When it comes to Scandinavian specialty baking, X ≠ Frt: time does not equal effort! While many excellent Scandinavian recipes do require time to prepare (to allow dough to rise adequately, for example), often the hands'-on effort is minimal. This is especially true when preparing sweet yeasted breads like vetebröd. The basic cardamom dough takes perhaps thirty minutes of direct attention to mix before rising, with another ten-minute hands'-on session of rolling out and braiding the dough. 30 + 10 = 40. That's hardly more than a half-hour of actual labor in order to produce a bakery-caliber coffee bread … less time than it takes to run to the store and back again. Too bad all math problems aren't as easy as this one to solve!

Vetebröd image ©2008 Kari Diehl, licensed to About.com.