Solskinnsboller – Norwegian Sun Buns (Solboller)

If you’ve been to a Norwegian bakery you’ve probably been overwhelmed by all the delicious cardamom and cinnamon buns on offer. There are traditional kanelboller, cardamom rolls, twisted kanelsnurrer, and of course the classic skolebrød. How are you to choose just one?

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, but solskinnsboller are some of the most popular Norwegian custard buns.

A solskinnsbolle is essentially a hybrid of a kanelbolle and skolebrød, without the coconut. In fact to make these, I used my kanelboller recipe and then added the vanilla custard and icing glaze from my skolebrød recipe.

Solskinnsboller might look intimidating to make because there are a lot of steps, but actually I think these are some of the easier Norwegian buns to make, because they’re pretty hard to mess up. This is also why I like ordering them at bakeries. Kanelboller are more hit or miss, as sometimes they can be a bit dry if baked for too long, while skolebrød sometimes doesn’t have enough cardamom flavor in the dough. But the vanilla custard in solskinnsboller keeps them from tasting too dry, and the cinnamon sugar swirl packs a lot of flavor into the dough. Win win!

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. You can find my Northern Norwegian solboller recipe here.

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. If you only have ground cardamom, I would double the amount in the recipe.

Make sure you put the plastic wrap directly onto the vanilla custard while it cools so that you don’t get a hard shell on top.

When you spread the cinnamon sugar filling on the dough, make sure to keep a couple inches free on both the top and the bottom. This will make it easier to make a well in the middle of the bun for the vanilla custard, as the dough in the center of the roll won’t be full of butter and sugar.

I like to slice the buns quite thin, which gives a bit of a crispier solbolle.

When making the wells in the center of the rolls for the vanilla custard, make sure to press the dough down firmly, as the dough will puff up a bit again on the second rise. Also be sure the the bottom is in fact covered in dough – you don’t want to just make a hole through the whole roll, as then the custard will fall through.

Like skolebrød, I used to make solskinnsboller when I worked in the bakery section of a supermarket during my first year in Norway, and sometimes I would intentionally mess one up so that I could eat it. They’re just so irresistible! My kitchen still smells heavenly after baking these this morning. In fact it might be time for another one of these little sunshine cream buns…

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