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.

Sunday pork Swedish style

 

Pork neck is one of the most flavoursome cuts of meat around. It' the star in this is a classic Swedish dish: Plommonspackad Flaskarre. It roughly translates as plum stuffed pork and is filled with dried plums, better known under the not so sexy name prunes.

It is delicious served with a cream gravy and hasselback potatoes. I couldn't be bothered with fancy potatoes and served mine with parboiled taters. Also, I went a bit heavy on the prunes and used 18 which was way too much - you don't need more than 8-10.

Here's the recipe:

The conundrum of Cloudberry Jam

I gave my friend a bunch of food when we moved interstate. On my return six months later some of the items were unceremoniously given back to me.

"So... I'm gonna give you back that weird that jam because I don't know what to do with it".

The offending strange jam was a jar of Hjortronsylt aka Cloudberry Jam from IKEA

I grew up eating this lovely golden jam by the bucketful. My mother makes the best cloudberry jam in the world. It has whole red and orange yellow berries suspended in the most luscious sweet syrupy liquid. The version from IKEA is quite hard set but still has a distinct cloudberry taste.

For Miss S, should you ever stumble across this condiment again, here are my top favourite ways to use it:


1. Served with Swedish oven baked pancake. Slather knobs of butter on pancakes, dollop jam generously over the top. Enjoy! I might need to add a Swedish pancake recipe here shortly...

2. Served in yoghurt for breakfast. Stir in a spoon or three and enjoy. If you are lucky enough to get hold of Swedish Fil (like a thicker milder version of Kefir made with cow's milk) it's the best.

3. Warmed and served on top of vanilla ice cream

And a final note. I would never, and I mean never, use it as marmalade on toast. That's not to say it's wrong or would taste bad that way. In my book and for many other Swedes, it's just not how you eat it.

Easy Hazelnut Chocolate Torte

This is such a typical Swedish recipe. Might not seem like it at first glance, but it´s another one of those super easy but yummy cakes that they do so well. It´s the kind of recipe that travels from home baker to home baker across the country, scribbled on a note, sent by email, passed on because it´s so darn yummy. I love this type of relaxed Swedish baking. This recipe is from a Swedish blogg called Lill-Ingers bakblogg. She has so many yummy cake recipes that I recognise from growing up in Sweden.

This cake was a massive hit at our recent house warming. Great served with blackberries too. Enjoy!

Note: Apparently this cake won an award at a local Swedish market back in 1988!

Easy Chocolate Hazelnut Torte 

Serves 8-10

Ingredients:
3 eggs
300 ml sugar (3dl)
150 g hazelnuts
1 tsp baking powder

Topping
3oo ml pouring cream (3dl)
2 tbs sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 tsp good quality cocoa powder - preferably dutch
dark chocolate 

1.Turn oven to 175 degrees celsius.

2. With an electric mixer beat eggs and sugar until doubled in size.

3. Blitz the hazelnuts in a food processor until they resemble fine meal.

4. Mix the nuts with baking powder and fold into eggs and sugar.

5. Pour the batter into a largeish spring form tin that has been buttered and lined with baking paper. Bake in the lower part of the oven (not all the way at the  bottom though) for about 40 minutes.

6. Loosen the spring form and let the cake cool and then transfer to a plate. 

7. Whip the cream together with the rest of the ingredients until soft peaks form and spread onto cake. Grate as much dark chocolate as you wish over the cake.  

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!