Stand in line at almost any Swedish bakery and you will see two trays sitting side by side. One holds the tight cinnamon spirals everyone already knows. The other holds something knobblier — twisted, knotted, dusted with coarse white sugar instead of drizzled icing, and smelling faintly of citrus and pine rather than warm cinnamon. That second tray is kardemummabullar, Sweden’s cardamom buns, and depending on who you ask in Stockholm, they are not the cinnamon roll’s understudy. They are the main event.
What Are Kardemummabullar?
Kardemummabullar (singular: kardemummabulle) are a yeasted, laminated sweet bun built from the same enriched dough as kanelbullar, Sweden’s famous cinnamon rolls. The dough is rolled out, spread with a butter-sugar-cardamom filling, folded, and then shaped — usually into a knot rather than a spiral — before proofing and baking. The finished bun is brushed with a light sugar syrup while still warm and finished with a scattering of pearl sugar, the coarse, non-melting crystals that give Swedish baking its signature crunch.
The defining flavour is whole cardamom, cracked and ground fresh rather than the pre-ground powder found in most spice jars outside Scandinavia. Freshly cracked cardamom is sharper, more citrus-forward, and noticeably more floral than the flat, slightly musty pre-ground version — which is one reason kardemummabullar taste so different from anything labelled “cardamom bun” outside the Nordic region.
Kardemummabullar vs. Kanelbullar: What’s the Difference?
Ask a Swede to explain the difference and you will usually get a variation on the same answer: kanelbullar are cinnamon-forward and slightly sweeter, while kardemummabullar let the cardamom lead and pull back on the sugar. In practice, both buns actually contain cardamom — it goes into the base dough for both, a detail that surprises a lot of visitors. The real distinction lives in the filling and the shape.
Kanelbullar are filled with cinnamon and sugar and rolled into a tight spiral. Kardemummabullar are filled with a heavier concentration of freshly ground cardamom (and often little to no cinnamon at all), then twisted into a knot with the cut, spiced layers left exposed on top — which is partly why they end up looking messier and more rustic than their spiral cousin. Bakers in Stockholm will tell you the knot shape matters practically, too: it exposes more surface area to the oven, giving a slightly crisper, caramelised edge that a tight spiral never quite achieves.
If you have already read our guide to kanelbullar, think of kardemummabullar as the same technique pointed at a different, more grown-up flavour — less dessert, more afternoon ritual.
A Short History: How Cardamom Became Sweden’s Favourite Spice
Cardamom’s presence in Scandinavian baking is older than it looks. The spice arrived via Viking-era trade routes running through Russia and Constantinople, and it never really left — by the 19th century, Sweden had become one of the world’s largest per-capita consumers of cardamom, a title it still holds informally today. Vikings returning from trading expeditions along the Volga brought back spices alongside silver and silk, and cardamom in particular found a permanent home in Scandinavian baking in a way it never did in most of the rest of Europe.
That history is why cardamom feels less like an exotic import in Sweden and more like a native flavour, baked into everything from Christmas bread to kladdkaka-adjacent bakes and pancake batter. Kardemummabullar are simply the purest, most concentrated expression of that centuries-old habit — a bun built specifically to let the spice speak for itself.
How to Make Kardemummabullar at Home
The technique borrows directly from kanelbullar, so if you have made Swedish cinnamon buns before, this will feel familiar with one key swap: more cardamom, less cinnamon, and a knot instead of a spiral.
Ingredients (makes about 16 buns)
- Dough: 500g plain flour, 50g sugar, 10g fine sea salt, 2 tsp freshly ground cardamom, 7g instant yeast, 150ml whole milk (lukewarm), 2 eggs, 100g soft unsalted butter
- Filling: 100g soft unsalted butter, 80g sugar, 2–3 tbsp freshly ground cardamom (yes, that much — this is what makes the bun)
- To finish: 1 egg (beaten, for glazing), Swedish pearl sugar, simple sugar syrup (equal parts sugar and water, warmed)
Method
- Mix the flour, sugar, salt, cardamom, and yeast in a bowl. Add the milk and eggs and knead into a rough dough, then work in the soft butter a little at a time until the dough is smooth and elastic — about 10 minutes by hand, less with a stand mixer.
- Cover and let the dough rise until doubled, roughly 1 hour in a warm spot.
- Beat the filling ingredients together into a soft, spreadable paste.
- Roll the dough into a large rectangle and spread the cardamom filling edge to edge. Fold the rectangle into thirds like a letter, then slice into long strips.
- Twist each strip and coil it into a knot, tucking the loose end underneath. Place on a lined tray and let proof for 30–45 minutes.
- Brush with beaten egg, scatter generously with pearl sugar, and bake at 200°C (400°F) for 8–10 minutes, until deep golden.
- Brush the hot buns with warm sugar syrup as soon as they come out of the oven — this is what gives them their glossy finish and keeps them soft for days.
The Cultural Role: Fika, Slowed Down
No conversation about Swedish baked goods is complete without mentioning fika, the daily coffee-and-pastry pause that Swedes treat as close to non-negotiable. Kardemummabullar occupy a slightly different niche within that ritual than kanelbullar do. Where a cinnamon bun feels like a treat, a cardamom bun feels closer to a savoury-adjacent staple — less overtly sweet, easier to eat two of without the sugar crash, and often the bun of choice at a work fika rather than a weekend one.
That distinction connects to a broader pattern in Swedish food culture: a general preference for balance over indulgence, the same instinct behind lagom and behind Friday-night rituals like fredagsmys. A cardamom bun, in other words, is what a Swede reaches for when kanelbullar feels like slightly too much.
Where to Try the Best Kardemummabullar in Sweden
Stockholm’s bakery scene treats the cardamom bun as a genre worth specialising in. Fabrique, with locations across Stockholm and now internationally, is often cited as setting the modern benchmark — a chewy, deeply spiced version that regularly tops “best bun in Stockholm” polls. Sturekatten, a century-old café near Stureplan, serves a more old-fashioned, less-sweet version in a room that looks unchanged since the 1920s. Outside the capital, small-town konditorier (patisseries) across Sweden often make versions worth detouring for — cardamom buns tend to be a better measure of a Swedish bakery’s quality than kanelbullar precisely because there is nowhere for a lazy baker to hide behind cinnamon and icing.
The Bottom Line
Kardemummabullar are not a niche variation on the cinnamon bun — they are arguably the more essential of the two, and the better introduction to what Swedish baking is actually built around: patience, restraint, and a spice cabinet that leans harder on cardamom than almost anywhere else in the world. If you have only ever tried kanelbullar, the cardamom version is the natural next stop.
