Muddymudcake

This is an empty pie dish. 

It's not very happy. But with some butter, chocolate and liquorice it feels a lot better - or maybe that's just me. As always, finding a name/translation into English has been tricky - but fun! Because it is, as always, quite close to an English term/translation - here the English term Chocolate Mud cake - but not quite. In my search through the Wild Wild Web I came across an interesting little blog that was discussing, well, exactly what I am discussing right now. In a way.

For now, let's just call it Mud Cake and get on with it.

I guess every place, family, etc, has its or their own classic dish or cake that is made over and over until perfect (or as near as one can come). When I was a child, simple sponge cakes and Mud cake (or Kladdkaka) where the first ones I learnt to bake. Mud cake especially since it is so simple and quick to make. I suppose one could think of it as a 'ruined cake', as the aim is to achieve a crusty shell and a gooey, almost runny, middle.

There is probably over a 100 different ways of making them and here is also about a million different recepies, some which I hope to try very soon. Just to shake things up I decided to starts things off not with a Classic Mud cake, but one with liquorice!

Liquorice is something I've lately become very interested in (yes, I tend to obsess a bit about food). Liquorice comes in many different forms - sweet, salt, to almost tar-tasting - and it can be an acquired taste. What I had never thought of, however, was using it in cakes. In a small, cosy shop, I found a stack of liquorice products and one of them was this small jar of powdered liquorice (and I was strongly advised to try this cake). And who am I to say no to a challenge?

 Liquorice Mudcake

1. 150 grams of butter
2. 3 tablespoons of liquorice powder
3. 3 eggs
4. 3 dl sugar
5. 2 tablespoons of syrup
6. 2 dl of flour
7. 6 tablespoons of cacao

• Put the oven on 175 degrees. 
• Melt the butter, and then mix together the dry ingredients. 
• Stir in the syrup and butter. 
• Pour the batter into a greased tin or pie dish. 
• Bake in the lower part of the oven, roughly 20-25 minutes. You want it really doughy and soft in the middle! 
• Serve with raspberries and whipped cream (or vanilla ice cream.) 

Perfect Morning moment

Imagine - Sunny morning, fragrant freshly brewed cup of coffee, homemade bread with fresh things on top.

Avocado sandwich

• Avocado
• red onion
• lemon juice
• salt/pepper
• smoked paprika

Mix everything together. Make sure the onion is chopped as finely as possible and season according to your taste. 

You might want to be little careful with the smoked paprika (my new spice obsession, which smells a.m.a.z.i.n.g), which can give your sandwich topping a somewhat funky colour. 

Garlic on Garlic with Garlic

The perk of having a somewhat randomly stranded Scandinavian house guest, is that they provide dinner every now and again. The following is a product of JJ's sorted family history and food culture, which spans from Scandinavia all the way to Greece (and beyond). A good mix as it turns out, it is yummy.

PS. Although the dish is called Garlic Chicken you don't need to add all the garlic in the world as it was done by our Guest in the Kitchen, who has a slight garlic fetish. The chicken was fried with half a garlic (6-8 gloves), which might be a little on the excessive side. Similarly the potatoes don't necessarily need to be covered in garlic as well.

Guest in the Kitchen: JJ's Garlic Chicken with pan fried Garlic Tatties 

Marinade

• Olive oil
• Lemon Juice
• salt & pepper
• coriander Oregano
• 1 egg
• 
  

• Chicken ( breast per person)
• Olive oil
• Garlic

Make sure that the marinade has a thick consistency
Split a chicken breast (per person) into two halves and cover the pieces with the marinade. Let it sit in the fridge for about 2 hours before cooking.

Potatoes
Boil the potatoes in small pieces
Heat up a pan with olive oil
Mix salt pepper, chili powder, garlic powder - mixed herbs and fresh chopped garlic, lemon juice.
Throw on and keep browning the potatoes in the oil mix until golden brown. Enjoy immediately.

Serve with a side salad

Let the good times roll

A classic treat in most bakeries and cafes, I decided to try and make them myself. Turned out to be a bit of a challenge since I used uncoloured marsipan and had to add colourings myself - I also made them rather small (to make it easier to eat many). But hey, what are summer holidays for if not for playing around with silly things like this?

 Punsch-roll:

• 100 grams butter 
• 1 dl icing sugar
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla essence
• 3 tablespoons of cacao powder
• ca 4 dl of cookie crumbles (I made crumbs of a small Victoria sponge)
• Flavour the batter with Punsh or Arrack essence 
• ca 200-250 grams of Marsipan
• 3 tablespoons of icing sugar
• 100 grams of milk chocolate

1. Stir together butter, sugar, vanilla and cacao powder.
2. Add the crumbs.
3. Add flavouring of your choice.
4. Shape into two long rolls (I had do more than two due to space restrictions).
5. Let rest in the fridge for a while.
6. Flatten the marsipan with a rolling pin, add the batter and roll together - cut into ca 4.cm long pieces.
7. Dip the ends in the melted chocolate and leave to set on baking paper.

  

N/x

Sweet Pies are made of this

The berry season is, I know, usually at the end of the summer. But if you have them, eat them. Blueberries especially are a source of antioxidants and C-vitamins - and probably loads of other healthy stuff. By how much these healthy benefits are reduced however, when mixed in with a mass of sugar, flour and oats, I can't say, but who needs desserts to be healthy anyway? Let's eat!

 Blueberry pie (or tart, if you need the distinction)

• grams of blueberries
• 200 grams of butter
• 1 dl of Oats
• ca 3 dl of flour
• 1.5 dl of sugar

1. Melt the butter, and add the oats and sugar - let soak for a minute.
2. Add the flour, mix well until the batter if firm enough to be pressed out into a pie dish.
3. Pour in the blueberries! How much you need/want depends on how big a dish you use.
4. Sprinkle a little bit of oats and sugar on top - or even some cinnamon. 
5. Place in the oven, 175'C, for about 25-30 minutes. 

N/X

Good Intentions

At the beginning of the year, and at the dawn of this blog, I had the noble intention to start making my own bread - regularly. Then the oven debacle with the notorious muffins happened, and my dream of delicious homemade bread flew out the window. As mentioned previously I no longer reside in that kitchen and therefore fresh, crunchy bread is back on the table! Literally.

I started with something simple and fool proof: mix the flour, some seeds and the yeast. Add lukewarm water and some oil (don't forget a pinch of salt - which I did - and maybe some sugar). Let it stand, somewhere warm, and then dive into the therapeutic process of kneading the dough for 15-ish minutes, mold into the form you want and then let it stand again, covered. Pop in the oven (250'C) until golden brown.

simple
easy
tasty :)

That is how I was taught to make bread - years ago now, in a land somewhat far from here. The process is familiar and makes one feel at home in a new kitchen. There will be more adventurous loafs of bread to come!

Poppy and Sesame seed Bread 

• 1 pint of strong white flour
• 7g dried fast action yeast
• 3 dl of water
• Poppy and sesame seeds
• salt (sugar)
• 1 tbs vegetable oil

X/A

Chocolate Mocha Muffins

I have a bad track record with ovens and muffins to say to least. I moved into a new place so the natural thing to make - to test the oven - was muffins. I think it is safe to say that this oven is functioning just fine.

10 large muffins

• 1 egg
• 1,5 dl milk
• 0,5 dl veggie oil
• 0,75 dl sugar
• 5 dl flour
• 2 tbsp of cocoa powder
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 espresso
• 75 gr milk chocolate

1. Beat the egg and add milk and oil.
2. Mix sugar into the mixture and whisk until the grains have dissolved.
3. Mix dry ingredients and add to the egg mix .
4. Finally add a cold espresso and the chocolate chips.

Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes at 200'C
X/A

Cannelloni

We have gone past the magic date 17th of May and Exam period is officially done - hurrah! It also means that all the chocolate and basically all the other foods we once had in the cupboard are also done. After all the comfort eating it is rather lovely to get back to some sort of proper food. This next experiment came out of a serious trip into the deepest part of our cupboards: it turns out you can make quite a nice dish out of 4 lasagna plates, half a bag of spinach, an onion, chopped tomatoes, and some cheese.

• 4 lasagne plates.
• ca 200 gram of frozen spinach
• 1 onion
• Garlic
• Salt, pepper, chili.

Sauce:

• 1 can of chopped up tomatoes
• Chicken stock
• Chili

Chop up the spinach and onion, and fry lightly with oil and spicec.

Boil the pasta, be careful so they don't stick together. Cut them in half so you will get 8 cannellonis.
Place the spinach on the pasta and roll together, place in oven dish and sprinkle some grated cheese on top.
Grill in oven until golden.

Mix and heat up the tomato sauce and serve with the cannelloni.

N/x

Dream a little dream

Baking SOS = consult my tiny little cookie-book. You might have heard it mentioned before. The title is '7 kinds' (of cookies), in English it has the rather unimaginative title of 'Swedish cakes and cookies'. Also, the title made me laugh, because I am pretty sure that at least some of the recipes mentioned in there are used in a lot of other places beside Sweden....you know, like the ones named English Fruitcake, or Swiss roll...hmm. Be that as it may: they are still tasty, and frankly, who cares about the title. It should just have been a bit funnier. Tiny bit.

Swiss Roll time! Leaving my confused musings on those finer points in life behind (waaay behind) lets explore the yummieness that is Swiss roll.

Dreamroll

• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 dl sugar
• 3/4 dl potato flour
• 2 tablespoons of cacao
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder

Filling

• 150 g butter
• 2 dl icing sugar
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla sugar/ or essence
• 1 egg yolk

1. Put the oven on 250 degrees (200 degrees if you have a fan-assisted oven).
2. Whisk the egg and sugar into a fluffy mess.
3. Mix together flour, cacao, and baking powder - then stir that into the egg/sugar batter.
4. Fold up the edges on a baking paper, and cover with the batter.
5. Place in the middle in the oven, ca 5 minutes. It will be done very quickly, don't worry if it seems to rise unevenly, it will be more even when it is taken out.
6. Flip the cake onto a dampened (not drenched!) tea-towel, sprinkled with a bit of sugar.
7. Remove the baking paper and let cool.

Step 2
Stir the butter and icing sugar together and add the vanilla essence and the egg yolk.
Spread on the cake, roll together swiftly and let it rest in the fridge before you cut it.

 X/N

Poor Knights

There has been much discussion about the proper name for these things. Guess that is what happens when you have three languages to choose from. We made them anyway, the title now being a simple translation from the Swedish (and Finnish) name. And if anyone out there has another suggestion, leave us a comment! Also, on a side note, if Knights really did eat these they can't have been very poor. 

With a pot of hot coffee your Sunday, or Saturday, brunch is off to a good start.

These were made from sweet wheat bread, the same dough in fact that we used to make Semlor. We simply cut up the left over buns, fried them in butter and turned them in a mix of sugar and cinnamon. They can be made in a more "proper" way by mixing together 2 eggs and 1-2 dl of milk and add little bit of flour. Let the bread (if you got some bread going stale you can use that too) soak up the liquid and then fry them before turning over in the sugar, easy-peasy!

Of course, what nice brunch would be complete with out a steaming pot of really dark coffee? Honestly, even if you don't drink the stuff it is pretty to look at - and smells divine - on our brunch, not to say all breakfast mornings, coffee has become an essential ingredient. Perhaps that is what they call caffeine addiction..?

May Day Preparations - part1

Our mayday project started with the idea to make Sima (simple enough, one would think) - a Finnish drink of sugar (loads), lemons, water and fresh yeast. The first problem was locating the dark sugar we needed; Farinsocker or Dark Brown Soft Sugar in English - took us awhile to find a translation for that!

2nd problem...which we did not foresee, was the Quest for fresh yeast.  The shop were we are usually able to find this has unexpectedly shut down, which presented a slight problem and a very long walk. The walk involved pitstops at Waitrose to start, where Nina was directed to Peckhams, (which does not sell fresh yeast). From there the quest took her to different cafes until finally meeting a lovely informative baker, at the always lovely Cafèzique, that pointed out THE PLACE that would for sure sell fresh yeast, across from the street. Arriving at a lovely Polish deli that HAD YEAST. Dried yeast works fine for baking, but with this drink the fresh version was rather essential, because there is no need to be as exact with temperatures. After that there was a very long walk back again, but at least it was sunny (a miracle in itself).

 In the end we got the brewing started for our May Day drink. Stay tuned for part two of May Day preparations - any guesses what it is -leave a comment!