard so that it has time to cool a bit before the buns are finished rising.

Making the vanilla custard from scratch might seem intimidating, but it’s actually pretty easy. Just make sure that you keep whisking the custard the entire time you’re heating it so there aren’t any lumps. You can also use vanilla pudding instead if you don’t want to make the custard from scratch.

Heat the milk and half of the sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Split open the vanilla pod with a knife and carefully scrape out the seeds, adding them to the saucepan.

And in a separate bowl, mix together the rest of the sugar and corn starch. Add the egg yolks and whisk it all together until it’s nice and smooth.

Once the milk starts to bubble in the saucepan, pour about half of it into the bowl with the egg mixture, whisking the entire time. Then return the saucepan to medium heat and pour the egg and milk mixture from the bowl back into the saucepan, whisking the whole time.

Let the custard cook for 2 minutes, whisking the entire time. By the end it should be quite thick and harder to whisk.

Once the 2 minutes are up, remove the custard from the heat and pour it into a clean bowl. Cover with plastic wrap, placing it directly touching the top of the custard. Let the custard cool while the skoleboller finish rising.

Once the buns have risen you’re going to very gently make a large well in the center of each bun. I start by sticking the back of a spoon in the bun and then I use my fingers to make the well bigger. You want lots of space here because you want lots of vanilla custard in these buns!

Use a piping bag of spoon to add as much custard to each bun as possible. The custard will sink a bit in the oven and the buns will rise, so you can put a nice heaping portion of custard here.

After you finish adding the custard, preheat your oven. This gives the buns time to fluff out a bit after you’ve been handling them.

Be sure to bake these in the bottom third of your oven (I use the second to bottom rack in my oven). They’re so tall that if you place them in the center of the oven the tops might burn before the bottoms finish baking. They’re finished when both the top and bottom is golden brown. You can use a butter knife to gently remove a bun from the tin to check the color.

Once the buns have cooled, mix the powdered sugar with enough water to make a nice thick icing. If it is hard to spread, add some water, and if it runs add more powdered sugar.

Then you’re going to spread the icing on the top and sides of the buns and roll them in coconut. I find it easiest to first spread the icing along the sides, roll the sides in coconut, and then I spread the icing on the top and dip the top in the coconut. And be sure to press down or drop the bun a few times in the coconut so that it’s fully covered. The coconut won’t stick to the yellow center.

Store in an air tight bag or container, or you can freeze these and defrost them before eating.

You can switch the recipe from US measurements to metric by clicking from “US Customary” to “Metric” under Ingredients.