So... We fucked up this one. The cake tastes delicious with its round, nutty flavor and hint of fresh orange, but in an attempt to be fantabulastically artistic, we messed up the icing.
So as long as you don't get creative with the icing and just stick to the recipe (or perhaps your own favorite icing), you'll be fine. Just stay away from food coloring. (Except for green. Green is not a creative color. Go ahead and knock yourself out with green.)
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THE NON-CREATIVE CAKE PART
125 ml orange juice
1 tbsp orange zest
130 g sugar
180 g all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tps powdered ginger
1/2 tps powdered nutmeg
1/4 tps cinnamon
175 g almond meal
2 eggs
60 g butter
NOT-MESSED-UP ICING
140 g icing sugar
2 tbsp orange juice
We used a 30x12 cm loaf pan. Double up the recipe for a 22 cm round cake pan.
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LET'S GET CREATIVE DO THIS!
1. Stir together sifted flour, ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon in a bowl. Keep aside.
2. Beat the eggs and sugar until light and creamy with a hand mixer.
3. Fold in the flour mixture, almond meal, orange juice and zest, and melted butter until just combined and smooth.
4. Lightly grease the cake pan and add in the mixture.
5. Bake for 30-40 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. Edges should turn golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake should come out clean.
6. Let it rest for 15 minutes in the pan and then turn out the cake on a wire rack and let it cool completely.
7. Once cooled, mix together icing sugar and orange juice to make the glaze, pour it over the cake and serve.
While this isn't a Sweden-appreciation blog, we do have a certain fondness of our neighbouring country's baked goods (and köttbullar). So we made the extremely good decision to bake these completely amazing cinnamon knots (kanelsnurrer, or kanelbullar if you want to be ultra Swedish) that will make your soul leave your body for just a split second out of pure cinnamon bliss.
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DOUGH
50 g yeast
2 dl milk
1 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
1 egg
100 g butter
450 g flour
REMONCE
100 g butter
100 g sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
100 g marzipan
100 g dark chocolate
1 egg for glazing
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1. Warm up the milk, put it in a bowl and add the yeast. When dissolved, add cardamom, sugar, salt, and egg and mix it all together.
2. Dice the butter and put it in another bowl. Add 225 g flour and work in the butter. When it looks like couscous, add it to the other bowl and mix well.
3. Add 225 g flour little by little and knead the dough for about 10-15 minutes. Then cover it with a kitchen towel and let it rise for 45 minutes.
4. Combine butter, sugar, cinnamon and marzipan in a bowl into a soft and creamy remonce.
5. Roll out the dough 35 x 45 cm and spread the remonce out using a knife to cover one half of the dough (17,5 x 45 cm). Cut the chocolate in small pieces and sprinkle onto the remonce.
6. Fold over the other half of the dough and cut it into 16 strips (2-3 x 17,5 cm).
7. Twist the dough strips into knots. If you're unsure how to do it, this lovely, Swedish dudebro will gladly help you.
8. Place them on a baking sheet and let them rise for another 45 minutes. Brush with an egg and bake for 15 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius.
A homemade hostess gift, a midnight snack for when you're having friends over on Game Night, or a way to keep your mouth busy when you're trying to get through yet another long and boring chapter of your textbook. These cookies are perfect at any time, and with such few ingredients there really isn't any excuse not to make them!
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DOESN'T GET ANY SIMPLER
80 g butter
1 orange
70 g sugar
300 g flour
1 tsp baking powder
100 g white chocolate
1 egg
Icing sugar
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EASY STEPS TO PURE DELICIOUSNESS
1. Melt butter, sugar, chocolate and orange juice and zest in a bain-marie.
2. Mix flour and baking powder in a bowl.
3. When the chocolate mix is ready, gently add an egg and fold in flour and baking powder (if still too sticky, add more flour).
4. Form dough into small balls using your hands. Place them on a baking sheet and gently press them down.
5. Bake for 10-12 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius (they should not change color)
6. Let them cool for a little bit and sprinkle with icing sugar.
Danish Lent tradition fastelavn is coming up tomorrow which we'll celebrate by dressing up in questionable, homemade costumes and beating a barrel until candy comes out of it (unless you're at school or at a party that sucks... in that case it'll be oranges and healthy, unappetizing snacks). Most importantly, though, we'll be eating fastelavnsboller until we won't be able to move.
As a warm-up, we've made the Swedish equivalent to the Danish fastelavnsboller, semlor (or semla in singular) with a strawberry twist. After doing some personal research, we can't really recommend eating four buns in a timespan of two hours, but we can, however, fully recommend making these babies and sharing them at a fastelavn party. Just remember to wear a costume made from stretch fabric.
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SWEDISH BUNS OF STEEL (12 buns)
50 g butter
2 dl milk
25 g yeast
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp cardamom
1 egg
450 g flour
A pinch of salt
1 egg to brush the buns
FILLINGS THAT'LL MAKE VIKING HEARTS MELT
150 g marzipan
2 vanilla pods
50 g almonds
2-3 dl milk
½ l whipping cream
5 tbsp icing sugar
200 g strawberries (frozen or fresh)
4 tbsp sugar
Icing sugar for sprinkle
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GO BANANAZ
1. Warm milk until it reaches 37 degree Celsius. Remove milk from stove, cut butter in small pieces and let it melt in the warm milk.
2. Stir together yeast and lukewarm milk/butter mixture in a bowl until the yeast has dissolved.
3. Add sugar, salt, cardamom and egg. Add flour little by little until the dough is soft and smooth and let it rise for 1 hour.
4. Knead the dough carefully a few times and part into 12 pieces. Pull the dough from top to bottom of the bun to prevent cracks and fissures.
5. Place the buns on a baking sheet and let them rise for another 40 minutes.
6. Gently brush the buns with a beaten egg and bake at 190 degrees Celsius for 15-20 minutes until golden brown. Let them rest on a oven rack.
7. Cut off the top of the buns to make a lid. Carefully pull out the bread from the buns with a spoon, and crumble to coarse crumbs in a bowl. Add grated marzipan, roughly chopped almonds, seeds from one vanilla pod and mix it all together with a fork.
8. Add milk little by little until creamy consistency (not too wet). Divide the filling into the hollowed buns.
9. Carefully warm the strawberries, sugar, and vanilla seeds from half a vanilla pod to a boil and remove from the heat. Mash the strawberries and let it cool.
10. Whip the cream with the icing sugar and seeds from half a vanilla pod. Mix the strawberries with the whipped cream and put it in a piping bag.
11. Pipe the whipped cream onto the buns and put the lids back on. Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve.
If there's one thing better than fried chicken it's yangnyeom chicken. Covered in a sauce made from unicorn tears of joy and Korean hot pepper paste, these tasty chunks of spicy goodness will make you feel like you're sitting by the Han River on a warm summer night enjoying a chimaek (치맥) picnic with your friends.
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This serves two people
CRISPY STUFF
700-800 g chicken chunks
0,5 tps salt
0,5 tps pepper
35 g potato starch powder
20 g flour
20 g rice flour
0,5 tps baking soda
1 small egg
7 dl vegetable oil
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SAUCY GOODNESS
0,5 tbsp vegetable oil
2 garlic
60 ml tomato ketchup
60 ml glucose syrup
30 ml hot pepper paste
0,5 tbsp rice vinegar
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HOW TO MAKE YOUR MOUTH HAPPY
1. Rinse chunks of chicken in cold running water, drain using paper towel and place them in a bowl.
2. Add pepper, salt, flour, rice flour, potato starch flour, baking soda and egg. Mix it together using your hands until the chicken is fully covered.
3. Heat up the oil in a frying pan. The oil is ready if it starts to fry and bubble when you dip a chunk of chicken into it.
4. Fry the chicken for 10 minutes. Take them out and let them sit for a few minutes. Fry them again for another 10 minutes until golden brown.
5. Now it's time for the sauce. Mince garlic and roast it in oil (it should not turn brown). Add ketchup, syrup, pepper paste and vinegar. Let it simmer for about 7 minutes.
6. Add the chicken and turn them gently in the sauce until fully covered.
7. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Can be served hot or cold.
This is the kind of tart that you want to hug and have babies with. It is also the kind of tart that you don't want to eat all by yourself as breakfast, lunch and dinner for four days in a row. Trust us. Been there. Done that. Yeah...
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PASTRY
500 g plain flour
175 g plain sugar
250 g unsalted butter, room temperature
1 vanilla pod
11/2 eggs, beaten
Grated zest of 1 lemon
FILLING
9 eggs
400 g sugar
2,5 dl cream
Grated zest of 2 lemons
Juice of 5 lemons
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HOW TO
1. Sift the flour and icing sugar into a big bowl and work in the butter.
2. Add lemon zest, seeds scraped from the vanilla pod and eggs. Knead using your fingers, working as quickly as you can, until everything is combined to a smooth dough.
3. Wrap in plastic film and leave to rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
4. Grease a flan tin with a removable base (20 cm in diameter and 3.75 cm deep).
5. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to a disc large enough to line the tin.
6. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes.
7. Whisk together eggs with sugar and lemon zest for the filling in a large bowl until smooth.
8. Stir in lemon juice and cream. Continue to whisk until all the ingredients are thoroughly combined.
9. Reduce the oven temperature 120 degrees Celsius and pour the cold filling into the hot pastry case.
10. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool and set for about an hour. Decorate with icing sugar.
Kransekage (or kransekake if you're Norwegian) is absolutely essential to a Danish New Year's Eve party - nothing says "happy new year" as a sugar-induced high and pyrotechnic decor.
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INGREDIENTS
Dough
400 g marzipan
120 g icing sugar
32 g egg white
Icing
100 g icing sugar, sifted
30 g egg white
HOW TO DO
1. Knead together marzipan, icing sugar and egg white until the dough is smooth. (If you do have a kitchen machine, we advise you to use it, as kneading the dough by hand can be slightly exhausting.)
2. Wrap it in plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for at least couple of hours or until the next day.
3. Roll the dough into a long, thin, 145 cm roll.
4. Cut out sections of 8-12-16-20-24-28-32 cm. Save 5 cm to make a ball for the top.
5. Form the sections into rings and use your thumb and index finger to shape a ridge on each ring.
6. Use two baking trays layered on top of each other and bake at 225 degrees Celsius for 8-9 minutes or until golden brown. The double trays are to prevent the rings from getting burnt on the bottom.
7. Let the rings cool down. Meanwhile, whisk together icing sugar and egg white to make a thick, white icing (use more icing sugar if needed).
8. Roll a piece of baking paper into a cornet, secure it with a piece of tape, pour in the icing and cut a very small hole at the tip.
9. Decorate the rings with icing by making a curvy zig-zag pattern. Start with the biggest ring and top with the next ring just after finishing the pattern as the icing functions as an adhesive.
Before you say anything, IT'S STILL MONDAY SOMEWHERE... OUT WEST... IN OTHER TIMEZONES...
But, even though we've been busy getting all Christmasy with our families and watching re-runs of Christmas movies (you know, Die Hard, Trading Places and Ivanhoe) we've also had the time to make oatmeal balls, yes... this might be the closest we'll ever get to make Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls (they're also packed full of goodness and high in fiber... and butter).
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YOU'LL ONLY NEED
175 g oatmeal
100 g icing sugar
4,5 tbsp cocoa powder
100 g softened butter
1 vanilla pod
Desiccated coconut (we're 98% sure we used unsweetened, but sweetened could be used, too)
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EASIEST THING EVER
1. Cut open the vanilla pod, take out the seeds and mix them with icing sugar.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl and add the soft butter.
3. Stir until even, roll them into small balls and cover them with desiccated coconut. If shredded coconut is not your thing you can use icing sugar or whatever makes you want to stick these balls in your mouth and suck on them.
4. Let them rest in the fridge for 2 hours.
5. Eat them all in one sitting. It will be painful and not worth it at all, but is unfortunately a mandatory step in the process of oatmeal balling.
These crispy, salty crackers covered in olive oil are definitely on our top 5 list of (Healthy) Comfort Food this winter. Enough said, this is so easy to make you cannot not try it.
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5 INGREDIENTS
250 g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1,25 dl water
2 tbsp olive oil
Sea salt
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GET CRACKIN'
1. Sift flour and baking powder into a large bowl.
2. Make a well in the center and pour in water and olive oil.
3. Bring the ingredients together into a dough using your hands and knead it until it's smooth.
4. Wrap the dough in a tea towel and let it rest in the frigde for an hour.
5. Pull off walnut sized lumps of dough and roll them into little sausages between your palms.
6. Roll the dough into long, ultra ultra thin tongues. Remember to use a lot of flour, dust while working.
7. Brush each length of dough generously with olive oil and sprinkle with some sea salt.
... And by life, we mean no life. At the moment we're busy with work and exams, which has resulted in Melissa being hooked up to a caffè latte IV drip and Line living off of unhealthy amounts of chocolate granola.
Because Coconnamon would be the coolest Pokémon ever, and Cinnamon Challenging yourself by accident is totally worth it.
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SO SO MANY INGREDIENTS!
As many almonds as you can eat (but the following measurements fit a handful)
1 tsp cocoa powder, with top
1 tsp cinnamon, scraped
Yes, the cinnamon is missing on the ingredients photo because we're 100% professionals here. Just... imagine a slightly lighter pile of brown powder next to the cocoa powder.
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SO SO DIFFICULT!
1. Place the ingredients in a container.
2. Put a lid on it.
3. Shake it like a polaroid picture.
4. Wait for the dust to settle.
5. Open the container.
6. Eat.
WARNINGS:
1. It might be a bit messy if you eat it with your fingers. Being so incredibly Asian, we advice you to use chopsticks (or whatever works for you).
2. These are slow snacks. Remember, it's cocoa and cinnamon powder, so be careful or you'll end up cinnamon challenging yourself!
This one goes out to all you sexy singles, who are looking for food porn on a cold and lonely night.
We all know that the best way to deal with feelings is to eat them away, so you might as well just spend your evening with these hot, naked, juicy thighs while you sing along to this amazing piece of Danish music heritage (bandanas and lime-tinted sunglasses... that's a breakup waiting to happen).
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SO IF YOU'RE A LOVELY LONER (OR JUST ALONE)
2 chicken legs
1 dl apple must
3 bay leaves
2 carrots
80 g cabbage
Salt and pepper
Fresh dill
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THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT
1. Place the chicken in a pot and add water so it covers the chicken.
2. Peel the carrots and cut them in appropriate sizes. Cut the cabbage finely.
3. Add apple must, bay leaves and carrots and let it simmer for 40 minutes.
4. Taste with salt and pepper and add cabbage and dill.
