This time of the year

Now it's time for "semlor" again (that is, the Swedish Lenten buns). Yesterday I made a batch of 14 and the idea is to eat one every Tuesday for the coming weeks until Feb 21st, which is the official "semmel-day" this year. But 14 are more than enough so there will be a couple of buns in between as well (and maybe even a second batch later on)...

The Lenten buns are made out of a sweet bun with almond filling and whipped cream under the lid and, of course, powder sugar topping it off.

Birchermüsli

On Sundays in Switzerland, I sometimes went by Frei's in Brugg to buy home some bread rolls and their delicious Birchermüsli after going to church. Before we went to Poland, about two weeks ago, and the fridge was quite empty I finally made my first batch ever of Birchermüsli and it was delicious! I used this recipe as a template (but with fewer apples) and then added a nectarine, bananas, raspberries and some whipped cream to it as well.

Muffins - again

We had some really small and tiny bits of rhubarb left in the garden and I decided to do something with it. I googled and found the recipe for these delicious muffins.

Rhubarb muffins with white chocolate and cardamom, 12 small ones

Rinse and cut 150 grams rhubarb and add 2½ tbsp sugar to them. Put aside. Beat 100 grams of butter with 1 deciliter sugar and ½ tbsp vanilla sugar. Add 2 eggs, one by one and then 1 deciliter milk. Mix 2½ deciliter flour with 2 tsp baking soda and 1 tsp ground cardamom in a separate bowl before genlty mixing it into the butter and stuff. Add 100 grams white chocolate in chunks as well as half of the rhubarb and then distribute the batter evenly in 12 muffin cups. Spread the rest of the rhubarb on top and bake for approximately 20 minutes at 175 Celcius.

Simply delicious!

Raspberry-Chocolate muffins

Today I baked. It's my favorite thing to do in the kitchen, but lately I haven't baked much at all. This time I made a batch of muffins. So easy and fast to make, and nice to eat as well... I found this recipe in a book that I was just about to return to the library and they don't have much sugar in them. Originally the recipe said to use white chocolate, but since I only had dark at home I simply used that instead. That might be the reason why they aren't so sweet. Not that that is a problem in any way...

For 12 regular size muffins I beat 200 grams of butter with 1,5 deciliter sugar. Then I added 4 eggs, one at a time. I mixed 4 deciliter of flour with 1 tablespoon of baking soda and added that together with 100 grams of frozen raspberries as well as 75 grams of dark chocolate. After about 20 minutes in 175 C they were ready to enjoy.

Candy time - finally

At last I managed to finish the Christmas candy of this year. Mmmmm...

Saffron buns

Yesterday I finally got down to baking the traditional Saffron buns that we eat this time of the year in Sweden. Tomorrow, December 13th, it's the Lucia Day here and the tradition is to eat Saffron bread and gingerbread cookies on this day while listening to the Lucia and her maids singing seasonal songs. The dough to the buns gets a really nice yellow color from the saffron.

Yesterday night Matts and I had an evening fika consisting of the saffron buns, some Zimtsternen as well as Swedish mull wine with almonds and raisins. Yummy!

In the jar

So here they are, ready to be eaten. I already tried one, and it was really delicious!

This is how you make them:
Beat 3 egg whites hard. Add 250 gram confectioner's sugar and blend well. Take 1-1½ deciliter apart for the frosting. Add 1½ tbsp cinnamon, ½ tbsp kirsch or lemon juice and 350 gram grinded almonds (leave the peel on) to the rest of the egg mixture and mix well. Roll out between plastic film (the dough should be about 7 mm thick) and punch out stars in different sizes. Place these on a baking sheet and cover them with the remaining egg mixture. Let them sit 5-6 hours or over night at room temperature before baking them at 250 degrees Celsius for 2-5 minutes. Enjoy!

Zimtsternen

First step of the Swiss Zimtsternen is done. Tomorrow I will let them sit in the oven for a few minutes and then they are ready to be eaten.

Time to taste!

And finally, I could taste the elderflower cordial for the first time. Yummy! The weird thing in the glass is an ice cube with some elderflowers...

Bottling time

So yesterday, after three days, it was time to filter and bottle the elderflower cordial...

Elderflower cordial

During this morning's walk with Inga in the lovely weather, I collected more than 60 bunches of elderflower. Back home I rinsed them in water and then let them sit on a towel, waiting to become elderflower cordial. I never made elderflower cordial before, so it's kind of exciting, but it's not hard to do so I am quite sure it'll taste just fine.

After rinsing the flowers, I placed them in a big casserole and covered them with three lemons in thin slices. Then I added 2 liters boiling water, 1,5 kg sugar and 50 g citric acid. I stirred until the sugar was dissolved and now it's supposed to stand covered for three days before filtering. Then, hopefully, we will have about 3 liters of concentrated elderflower cordial...

Sunday breakfast

Today I made a "special" breakfast. Normally we eat yogurt or filmjölk (a kind of sour milk only found in Sweden) with cereals, fruit, bread, tea and juice. This morning, however, was a pancake morning. :-) So I made a batch of American pancakes as well as a nice strawberry-blackberry-banana smoothie for us. Yummy. We also had sliced apple and pear as well as some home made bread and coffee and tea. A good start on what hopefully becomes a good day.

Birthday fika

Yesterday I celebrated my own birthday by inviting my friends on a birthday fika. On the menu was Rimbo buns, Pitepågar, choclolate amaretto muffins, lemon cheesecake and chocolate chip flarns... It was a great afternoon and there was something for everyone on the fika-table. :-)

In the evening, Matts took me out for dinner in a Greek restaurant here in Lund. Yummy yummy. Too bad we don't have doggy bags here in Sweden, since we got too much food to finish (might have something to do with the afternoon fika...) and it was so good...

All in all I am very happy with my birthday and almost already look forward to the next one (except for the part of growing older for each year).

Rimbo buns and Chocolate Amaretto muffins

So I did some baking. Rimbo buns and Chocolate Amaretto muffins (well, we didn't have any Amaretto at home so I substituted it with vanilla). It all smells great, but we haven't tried it - yet.

The buns are really nice however, not too sweet, pretty fluffy and quite easy to make:

Rimbo buns, about 30 pieces

20-25 g yeast
2 deciliter cold milk
200 g room tempered butter
1 tbsp sugar
about 6 deciliter flour

Filling:
75 g butter
1½ tbsp sugar
1½ tsp vanilla sugar

1 beaten egg

Dissolve the yeast in some of the milk. Add the rest of the milk as well as the other ingredients. Mix well and work it for a bit to get a nice dough. Carefully roll it out to a square about 40x48 cm. Cut it in 8x8 cm squares. Blend the ingredients to the filling and put some on the middle of each square. Pinch the corners of the squares together and place the buns in paper forms on a baking sheet and let them rise under a tea towel for about 2 hours at room temperature. Brush the buns with a beaten egg and bake for 5-10 minutes at 250 C in the middle of the oven. Enjoy!

Annette: as you can see, the baking grids you gave me come to good use here in Sweden as well. They are just awesome! Thank you so much.

Iron lunch

To boost my iron levels I had blodpudding (black/blood pudding) with lingonberry jam, carrots and an orange for lunch yesterday. Not everyone likes blodpudding - in fact it is one of those dishes you either like or really hate. I belong to the former and since it's such a quick meal to prepare it's perfect for a lunch on my own. It's also very cheap - as a student I ate it a lot.

Chocolate balls

Today I made some Chokladbollar. They are very easy to make and are delicious (for those of you who have had Delicatobollar, the kind that they sell in Ikea, this is the homemade version).

All you need is 100 g of butter that you beat with 1 deciliter sugar until well blended. Then you add 3 deciliter oatmeal, 2 tbsp cocoa powder, 1 tsp vanilla sugar and 2 tbsp cold, strong coffee.

Mix well and form small balls (this recipe yields everything from about 24 small balls to a few big ones). Roll the balls in coconut flakes, decorative sugar (these two versions I made today) or colorful sprinkles. Then put them in the fridge until it is time to eat them. Oh, I can hardly wait to taste mine later tonight!

Sourdough bread no. 2 - part four

Ok, I know it's been a long time since I last wrote anything, but here the result of the sourdough baking project finally comes. The bread was very tasty (even if it had a slight beer taste in the beginning - something Matts wasn't too happy about at breakfast time) and was perfect with cheese, tomatoes and black pepper. :-) Now it's long gone and I have a batch of breakfast rolls in the oven as I write. But that's another story. :-)

Sourdough bread no.2 - part three

After 24 h of rising, the dough was still well contained in the bowl. Phew! This morning it was time to add the final ingredients to the dough: 500 g crushed rye, 1 deciliter sunflower seeds, 100 g linseed, 1 tbsp dark brown sugar and 1 can of beer (33 cl).

I mixed the dough until everything was well blended and then poured it into two 2 liter baking tins and let them sit for eight hours. In the beginning I was sure the tins would be flooded by the rising dough, but they just managed to contain the dough inside of them. :-) Now it's time for the final step, 1 h and 15 min at 200 C in the oven and then I'll let them rest wrapped in towels until the morning when Matts and I will try them for breakfast to see if they are eatable at all. I am very skeptical when it comes to the beer part, but hopefully it will add a really nice flavor to the bread...

Sourdough bread no.2 - part two

Today I fed the sourdough with 1 liter water, 2 tbsp salt, 1½ liter whole grain rye flour and ½ liter plain white flour. Now it's supposed to stay put and preferably not grow out of the bowl until tomorrow when the final ingredients will be added.

So far it hasn't risen too much, but we'll see about that at the end of today. Our kitchen might be filled with dough sooner than we think...

Sourdough bread no. 2 - part one

It's time for me to try another recipe for a sourdough bread. This time a dark and probably heavy bread with sunflower seeds and crushed rye. Exciting. :-)

This morning I started with the sourdough consisting of half a package of fresh yeast, 2 deciliter water (cold) and 2 deciliter of plain white flour. I dissolved the yeast in the water and then mixed it with the flour to a nice sludge... After a couple of hours it started bubbling and it will hopefully continue to do so until tomorrow when it's time for the next step.