Posts Tagged ‘baking’
Sliced Rye and Almond Pepparkakor
Growing up, we always made a recipe out of the classic Swedish baking book Sju sorters kakor, called Franska pepparkakor, French gingersnaps, for Christmas. Why they were French I am not entirely sure. I have lived in France and never encountered anything similar.
A more apt name is skurna pepparkor, sliced gingersnaps. I like making these because they take much less time than rolling out and cutting traditional pepparkakor but still use the same iconic seasonal spices. This year, I adapted the recipe to be a little less sweet and also be made with 100% rye flour. I like making whole grain cookies, because they are more robust in flavor than baking with traditional all-purpose flour. But you can swap out for all-purpose flour if that’s what you have!
This makes a pretty big batch, so you can also cut it in half if you like.
These cookies are great on their own, but also pair very well with a little blue cheese. And a mug of glögg, of course.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup (5 ounces, 140 grams) almonds, coarsely chopped
- 1 cup (8 ounces, 225 grams) butter, room temperature
- 1/4 cup (1.75 ounces, 50 gram) sugar
- 1/4 cup (60 milliliters) molasses
- 4 teaspoons ground ginger
- 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 4 teaspoons ground nutmeg
- 4 teaspoons cardamom seeds, crushed (or 2-3 teaspoons ground cardamom)
- 2 teaspoons ground cloves
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- Zest of one orange
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 1/2 cups (8.75 ounces, 250 grams) rye flour
Preparation:
Chop the almonds and set them aside.
Cream the butter, sugar and molasses, then mix in the spices and orange zest until well blended.
Mix the baking soda with the flour, then add to the wet ingredients along with the almonds. Work the dough together with your hands until you can form it into two cylinders, each about 12 inches long and wrap in parchment paper or a tea towel. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. (Note: the dough lasts for a few days in the refrigerator so if you don’t get around to baking them right away it’s totally fine.)
Grease a baking tray and cut dough into slices, about 1/4-inch thick. It’s easier if you use a serrated knife.
Place the slices on the tray and bake at 375ºF (180ºC) for 10 to 12 minutes.The cookies don’t spread out very much, so you can put them pretty close to each other.
A Strawberry Cake to Celebrate Swedish Midsummer
Summer solstice marks the longest day of the year, and that’s cause for celebration. This week is one of sunshine stretching into the evening, carpets of wildflowers in the midst of grassy fields, bare feet and picnic blankets.
For me, it marks the celebration of Swedish midsommar, which will be celebrated this Friday. The traditional midsommar spread of food is one of my favorites, featuring some of my favorite dishes like marinated cucumbers, pickled herring (which you can even use in a savory cake), and plenty of knäckebröd.
But my favorite part of midsommar has to be dessert. Strawberry cake is one of the most common desserts on the Swedish midsommar table, and it puts seasonal berries front and center. It’s a simple dessert, topped with plenty of whipped cream and bright red berries.
I like to make the cake with cardamom, and even marinate a few strawberries in honey and cardamom to use as the center filling. The cake is cut in half, so that you can layer it, but if you want to make an even fancier cake, consider making two of them and layering them.
Cupcake Feminism?
I’ve got a whole article devoted to questions of cupcakes, feminism and sexism in the world of food over on The Kitchn this week. Here’s a little excerpt:
I asked my friend Lisa Knisely for her opinion. I was introduced to Lisa when she worked at the magazine Render, and I respect her opinion on these topics, as she’s well-versed on the complexities and nuances. Beyond holding a PhD in Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, she works as a freelance writer and tackles these topics on a daily basis.
“Baking, particularly of the domestic sweet and pie variety (as opposed to the uber-fancy and technical professional pastry chef kind), is a kind of culinary work we particularly associate with a feminized form of care and nurturing in our culture,” says Knisely. “I think a lot of baking businesses employ a kind of gendered marketing and ideology to advance women bakers and it makes sense that they do because many of us have powerful associations of baked goods with love and care from women. And that kind of love and care through food is powerful, awesome, life-sustaining stuff that should be celebrated.”
“But,” she went on, “I don’t see why men shouldn’t be doing about half of this kind of culinary care labor, too. If men were half of the cupcake makers in our culture, either domestically or professionally, that would change the whole field of gender identity and kitchen politics.”
I would agree with Lisa. As a culture, we love to define people and put them in boxes, and that certainly happens with professions. There are many professions which people assume are inherently male; the language that we use is a good reflection of this. For example, why when we read an article about a chef, do we assume that the chef is male? Female chefs are just chefs after all, just like female filmmakers are just filmmakers and female pilots are just pilots.
Read the full article here (I’ll warn you, it’s a long one!).
Recipe: Make Dried Citrus Peel
I’ve been turning all of my leftover orange and clementine peels lately into dried citrus peel. Perfect for baking with, adding to tea, etc. Basically anytime you want citrus zest and don’t have any fresh stuff.
It really is as simple as washing the peels, removing the pith, and drying out in the oven for a couple of hours. Just pop them in at 200°F (95°C) and wait until they are nice and dry. Get the full instructions on Foodie Underground.
Bake a Ginger Spice Cake This Weekend
Johanna Kindvall (my collaborator on the forthcoming book Fika: The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break) and I have a recipe up for a tasty ginger spice cake on Foodie Underground, as well as a little background on Swedish holiday baking.
Plenty of links to recipes in there, which means you now have your official weekend baking to do list! Just in time for Christmas…
Illustration: Johanna Kindvall
Recipe: Flourless Hazelnut and Chocolate Coffee Cookies
Last week I played around with hazelnuts, cocoa powder and coffee. The result was… addictive. The recipe is now over on Sprudge, so hop on over and bake away. Because who doesn’t like cooking with coffee??
Recipe: Gluten-Free Apple and Date Buckwheat Scones
I have been in the midst of wrapping up a cookbook with my friend Johanna (more on that here) so there have been a lot of butter and flour combinations in my kitchen as of late.
While that is all well and good (just like Julia Child, I do happen to believe in butter, as long as it’s real butter), sometimes I just crave making something that has nothing to do with standard baking ingredients. A little olive oil here, a little gluten-free flour there.
There is beauty and creativity born out of restriction, after all.
Recipe: Banana Avocado Bread with Flaxseeds
Sometimes it’s worth going a little over the top with the healthy ingredients. Which is why when I was challenged to revamp a classic family recipe for banana bread I turned to avocado.
And of course it’s best consumed warm and topped with freshly made chocolate hazelnut spread.
Friday Photo: Ingredients
I love the colors in this photo, the contrast of the green of the olive oil and the yellow Meyer Lemon. All part of one the Best. Cakes. Ever.
[click link for recipe… you won’t be sorry, I promise]
blog.annabrones.com 