mountain bakery

A Scandinavian micro-bakery based in Norwich, England. This blog is about baking, travelling and lovely things I see and would like to share.

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Check out my guide to Stockholm 🇸🇪♥️ https://mountainbakery.co.uk/my-guide-to-stockholm

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A day at The Guardian: Food Styling & Photography with Rosie Reynolds and Jill Mead

A day at The Guardian: Food Styling & Photography with Rosie Reynolds and Jill Mead

I studied photography at university. This resulted in two things: not wanting to ever take photographs again, ever, and an underlying lack of confidence in my abilities. I arrived as a probably insufferably cocky teenager that thought I could do what I wanted, and left feeling pretty wobbly about whether I had made a mistake in going in the first place. It took a long time to gravitate back to…

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Pump Street Bakery visit: chocolate, sourdough, & cinnamon rolls

Pump Street Bakery visit: chocolate, sourdough, & cinnamon rolls

A couple of weeks ago, we ventured into what we affectionately refer to as ‘The Badlands’, also known as Suffolk: our neighbouring county. I guess there is an underlying friendly rivalry that influenced our choice of name! I’ve been wanting to visit the picturesque village of Orford for some time, as it is home to the now fairly famous Pump Street Bakery, whose award-winning bean-to-bar chocolate…

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(via Recipe: Swedish chocolate balls // chokladbollar)

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(via Nice design: Teema dotted blue by Iittala)

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(via Recipe: date, oat, and banana breakfast bars (vegan))

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(via Recipe: afternoon tea scones)

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(via Violet bakery visit: cinnamon rolls with a twist )

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Au revoir tumblr

So after *much* deliberation I have moved house, from tumblr to Wordpress. I'll still be sharing posts here, but my hosting will be elsewhere. Follow my journey: mountainbakery.co.uk So long tumblr, it's been real 👋

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This weekend I helped my friend Holly move house, and any visit to London warrants a visit to Fabrique for pastries. This time we went to their Goodge Street branch, which I think is nicer than their Seven Dials shop because it’s a bit bigger and you can properly sit for a while and enjoy your food. 

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I posted this recipe before, but I wasn’t really happy with the pictures, so here it is again, and just in time for pancake day AKA the best flipping day of the year.

As the child of hippies I grew up with lots of things that were “good for me”, from brown rice to wholemeal pasta. Some of those healthy options I still enjoy and some of which I run a mile from even now. Luckily pancakes is still an area where I enjoy a dose of bran, so my recipe uses partly wholemeal flour in order to up the nutty flavour and give a bit more bite. Feel free to switch up flours as you desire, and try using variations of buckwheat, spelt, or even rye. As long as the wet to dry proportions stay the same you’ll be flipping your way to delicious pancake success in no time at all.

As a pancake traditionalist I always have mine with lemon juice and a sprinkling of sugar, but Nutella and caramelised banana, or blueberries cooked with honey and vanilla, are also total winners in my humble opinion.  

Best ever pancakes

100g flour (50:50 white and wholemeal/spelt/buckwheat/rye etc)

280ml milk (approx ½ pint)

1 egg

A little sunflower oil for frying

Your choice of toppings - suggestions above!

To make the batter, combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk in the wet ingredients well, until frothy and lump free.

Store the batter in the fridge for at least one hour, but even better overnight, to allow it to thicken.

When your battery is chilled, remove it from the fridge and give it another whisk. It’s perfectly normal for it to separate a little, and if you use wholemeal flour, for it to go a bit grey in colour.

(Open a window!) Heat a seasoned pan on the hob. Give it a little lick of sunflower oil, and let it sit on the stove until starting to smoke a touch. Use a mug or a ladle to measure out a uniform quantity of batter, and add it to the pan. It should immediately bubble, showing that the pan is hot enough. Rotate the pan to spread it out evenly, and let it cook until the batter is no-longer visibly raw in the middle. Use a spatula to flip it over to cook the other side. You can get athletic here if you want to show off your flipping skills, but personally I never risk it. 

If you want to enjoy a stack of pancakes, place your patties in a warm oven while you make more, otherwise enjoy as they come, with the topping of your choice. 

The plate is by Iittala and is called ‘Kastehelmi’.

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What are the weekends for if not for a little bit of experimenting?

May I introduce you to these handsome hazelnut praline brownies. They’re still a work in progress, but must say I’m pretty chuffed so far.

Similar to the salted caramel brownies I make, which are always really popular, I think it’s nice to mix things up and include another flavour to enhance the fudgy chocolate.

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There is nothing I love to do more of an evening than to nestle down with a nice cup of tea (decaf of course, because I’m super rock and roll these days) and a lovely book. Very occasionally that might be a novel, but more likely than not it will be one of my much prized Swedish cookbooks, because they light me up in a way that little else does. In fact, I’m pretty sure my husband will divorce me soon if I buy any more cookbooks…

For me the joy of a foreign cookbook is not just in the recipes, but in the design, photography, and the innovation of approaching a recipe from a different cultural standpoint. I find it fascinating, so naturally I’m always on the lookout for new books to add to my collection. I have French, German, and Swedish language so far, and I’m always looking for others.

My most precious recent aquisition is Bageriet by Petrus Jakobsson - owner of Petrus, my favourite bakery in Stockholm no less! I’m sure you can imagine how I lost my shit when I saw on instagram that he was releasing a book. I had to get my paws on it pronto, and thank goodness, it did not dissapoint. Contained within it’s hardback, gold embossed exterier are recipes for Portuguese pasteis de nata, rye breads, sourdoughs, and of course kanelbullar. I’m officially smitten.

Also in my collection (and pictured above) are Choklad by Elizabeth Johansson, Deserter! by Tea Malmegård, Bröd, bröd, bröd by Martin Johansson, and Ett stekt ägg är också middag by Siri Barje. I recommend them all!

Pictures by Tristan.

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The last few months have been pretty quiet, on the surface at least, while I’ve been dealing with the fallout from wrapping up the bakery in its physical location. In all honesty it’s not been pretty, but on a personal level, I feel like I might be on the way to coming out of the other side (or at least I hope I am!) and building up the steam to move on. Taking all of that into account, I haven’t really had time to work on any new recipes lately and I’ve been racking my brains for the purpose of this blog, while also thinking about what I want to do next – hence the radio silence. Those aren’t easy questions to answer when your motivation is in the proverbial toilet and your self-esteem has been trampled, but I’m getting there. At the very least, I know that 2017 is the year for honesty!

In case you’re wondering, I have decided that this blog is definitely going to continue and I’ve promised myself that I’ll be putting more work in to make it even lovelier. I also have plans to brush off my beloved, though much under-utilised, film camera for some shoots, plus I’ll be adding more recipes and maybe even some videos over the next year.

So, while I haven’t been posting publically over the last few months, I have been making privately and I wanted to share some snaps from the last few months to bring in the New Year with some positivity. As is traditional, I made several huge batches of sea salt caramels for all my friends and family at Christmas (I’m really looking forward to sharing the recipe for them soon!) and in December, I also made a number of jars of chutney as gifts (using this fantastic recipe for apple and apricot chutney, courtesy of my pal Amy), as well as lots of Swedish chocolate balls, which I have been making as a little vegan treat.

So farewell 2016, you were…ummm…an interesting, educational and politically shitty year, and hello 2017! Welcome, welcome, and please…let’s be friends.

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Just a quick one to let you all know that mountain bakery in it’s physical location is officially no more. It was a roller-coaster ride but ultimately it wasn’t right for me to stay in that location. I’m going to be hibernating for the winter, working on a few other projects, and spending time making exciting plans (and creating new recipes!) for the future. I want to say a huge thanks to everyone who has supported me over the last six months, and I hope to take you all on the next step of the journey with me. 

I will, I’m sure, be popping up at a few Christmas markets between now and December and I will share those details very soon. 

Thanks for reading x 

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Stockholm 2016 - part 3. 

As the final part of my Stockholm round up, I wanted to share another *AMAZING* bakery that we discovered. Called Fosch, and located in the  Östermalm area, this place was a little treasure! It’s a French/Swedish mash-up that creates pastries that are out of this world. We went there for breakfast (as one does) and ordered a selection of treats to share, including a cloudberry curd tartlet, a Stockholm-Paris (which is their take on the famous Paris-Brest choux pastry), a raspberry brioche, and a cinnamon brioche. Everything was incredible and I would highly recommend anyone with a sweet tooth popping along to see them! Lovely, lovely staff too. 

To conclude my Stockholm posts, I wanted to share a bit of love for two marvelous vegetarian buffets. First off Hermans Trädgårdcafe on Södermalm, which is somewhere that I’ve been going back to since my first ever visit in 2008. It’s a wonderful location to take in the world, as it is high on the cliffs, facing the island of Djurgården, and on some evenings you can even hear the screams from people riding the roller coasters of Gröna Lund! Even better than the location is the all-you-can-eat veggie and vegan buffet, which is around 170 SEK at the time of writing, for a plate and a drink. Tristan and I always aim to strategise and take small samples of dishes in order to try everything, but this approach always inevitably fails as we (read: I) get lead astray by all the yummy options. I usually end up with a plate piled so high that I struggle to carry it! Do try and leave a space for their puddings too, as they are heavenly and definitely worth saving space for! 

Another fantastic veggie buffet is at Ulriksdal Slottsträdgård, which we were first taken to by our Swedish friends Karl and Marta a few Christmas’ ago. Ulriksdal is a short bus/pendeltåg ride out of central Stockholm, but really worth the effort of making a little trip on public transport. The veggie buffet is only one of many reasons to visit, as there is also a large castle to see, a garden centre, and vast country park to walk in. It’s a very peaceful and lovely place to go for an afternoon stroll. I was seriously tempted by the orchids in the garden centre but then wasn’t sure if it would survive the flight home! 

I’m so, so happy that we chose to visit Stockholm for my birthday and our wedding anniversary. It’s a very special city to me and I hope that a few of these tips can be useful to others planning their own adventures in the Swedish capital. 

Picture of me by Tristan. 

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Stockholm 2016 - part 2.

While we were in Stockholm we had a lot of Fika breaks, as honestly, it would be rude not to. We stopped into some *incredible* bakeries and cafes so I thought I would share a little round up of some old favourites and some new (to us) discoveries. 

First off, we went to Cafe Pascal in Odenplan, which was a recommendation from our friend Jas. Tristan was super impressed with the coffee, which was an ethiopian variety, brewed in a Chemex. They also stocked really great pastries, so we treated ourselves to a kanelbulle and a kardemummabulle as well as a tiny lemon tart with a french meringue topping. It was all delicious, and their lunch menu was really appetising too, but after all those pastries we didn’t have any more room!

Back on Söder, we popped into Drop for another caffeine boost, but I have to say that sadly the food was much more disappointing than our last visit where the buns and sandwiches had been a really nice accompaniment to our drinks. We also paid cheeky visits to both Bageri Petrus and Blooms, which are solid old-time favourites just off Mariatorget, and both have really darn fabulous buns. Also on Söder, near to Nytorget, are Pärlans Konfektyr, which I didn’t get the chance to visit this time, but Tristan went there solo-shopping to get me the biggest box of their heavenly caramels for my birthday. Absolute win! 

While it may seem like our stay in Stockholm was all about buns, that would actually be a bit misleading, as really what I ate most of were various tarts and traditional biscuits. We were keen to try a few things from Fabrique, as I have frequented their shops in London and always found them to be of a really high standard. Another chain that we paid a visit to was Gateaux, where I got a little blueberry tart with the best custard to accompany it. We were eating just the custard with a spoon by the end. Mmmmm! So classy.  

In the running for my favourite bakery of our visit has to be Park Konditori in Äppelviken, which was a short and easy ride out of central Stockholm by tram. I had made friends via instagram with their bakery manager and as such was allowed a little look behind the scenes at their production area, which was a really awesome experience. They do so much with so little space! We enjoyed buns (naturally), and a Danish pastry filled with rich vanilla custard and berries. We ate outside in the sunshine amongst the Autumnal golden trees and it felt like a little bit of heaven. 

Pictures of me by Tristan.