Friday Morning Recipes: Part 6

September 2008/9

Chocolate Oat Biscuits/Chokladflarn

On a recent trip back to Sweden, I saw in the annual book sale a new retro cookery book by Mia Öhrn.  I immediately recognized the covers of some of the books inside from my grandmother's shelf in her kitchen.  Although these oat biscuits look similar to the ones I normally bake they are in fact very different. Mia Öhrn suggests that would go well with ice cream and chocolate mousse as well as on their own. 

Makes about 50

• 150g butter
• 2dl (200ml) granulated sugar
• 2dl (200ml) rolled oats
• 1 3/4dl (175ml) plain flour
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1/2dl (50ml) milk
• 1/2dl (50ml) golden syrup 

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.
2. Melt the butter.
3. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, then add the melted butter together with the milk and golden syrup.  This should be a nice thick mixture.
4. Spoon teaspoon sized blobs on baking sheets covered with baking paper.  Leave plenty of space for the biscuits to spread out.
5. Bake in the middle of the oven for about 5 - 6 minutes.
6. Allow them to cool on the baking sheet before storing them in an air-tight tin.

Öhrn, M. (2007) Klassiska kakor på nytt vis, Natur och Kultur, Stockholm.

Hazelnut Biscuits/Roslagsbröd

A very quick and easy to make biscuit that should melt in your mouth.  As with all biscuits it pays not to cut corners: they should be made with butter and freshly ground nuts.

• 1dl (100ml) hazelnuts
• 125g butter
• 1/2dl (50ml) granulated sugar
• 2 1/2dl (250ml) plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon (2.5ml) baking powder

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.
2. Grind the nuts.
3. Combine all the other ingredients in a bowl with your hands.  Add the freshly ground nuts last.  Allow the dough to cool for about thirty minutes in the fridge.
4. Roll out into sausages about 4cm in diameter.  Slice into centimetre thick circles and lay out on baking sheets lined with baking paper.  Press a fork, dipped in cold water, onto the centre of each biscuit.  The water stops the fork getting clogged up with biscuit dough.
5. Bake for about 7 - 8 minutes until golden brown.
6. Cool in a rack before storing in an airtight container.

Bengtsson, S. M. (2007) Konditorns bästa (2 edn.). Albert Bonniers Förlag, Stockholm.

Orange and Chocolate Cake/Apelsin- och chokladkaka

This is based on a recipe from Hemmets Journal, a Swedish weekly magazine from Allers.  I wanted something that would have a stronger orange flavour than the chocolate cakes that I have baked in the past.

• 200g margarine
• 2 1/2dl (250ml) granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• 3 eggs
• 4dl (400ml) plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 100g dark, plain chocolate, 70%+, chopped
• 2 organic or unwaxed oranges, grated rind and juice

1. Preheat oven to 170°C.
2. Prepare the baking tin.  I used a round ring tin from IKEA but you could also use a 1.5 litre rectangular bread tin.  I greased it and then coated it with tiiny home made bread crumbs - hard ones, not Japanese style panko.  You could just grease the tin if you wanted to.
3. Cream the margarine, sugar and vanilla sugar.  Whisk in the eggs, one at a time.
4. Mix the flour and baking powder in a measuring jug.  Sift into the margarine/egg mixture.  Add the orange peel, chocolate and finally the juice.
5. Pour into the baking tin and bake for about 50 minutes in the lower part of the oven.
6. Allow to cool down for a while before turning out on to a cool rack.

Peanut Biscuits/Jordnötskakor

Eja Nilsson is the respected food correspondent of the large Southern Swedish daily Sydsvenskan.  She often travels around our provice, Skåne, looking for recipes.  In May she visited Alunbruket, an idyllic and very old café in Österlen, the Eastern part of Skåne.  Here is one of those recipes, more will follow!

Makes about 30

• 2dl (200ml) salted peanuts
• 200g butter at room temperature
• 1 1/2dl (150ml) granulated sugar
• 1 little egg
• 2dl (200ml) oats
• 2 1/2dl (250ml) plain flour
• 1 teaspoon (5ml) baking powder

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.  Chop the peanuts roughly, not too fine.  Cream the butter and sugar until white and light.  Add the egg.  Mix the rest of the ingredients.
2. Roll out into balls and lay them with plenty of room between them on baking sheets lined with baking paper.  The biscuits spread out, so leave enough room.  Bake them in the middle of the oven for about ten minutes.
3. Allow them to cool properly before storing them in an airtight container.

Nilsson, E. (2008) 'I tre generationer har vi severat kaffe och kakor...och de gamla recepten blir bara populäre!', Matmagasinet, Nr. 6-7 June/July, p.79.

Skåne Pastry à la Ulla/Skånsk vetelängd à la Ulla

This is a made up name for a cake that I combined from several different ideas.  It is basically a Swedish vetebröd dough baked in a Danish style (like a stang in Denmark) which is why I decided to call it Skåne Pastry - my family's province in Sweden, the Southern most: a happy blend of Denmark and Sweden, Swedish now but formerly Danish.  The filling comes from a magazine that I was flicking through, an idea from Iréne Knutsson in Matmagasinet.  The reference at the end is to her recipe.

Makes 4 long pastries

Dough:

• 150g butter
• 5dl (0.5l) milk
• 50g yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1.5dl (150ml) sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons of freshly ground cardamom
• about 1kg strong plain flour

Filling:

• 400g cream cheese (I used a cheap Australian one shaped like a sausage from Hanamasa)
• 8 tablespoons (120ml) granulated sugar
• 4 tablespoons vanilla sugar
• 4 teaspoons cinnamon
• orange marmelade

Glaze:

• 1 egg  yolk
• a touch of milk
• even small touch of water (if wanted: it will make the glaze shine even more!)
• a few grains of salt (will make the glaze work better and will not taste of salt at all!)
• pearl sugar and/or chopped almonds

1. Melt the butter, add the milk and allow to cool to 37°C - so it does not feel hot or cold if you put your clean finger in.
2. If using fresh yeast crumble it into a large bowl, pour over the mixture from 1 and stir until the yeast is completely dissolved.  If using easy-mix/fast action dry yeast mix it into the flour like baking powder.
3. Add the salt, sugar, egg, cardamom and the flour (with possible dried yeast).
4. Mix well - it should contain enough flour so that the dough does not stick to the sides of the mixing bowl.
5. Sprinkle a little flour over the top and cover with a clean tea towel and allow to rise in a draught free place for about 30-40 minutes until it has doubled in size.
6. Knead the dough until it is smooth.  Divide into four parts.
7. Roll out into a thin rectangle.  Place on a baking paper lined baking sheet.
8. Spoon a long thinnish line of the cream cheese filling across the middle, top with marmelade.
9. Turn the top end down towards the middle and the bottom end up towards the middle.  The two turned in ends should not be meet.  There should be a gap of a few centimetres where the filling can clearly be seen.
10. Cover with a tea-towel for the second rising.  Do not let it stand above the oven as it will be too warm underneath and the dough will not rise evenly.
11. Preheat the oven to 200°C - 225°C.
12. Glaze with a mixture of gently beaten egg yolk, milk and a few grains of salt.  Sprinkle pearl sugar and/or chopped almonds over the top.
13. Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown.
14. Allow to cool under a tea towel on a cooling rack - not the baking tray as it will go soggy.

Knutsson, I. 2008, 'Ullas favorit i maj: Söta knyten med marmelad', Matmagasinet, Nr. 5 May, p.5.

Spicy Biscuits/Pepparnötter

This is a recipe fresh from Sweden.  I chose this one while going up in the lift to my flat having just taken the magazine out of the postbox.

Makes about 60

• 175g granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons (30ml) whipping cream
• 100g soft butter
• about 250g plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoons (2.5ml) ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoons (2.5ml) ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoons (2.5ml) ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon of ammonium carbonate/sal volatile (hjorthornssalt in Swedish) or 1/2 teaspoon baking powder (The ammonium carbonate works better and gives a lighter biscuit but baking powder will do.)
• hazelnuts for garnish

1. Cream the sugar and the egg until nice and light.  Add the cream as well as the butter in small clicks and mix in well.  Then sift in all the other ingredients apart from the hazelnuts.
2. Leave to rest for about ten minutes. Preheat the oven to 175°C.  Try baking just a few biscuits rolling them out into balls and placing one nut on each for decoration.  Bake for about 12 minutes.  If they are too loose and flat, try adding a little more flour.
3. Allow the biscuits to cool on a cooling rack before storing in an airtight container.

Jönsson, M. 2008, 'Julens kryddigaste snällkakor',  Matmagasinet, Nr. 12 December, p. 40.

Updated: Saturday, 14th March 2009