Swedish Waffles

Crisp, buttery and slightly savoury, Swedish waffles are delicious served with softly whipped cream and a dollop of homemade cloudberry jam. I tried making some when we were back in Sydney but I think I had a dud waffle maker as the batter separated and drizzled down the sides of the stove. Basically they were inedible.

These however were amazing.

The best waffles are made with a cast iron waffle iron (like my mum's) that has to be sizzling. And don't forget to add lots of butter to the batter!




Simple Swedish Waffles 

Makes 20 waffles or 10 double 

100 g butter, melted 
1 cup cold water 
350 ml plain flour 
200 ml milk 2 tsp baking powder 

Method:
 1. Heat up your waffle iron well in advance so it is hot hot hot! 

 2. Melt the butter and let it cool slightly. 

 3. With a whisk combine water, flour, milk and baking powder until smooth. Add the melted butter. 

 4. Butter the waffle iron if needed. Use a 3/4 cup of batter for each waffle and pour mixture into hot waffle iron. 

NOTE: Don't forget to close the lid. Your waffles should be crisp and golden - this will take a couple of minutes. Remove them too fast and they won't be crisp. 

5. Serve hungry friends as you make the waffles or alternatively stack them on a plate as you make them. But this means the bottom ones will become a bit soft. .

6. Waffles are best served with softly whipped cream and runny jam. Cloudberry or strawberry is best.

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Doorstop Vanilla Cheesecake

I love unbaked cheesecake and this recipe from Lorraine Pascale is my new favourite. It is incredibly dense and rich, but at the same time it is quite light and not too cloying. It also makes one massive cheesecake. I think it could definitely feed 20 people. The slices really are like a doorstop so smaller is better. Can't wait to play around with this recipe. It's begging to be made into a strawberry version.
 

VANILLA DOORSTOP CHEESECAKE
75g butter
250g digestive biscuits
2 tbs light soft brown sugar
800g full fat Philadelphia cream cheese
1 lemon
1 vanilla pod (or vanilla essence)
800 ml fridge cold double cream
75g icing sugar

1. You will need a 23 cm springform that is at least 8 cm deep. Melt butter slowly. Place digestive biscuits in foodprocessor and blitz to smitherenss. Tip biscuit crumbs into butter and then press into the base of the  springform tin. Place in the fridge to chill while you work on topping.

2. Put the cream cheese in a large bowl and finely grate zest over. Halve the vanilla pod, scrape out seeds and add them or vanilla extract too. Mix together well to loosen mixture slightly.

3. Pour the double cream into a large bowl and sift in icing sugar. Whisk it, by hand to almost the same consistency as the cream cheese just a little looser.

4. Tip the cream into cream cheese mixture and mix everything gently with as few stirs as possible. Tip onto biscuit base and smooth the top with the back of a spoon or offset spatula.Or set in fridge for 4 hours.

5. Cover with cling film and put in freezer for about 30 minutes until just set.

Happy Melbourne Cup Day!

Pressed for time I started on this baby after rushing home from uni last night. Now you might say that 9 'o clock at night is not the best time of the day to start a cake. You'd be right.

But I had promised my collegaues a cake for Melbourne Cup day and I hate breaking my promises.

The base for this cake is the Lavender cake I have made a gazillion times. But that didn't help. The base didn't seem right, the white chocolate mousse wouldn't set and even with some help from gelatine oozed out on the sides. Not to mention that I used too much white choc mousse on two layers and was left with only a smear on the last one. Sigh.

The one thing that did work was the fantastic Swiss Meringue Buttercream from Sweetapolita. Beautiful consistency and not too buttery. A new favourite!

Better photos and recipe to come soon. In the meantime, Happy Punting! 

The Birthday Cake

Mr N is partial to anything with chocolate, and particularly Black Forest Cake. For his birthday this year I attempted (again) to bake him "the ultimate chocolate and cherry cake". It's been a six year process, but I think I might have finally cracked it.

This Dark Chocolate Cherry cake is stunning. Yummy, densely chocolately and with a hint of cherries. It tastes even better the next day. I couldn't find any fresh cherries so I decorated with white choc dipped strawberries which I think worked really well. If there's one criticism... I might cut back on the cinnamon next time as it was a bit too strong. And the base is very delicate. I cut the bottom layer too thin meaning breakage. That said, nothing a bit of ganache won't fix!




Recipe from Swedish cooking magazine Allt om Mat:



Dark Chocolate Cake with Cherries

175 g butter, softened
300 ml sugar
4 eggs
200 ml full fat milk
200 ml plain flour
100 ml cocoa powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla sugar

Chocolate filling
400 g dark chocolate (70%)
250 g butter
100 ml icing sugar
200 ml cherry jam

Method:

1. Turn the oven to 175 degrees. Using a 24 cm springform attach baking paper to bottom, butter sides.

2. Beat sugar and butter until fluffy. Separate eggs and put eggwhites in separate bowl. Add egg yolks one at a time to butter and sugar mixtures and then milk. In a separate bowl mix dry ingredients then add to batter.

3. Whip eggwhites until stiff peaks form. Fold carefully into batter.

4. Pour into prepared tin. Bake in lower part of oven for 50 minutes. Let cake cool in pan.


Filling:

1. Melt chocolate and butter in a saucepan. Sift icing sugar into mixture and stir until dissolved. Put aside 300 ml of filling to ice the cake. Let cool to room temperature.

2. Cut cake in three. Spread chocolate filling on one cake. Put second cake on top and spread with cherry jam. Put third cake on top and pour the preserved icing on top and onto sides.

3. Decorate with cherries or chocolate dipped strawberries.

4. Chill the cake for at least 30 minutes. Let it stand in room temperature for 15 minutes before serving. 

It's spring time let's Tosca

Looking through my photos just lately I seem to have been baking a lot. So maybe it's time I shared some recipes.

It's spring time in the southern hemisphere and this Swedish classic Tosca cake is lovely with a coffee in the sunshine.

This is a buttery sponge with a nutty caramel topping. What's not to like! I used a recipe from Swedish food magazine but doubled the topping as it was a bit on the stingy side.

To the recipe

Classic Swedish Cinnamon Buns

It's the most popular and well known variety of Swedish baked goods, and I've been meaning to write about them for a while now. But whether I make these or not always depends on two things. Time... and fresh yeast. A few days ago I found myself with both so here goes. Lets talk about Cinnamon Buns.

You may have had some some kind of Australian sweet bun with icing (and more often than not sultanas). You've probably heard of or had American sticky cinnamon buns.
Swedish Cinnamon Buns my friends are none of these.They're no nonsense, soft sweet bread buns that have been filled with butter, sugar and cinnamon, often topped with pearl sugar. Of course you can use other fillings, but I´m talking the classic version here.

The buns are usually presented in scrolls, knots or vega style. Today I present you with the knotted version.

If you can't get your mitts on fresh yeast don't ask me how to subsitute it, because I really don't know.

Here's how you make them:

Classic Swedish Cinnamon Buns

Makes 48
130 g butter (salted or unsalted doesn't matter)
500 ml milk
50 g fresh yeast
1/2 - 1 tsp salt
100 ml sugar
2tsp cardamom seeds, ground in mortar and pestle
About 875 g plain flour

Fillling
100 g butter, softened
75 ml sugar
2 tbsp good quality strong cinnamon (cassia)

1. Melt butter in a saucepan on the stove. Add milk and warm  until luke warm (37 degrees). You'll know it's lukewarm if you dip your little finger into the mixture and it is the same temperature as your finger.

2. In a bowl crumble the yeast and add the milk and butter mixture. Stir until dissolved with a wooden spoon.

3. Add sugar, salt, cardamom and almost all of the flour. Add the flour bit by bit until the dough is plyable but not overworked. Save some flour for later.

4. Let the dough rest in the bowl under a clean towel (away from drafts and aircon) for 30 minutes until doubled in size. 

5. Turn the oven  (conventional) to 225-250 degrees celsius. Mix softened butter, cinnamon and sugar to a paste.

6. Sprinkle some of the flour on a clean table or baking table. Knead the dough very gently and then divide in 2.
  7. Using a rolling pin, lightly shape the dough into two 25x50 cm slabs.

8. Spread half the filling over one half of a slab and then repeat with the other slab.





9. Fold each slab together.



10. Cut your two slabs into into 2cm strips. Twist each strip.




11. Make  each strip into a knot and place on a large baking sheet covered with baking paper. Leave the buns to leaven under a clean cloth for 30 minutes.



12. Lightly whisk 1 egg and baste each bun with eggwash. Sprinkle pearl sugar on top of each bun.

13. Bake for 5-8 minutes in the middle of the oven.

14. Let cool under dry clean teatowels. Don't leave them out for too long!

15. Enjoy with a glass of milk. Best eaten within a day of making or freeze as soon as buns have cooled.

Euphoria Chocolate Cake

 
It´s for when you have unexpected guests. When you´re feeling out of sorts and need cheering up. To share with friends in front of bad television. Or for any day when you just need chocolate. Meet Kladdkaka aka Gooey Swedish Chocolate Cake.

I´m not quite sure when or how this type of cake became so popular in Sweden, but it is. Kladdkaka is an incredibly effortless cake that hardly needs any work at all. Anyone can make this cake. The only problem you´ll encounter is if you overcook it. Because the point of this cake is that it´s supposed to be gooey and like chocolate truffle.

This cake has many variations and recipes, but the basics are eggs, chocolate (dark cocoa powder or the real stuff), eggs and sugar.

Here´s my Eurovision version served with whipped chocolate cream.

Gooey Chocolate Truffle Cake
160 g dark chocolate
150 g butter
2 eggs
200 ml sugar
200 ml self raising flour

1. Butter and flour a 20 cm springform tin. Use a piece of baking paper on the bottom of the tin.
2. Melt chocolate. You know how.
3. Barely whisk eggs and sugar and fold in chocolate.
4. Fold in flour and mix gently until combined.
5. Pour into prepared tin and bake in the middle of the oven for 15 minutes. It will still be wobbly but it will set.
6. Let cool on bench and then in fridge for a good few hours before serving

Whipped Chocolate Cream
200 ml pouring cream
1 tbs sugar
2 tbs dark cocoa powder

1. Whip all ingredients together until cream is soft and billowy.
2. Dollop cream on top of the cake.
3. Enjoy the cake cold from the fridge or at room temperature. I personally prefer my cake straight from the fridge, cold and truffle like!

Dreams are made of ammonium carbonate

These biscuits are melt in the mouth buttery with a hint of cinammon. Currently a favourite of mine - I find I'm baking them quite a bit.

They're reminiscent of a traditional Swedish biscuit called Drömmar, translated Dreams. The secret ingredient is ammonium carbonate, which is commonly used in Scandinavia. It yields a very light airy product in baked goods and a texture impossible to achieve with bicarbonate soda or baking powder.

If you're able to get your mitts on some ammonium carbonate, or Hjorthornssalt as I know it, be careful to seal it properly as the smell will penetrate everything. But don't worry, the smell of ammonium doesn´t affect the baked goods as it dissipates on cooking.

Swedish lesson 1: SPRÖD

Sometimes words just don’t exist in the English language to describe the perfect consistency of a biscuit/cookie/meringue/pie crust.

The Swedish expression SPRÖD is one of those words. It just epitomizes a good biscuit: crunchy and light. Sometimes if you’re lucky – it also has that desired buttery finish. Yum! Notice how I had to use three different ways in English to describe what in Swedish is only 1 word: SPRÖD (plural SPRÖDA)

How I love thee.

In other words: Perfection. Some baked goods that can be categorized as being SPRÖDA:

• A good quality thin pie crust made with real ingredients
• Several varieties of biscuits with a nice light crunchy bite
• Homemade wafers and other thin and delicate baked goods
• Meringue

...and some might even say Macaroons. Although they are both SPRÖDA and a bit chewy

The other night when I was desperate for some bikkies to have with my cuppa I was rummaging through the cookbook stash for a quick fix when I stumbled across Monika Ahlberg´s recipe for Oatmeal Biscuits (Havrekakor).

She promises ”SPRÖDA Oatmeal Biscuits with a lovely buttery finish”. Hey, who am I to argue with Monika, one of the doyennes of the Swedish foodie community. The recipe was easy to boot too. Just a bit of melt, mix and click action.

SPRÖDA Oatmeal Biscuits

150 g Butter

300 ml Oats (3dl)

75 ml Sugar (3/4 dl)

75 ml Raisins (3/4 dl)

150 ml Plain flour (1 ½ dl)

1 tsp Bicarbonate Soda

1. Turn the oven on: 200 degrees Celsius. Line cookie tray with baking paper. Melt the butter. Pour over the oats. Stir well and let stand for a few minutes.

2. Add sugar, raisins and finally the flour mixed with the bicarbonate soda.

3. Dollop tablespoons of the mixture onto the prepared baking tray and flatten slightly. Bake for 15-20 minutes. I’d recommend checking on the biscuits after 10 minutes as you don’t want them to burn. Then keep checking at 2-4 minute intervals depending on how they are browning. They should be ever so slightly browned but not burnt underneath.

4. Transfer with a spatula to a cookie rack and leave for 10 minutes so they have time to set. Enjoy delicious goodness with a nice cup of tea!

Serve it on a tier

I've been looking for a 2- or 3 tier cake stand for some time now and lo and behold if I didn't stumble across THE one yesterday. At $8 it was a bargain. Gotta love Vinnies. Can't wait to use it properly for Afternoon Tea!

Anyone have any good recipes for scones? Still looking...

Luscious Lavender Cake

A few months ago I made the most amazing Lavender cake from a Swedish cookbook called Mitt Eget Kafe (My Own Cafe) by Mia Öhrn. The recipe originally comes from Annika at the Swedish castle Sturehof just outside of Stockholm. Moist, with a subtle hint of Lavender it is so moreish and the delicious icing, a lime butter cream, really caps it off. It was a huge success when I brought it in for our springtime Afternoon Tea at work and they still talk about it. So thanks Mia, and thanks to Annika for one of the best cakes I've ever had the pleasure to make.

Here's the original recipe: