Chokladbiskvier

These are the weirdest little biscuits - apparently a Swedish staple! They feel very festive to me, little bite-size almondy chocolate treats!

So they have three main parts - a meringue base, a buttercream filling and a chocolate glaze topping. Making all three parts is a little time consuming but none of the techniques are particularly difficult and they are the loveliest little moresels when they're done.

According to my Swedish insider, you find these all over Sweden in little cafes. Bite size, crunchy and smooth and deliciously sweet!

Cinnamon Star Bread

Starting the year off correctly with one of my favourite things I’ve ever made! This cinnamon star bread is delicious and super impressive and once you’ve cracked the dough-making, it’s a fairly easy process!

This is the same recipe as my individual kanelbullar but with a different assembly at the end which just turns it into a show stopper. This would make a great centrepiece dessert, sliced up and served with a dollop of ice-cream or custard. 

Serves 8, realistically. But you will find no judgement here if you keep it all to yourself.

Some tips:

• It is really easy to overheat the milk and butter mixture at the start, so I reserve about 60ml of cold milk and add it after heating to quickly bring the temperature down.
• Making a miniature yeast “slurry” with some of the milk mixture and a little sugar boosts the rising. Too much sugar kills yeast, but a little will help feed it.
• A round baking tray makes this a lot easier – for example a pizza tray. Bonus – these are cheap and easy to find
• It’s fine if you don’t roll out perfect circles (I never do), everything kind of comes together ok in the oven.
• Cutting into strips is easiest if you cut into quarters and then cut each quarter again twice to get four strips per quarter, so 16 strips total.

Lussekatter

So, I’m a little late to the party on these buns. These are traditional Swedish buns flavoured with saffron, and they are served on St Lucia’s day – December 13^th.

The name translates as Lucia’s cats – which doesn’t really seem to make a lot of sense. I read somewhere that they are meant to represent a cat’s face with the two raisins as eyes, but another source said that they represent curled cat’s tails.

Who knows. Anyway, they’re tasty and sweet and a little out of the ordinary Christmas fare for the UK, so I think they’d make a welcome addition to any table.

Apple Toscakaka

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope everyone is having a lovely day with their families. I had an early mother's day two weekends ago with mine where we hit up fabulous London.

Posting a recipe today that reminds me of my nanny, who makes a mean apple pie. I decided to take those flavours and play with them a little (because apart from nanny's apple pie - I don't really eat pie!).

Toscakaka is something I've made before, a classic Swedish almond caramel cake. I had some cooking apples hanging around and some slivered almonds, so I decided to experiment!

One thing I love about cooking is the endless substitutions and possibilities to change up, tweak, and play around with favourite recipes. I love that you can substitute something like butter for stewed apples (which is a delicious and dairy free alternative!).

This is the appropriate amount of custard

So here, I substituted the melted butter for stewed apple, which gives it this beautiful hint of fruity tart sweetness to cut through the rich caramel topping. And it works! It's gorgeous. I served it with custard and I'll dream about that combo for weeks.

Toscakaka

Or, Swedish Almond Caramel Crunch Delight Cake.

.. I'm still not great at names.

This is one of the nicest and most surprising cakes I've made in a while. I was a little skeptical about adding the topping midway through cooking, but I was so wrong. It was amazing. I'm kind of annoyed at my Swedish boyfriend for keeping the fact that this cake existed from me.

In making this cake I realised I don't have a larger cake tin, so mine is a little taller than traditional. I think it's supposed to be closer to the depth of a tart. I am going to have to hunt for a 9 inch loose bottomed cake tin now, but it was still very delicious.

I made this for my continental table of treats for Eurovision and it was a hit! It's really quite good as it is, but it would be delightful slightly warm with a little vanilla ice cream on the side. Or smothered in custard. Everything is better with custard.

Prinsesstårta

BEHOLD THE MAJESTY

It is my lovely Swedish boyfriend’s birthday today. A few months ago he casually mentioned that he really liked the traditional Swedish cake “Prinsesstårta” and how he hadn’t had one in years. You may know the cake from a Great British Bake Off technical challenge.

Not being one to shy away from a baking challenge, I decided I would have a good go at it as a birthday surprise.

I was nervous about this for a whole week  leading up to making it. And, just for an added level of technical difficulty, I decided to not practice any of this beforehand and just make it all on the day of his birthday dinner. I have never made crème pat before, I have never coloured marzipan before and I have never covered a cake in anything but buttercream or ganache before. I don’t recommend making this cake with all those firsts in one go, but luckily it worked out fine!

Instagram pic!

Tips to help get you through it:

• Just use jam from a jar - for the small amount needed, making it from scratch feels pointless
• Make sure to whip the cream until stiff peaks so that it holds the dome shape
• Again, chill for a good hour in the fridge with the cream on to again help that dome stay formed
• Youtube is a great resource for making those damn roses!
• I’m terrible at cutting a cake into horizontal layers so I went non-traditional and used three cake tins and baked the layers separately
• Don’t bother buying fondant for just the rose, use some of the marzipan instead
• You could easily make the crème pat the day before, and probably the marzipan too

Amounts wise, I probably ended up with a little too much crème pat and a little too much marzipan – could probably have made a smaller second cake with the extras!

Phone photo of the inside

The cake itself was a revelation to me - perfect amount of sweetness, with a light sponge, and ridiculously ornate. Winner!

Swedish Pancakes

I'm a little late for pancake day!! Sorry, guys. I was too busy eating pancakes to blog.

These are my take on the Swedish pancakes which my Scandinavian boyfriend loves, and says taste just like home!  Praise indeed. They are much more like a crepe than a pancake as I know it, fluffy and light, and these are best served folded in 4 or rolled up, and munched with cream and jam (and it would have to be lingonberry jam from IKEA for authentic Swedish-ness, but my boyfriend prefers regular strawberry).

I will hold my hands up and admit, there are a lot of things about Swedish cuisine that baffle me slightly. Their reliance on dill. The many types of fish, appearing everywhere.  Surströmming.  Also, they do eat Rudolph. But they really do have it right when it comes to breakfast foods. Waffles and sweet rice pudding to name a few of my personal favourites. And, while I'm not a crepe person, I am assured that these are excellent.

The other thing I want to make clear, these are a bit more fiddly than my other pancake recipe, and I want to assure you that the first one will probably turn out terribly. But that's ok. Offer it as a gift to the kitchen gods and move onto the second one.

My top tops for mastering this runny batter - use 1/4 a cup of batter (they need to be thin enough to cook quickly), use a small round pan so that it won't spread all over the place, and grease the pan thoroughly with olive oil or butter before you pour over the batter each time to allow the pancake to be flipped more easily.

Taco Pie aka Tacopaj

This is one of my boyfriend’s favourite meals. And, believe it or not, it is pretty traditionally Swedish. Apparently there was a drive in Sweden many years ago to bring TexMex to the masses. And they clung to taco pie like their lives depended on it.

This is NOT authentic Mexican. This is Sweden-does-Mexican, and they love it. This is also NOT fine dining. This is a really quick mid-week dinner (even quicker if you just use pre-made pastry).

I’m sure I’ve said it before, but I don’t have many firm principles. I’m pretty flexible in some of my opinions and I’m fairly easily swayed. But I HATE taking detrimental shortcuts in my cooking. It’s why I make my own custard, and why I pretty much always make my pastry and spice mixes/pastes from scratch (more on this later..)

But sometimes, a recipe just “feels” like it is asking for shortcuts. This is one of those recipes. I have made this before dutifully in my normal style, with homemade pastry and with my own taco spice mix – boyfriend was not a fan. He said it didn’t taste like the one from home. Fair enough.

And then I remade it with a taco seasoning kit (going against all my better judgement) and pre-made shortcrust pastry, and it was declared a triumph! I even sneaked in some extra spices and veggies, and it was still a success!

So, if you want a close-to authentic Swedish “Tacopaj” then you’re in luck! If you want haute cuisine, just keep walking.

Chockladbollar

Well hello, festive treats from Sweden!

You may have seen a version of these lurking around your local IKEA. They are a traditional Swedish treat, and they taste great! I like to think of these as little Scandinavian balls of love. I associate them with Christmas, because that’s when my Swedish boyfriend and I ALWAYS head to IKEA to get all sorts of Swedish food and Christmas decorations.

If you’re not a coffee fan (I don’t like coffee, but I like coffee and chocolate!) then feel free to substitute the coffee for a dash of mint flavouring, or fresh orange juice, or even a sprinkling of cinnamon. The possibilities are endless! But coffee is the traditional flavour, and it really compliments the whole “ball of chocolate.”

Pytt i Panna

AKA: "Stuff in a Pan"

Sweden calling! It snowed last night in Newcastle, so it feels very fitting to post a Swedish classic today.

My lovely Swedish boyfriend doesn’t often get homesick, but when he does, I normally just smother everything in dill.

This time, I decided to make a bit more of an effort, and make an absolute Swedish standard comprised of leftovers – pytt i panna. We had had a delicious roast beef dinner the night before, and I saved a good few slices to make this dinner. It couldn’t be easier – chop everything up small and basically add it to a pan together and let it cook. Beef and potatoes are the staples of this meal, and the veggies add some colour and flavour.

It took a while for my potatoes to cook, so next time I think I will add them in after the bacon and let the whole thing cook for about 10 minutes before adding the rest of the meat and vegetables.

Swedish Meatballs

Each week I ask my lovely Swedish boyfriend what he would like for dinner the next week. Normally he doesn’t have a preference so I just go ahead and make whatever I am in the mood for/have the ingredients for, but this week he asked for Swedish meatballs. I had to oblige.

We have a tradition where we hit up IKEA in early December to get wrapping paper and decorations and special Swedish Christmas groceries. We always have meatballs when we are there, and they taste GOOD. So my aim was to recreate our winter IKEA tradition (yes, it’s August, I KNOW).

These tasted AMAZING. Really, truly, one of the best things I have made all year. I will make these for years to come, and I’m really excited about that.

Kladdkaka

Or, as my Swedish boyfriend call it, less appetisingly, “sludge cake.”

We are getting really close to the Christmas season now, and I am *this* close to putting up my tree. I have subtly been putting out decorations over the last few days, enough that it looks festive, not enough that my boyfriend notices. Sly! My iPod is filled with Christmas songs, and I'm feeling jolly!

This is a perfect winter-time cake for me. It’s dense, chocolatey and really rich, so you really only need a sliver ("What, are you afraid you're gonna run out? Cut me a real piece!"). And it goes perfectly with ice cream, as that really undercuts the rich chocolate flavour. We only had vanilla in the freezer (first world problems), but I’d love to try it with some cinnamon or caramel ice cream. Full disclosure, it isn't the prettiest cake. But damn, if it doesn't taste amazing.

Adapted from the delectable (but oddly-named) Swedish baking blog: Call Me Cupcake

Hasselback Potatoes

This is basically a very simple Swedish recipe for roasting potatoes that look so much more impressive than the minimal effort they require.

You know those really aggravating online advertisement things that are like "one weird tip to help you.." Well, they are stupid and annoying. Having said that, for these potatoes, there really is a simple tip to help you slice them perfectly every time. Stick the spuds in a wooden spoon, and then slice them. Boom. You never cut the whole way through them as long as the potato is in the well of the spoon.

Like magic!

I like to make these as a side for any time you would use new potatoes, ie: accompanying roast chicken, pie, quiche, steak. Are you really looking that hard for an excuse to roast a spud?

Kanelbullar

Or, cinnamon buns.

Shall we continue the Swedish theme? Okay, then!

Hmm, that name looks familiar, you might be thinking. Well, if you have visited IKEA lately and hung out by the grocery section, you will be right.

These are amazing little pastry blobs of sweet cinnamon delight, Swedish-style. Now, Sweden doesn’t often get sweet things right. They have an affinity for cardamom, for one. And those lime-green marzipan abominations.. Don’t even get me started.

But these are wonderful. Smaller than their American cousins, and less in-your-face sweet too. I took this recipe from a great little red gingham Swedish cookbook which my Swedish boyfriend assures me is a staple in any Swede’s kitchen.

Frankly, any Sunday where I get to mess around with dough is just swell by me. If you’re the same, you need these in your life.

Swedish Waffles - Våfflor

If you have a waffle machine (and they’re not that pricey) and are looking for a tasty weekend breakfast, then this is the recipe for you. Swedish style waffles are mildly tricky to make, the batter is slightly thin and sometimes removing them from the pan is a nightmare if you haven’t greased it well enough/are too impatient.

But my boyfriend assures me that my tribulations with these waffles are worth it. Because he LOVES them. One thing I love about them is, when using the traditional Swedish waffle iron, they come out in little heart shapes. I love it when my food is cute.

There’s no sugar in the batter, so these are definitely savoury, and the sweetness comes from the array of toppings that these serve as a base for. Any work well, let your imagination run wild, but for breakfast ones I have a soft spot for Nutella (who doesn’t?). If you’re serving as a dessert, you can’t go wrong with icecream.

Makes 5-6 waffles

Ingredients

• 100g butter, melted
• 165g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp salt
• 400ml milk
• Oil or butter, for greasing the waffle iron

To serve:

• Whipped cream
• Jam
• Icing sugar
• Chopped strawberries
• Nutella
• Vanilla icecream

Method

Melt the butter and let cool slightly.

Measure out the dry ingredients and mix. Stir in half the milk.

Then add in the rest of the milk and butter and stir to mix well. There may be some lumps, but that is ok.

Heat the waffle iron, and when ready, grease the pan with some oil or butter.

Pour in a little under a ladleful of batter to the machine (about 1cm free rim around the top of the ladle is about enough).

Embrace the lumps.

And close the lid. Let cook for 2-3 minutes.

The carnage that is my kitchen is just out of shot

Open the lid carefully, what I find is that normally the top part sticks a lot more because it’s harder to grease the upright bit. I just used a wooden spatula and, from the edge, carefully peeled the top bit off. It works, you just need patience.

Serve with any of the above suggestions, or all. My Swedish boyfriend prefers the whipped cream/strawberry jam combo, traditional-style.

Mid-munch in the corner