Shrove Tuesday Swedish Style

Finally! A new post…. Work, uni and a broken oven put a temporary stop to my baking and blogging. In Sweden they eat Semlor (a sweet bun with marzipan and whipped cream) on Shrove Tuesday, much tastier than pancakes. Or you can do like us who had Semlor on Sunday when a few friends were over and had American pancakes today 🙂 I have been experimenting with new recipes and different yeast to get the best buns, slowly getting there I think, will do a last experiment this weekend before uploading a recipe. I also bought a Dalek cake mould this weekend and have a bowl full of brown bananas so think a banana and chocolate Dalek coming up too….need to find more people to feed cake….I will let you know how I get on 🙂

Spicy Victoria Sponge Cake

I fancied a change  to the traditional Victoria sponge cake and thought I would try to combine it with the flavours of the ginger thins I made the other day and came up with this cake. I added 2 big teaspoons of cinnamon, 1big teaspoon of ginger and a small teaspoon of cloves to the sponge mixture.  In the middle, instead of using raspberry jam, I used cranberry jam (1/2 jar) and whipped cream (250ml). The only problem was the size of the cake that ended up serving 12 not 2 so had to split it and find some guinea pigs to help out with the eating. I am lucky to have such accommodating neighbours.

Spicy Swirl Biscuits

When I was making my ginger thins my sister sent a photo of a new biscuit she had tried, the ginger thins/marzipan swirl. She had found the recipe on sotasaker.com. As I had some dough left from making my ginger thins I thought I’d give this a go. They are very tasty, they don’t store for very long but the dough can be kept in the fridge for a while or you can freeze the unbaked biscuits and bake on the day you want them. I will definitely try these again 🙂

Ginger Thins also known as Pepparkakor

In Sweden they eat pepparkakor in the winter. The biscuits are really nice to eat with warm glögg or mulled wine. They also work great as crackers and are really tasty with (blue) cheese. I put some in gift bags for my neighbours and colleagues as 150 biscuits is a bit much for me to eat. I took some step by step photos when I made them and have put these on the recipe page.

Ice Cream, not really a cake but still….

I love ice cream (yes all year around) and there is nothing better than proper dairy ice cream none of that palm oil / coconut oil substitute ice cream. I don’t own a ice cream maker but I think this quick (very quick) recipe is very good and the best thing of making your own ice cream is that you can flavour it with whatever you like, apart from vanilla, I find that his is very sweet as it is so bitter cocoa, mint and orange are good flavours to break the sweetness. A few weeks ago my parents gave me liquorice powder so I made some sauce by mixing it with dark treacle and cream, so today I used it and lemon curd to flavour my ice cream. I took some photos of the steps of how I make my ice cream, not that you could fail making this ice cream 🙂

Toffee Biscuits

It was my grandmas birthday last weeks so made a batch of her favourite biscuits. As I had a day off work I also managed to get some step by step photos of the process of making the toffee biscuits so I have put them with the recipe. Hopefully someone else might be tempted to try….

Saffron Buns

Saffron Buns

My mum came to visit and hinted towards some Saffron Buns. My friend Alexandra has also been after some Christmasy recipes so this is a first attempt to satisfy her requirements, these buns also known as Lussekatter are traditionally eaten in Sweden during December. Have a few more seasonal recipes coming soon….

Chocolate Cake for Children in Need

 

It’s been another busy week but managed to make a chocolate cake for the children in need cake sale at work on Friday. Experimented with a new filling to the cake I showed here a few weeks ago, made a white chocolate ganache. I melted 130g white chocolate in 100ml double cream and left it to cool. Then i gradually stirred it into 100g of cream cheese and left it in fridge to set before spreading it on the cake. It was a nice ganaceh but it disappeared in all the dark chocolate so still looking for a good filling…all was sold and eaten though so all good in the end 🙂

Chocolate Courgette Cake

Chocolate Courgette Cake

Work and university have been taking up a lot of my time lately but I have finally worked my way through the last courgette from our garden. Have been tempted to try a chocolate version of my normal courgette cake and I think it worked well. The cake was very soft, moist and tasty.
There is a Children in need cake sale at work on Friday so I have been experimenting with white chocolate ganash today, it seems a bit thin to go in a cake but I have left it in the fridge over night, hopefully it will have set enough to be used tomorrow. I will let you know how I get on, hopefully I will get a photo before the cake is all gone too.

Apple Compote and Apple Cake

    

I have been busy using up all the apples I have been given recently. Have a freezer full of apple compote, it is such a quick way of making the apples keep throughout the winter. Just peel the apples, roughly chop them and place in a microwavable safe bowl, add a bit of sugar and lots of cinnamon. Then heat for 10minute intervals until you have the consistency you like. Once it has cooled it can be frozen to be used later in yoghurt, porridge, cakes or on its own with milk.
Couldn’t help to feel a bit too healthy so made a cake too. Last year when I visited my sister, her husband Pelle made us a lovely apple cake. I was told that it was a secret recipe but as I live so far away I was entrusted with it. Turned out that it was a take on a recipe he had found on sotasaker.com but he had added syrup to the topping to get a bit of a toffee flavour to go with the apples. I think this is one of the nicest apple cakes I’ve tried, and our friends who were given some yesterday seemed to agree 🙂