Semmelkladdkaka or Cardamom-Almond Blondie

Semlor is all the rage in Sweden this time of year. Let's do a short recap: It's a yeasted bun, flavored with lots of cardamom, and filled with almond paste and whipped cream. Just what you need during a cold and dark Swedish winter, to be sure. It's what we eat on Shrove Tuesday, rather than pancakes. Semlor are sold in every Swedish pastry shop from January to March, basically. (I refer to this post to see a good picture of what they should look like.)



There's rarely much variation. You see a vanilla creme filled semla here, or a chocolate cream one there, perhaps swapping the bun for a saffron bun, but most people stick to the original. Then this year, Mattias Ljungberg of Tössebageriet hit a home run with the wrap-semla (pictured above). It's a raging success and it's all over social media. It's pretty damn smart - it's the same, but the dough is rolled thinly and baked into a wrap rather than a bun. Much easier to eat on the go and AWESOME. However, not super easy to replicate at home.

Enter the Semla Blondie, or the semmelkladdkaka as it's already known in the Swedish blogosphere. I stumbled upon it via Dagmar, who posted a photo on Instagram.

The same flavors are there - cardamom and almond - and it's definitely very reminiscent of a semla, but with hardly any of the work. Do give this one a try - anyone can do it, and it's delicious. I promise! I started with the recipe found here and played a little with it. My version is slightly less rich, although still plenty full of fat and sugar. Perfect for the winter, like I said.

Semmelkladdkaka or Cardamom-Almond Blondie
10-12 slices

140 g butter, melted

2 eggs

225 g sugar

Pinch of salt

1 tbsp vanilla sugar

1-2 tsp cardamom seeds, freshly ground

120 g flour

100 g almond paste, grated

Start by melting the butter, and let it cool slightly.

Stir together the eggs, sugar, salt, vanilla sugar and cardamom. No need to beat, just stir. Add the flour and the butter, and mix until uniform. Finally add the almond paste and fold together. Pour into a buttered springform pan (about 24 cm in diameter). 

Bake at 175°C at 18-20 minutes. It should still be a little sticky in the middle, but mostly set. Let it cool before serving. Serve with whipped cream. Berries would be nice too, but would take away from the semla-likeness - but go ahead and try!

Chocolate Truffle with nuts and seeds

A fantastic christmas candy - or anytime candy, actually! It's a creamy and rich dark chocolate truffle, studded with all sorts of good-for-you goodies. I use figs and apricot, walnuts, almonds and pumpkin and sesame seeds. You can, obviously, vary this as you see fit. I bet a good variety would include dried sour cherries, blueberries, hazelnuts and coconut.. perhaps with white chocolate instead of dark?

Chocolate Truffle with nuts and seeds
300 g dark chocolate, finely chopped
240 g cream (full fat)
10 g butter
100 g almonds, toasted
100 g walnuts, toasted
60 g pumpkin seeds
50 g dried apricots, cut small
50 g dried figs, cut small
30 g sesame seed

Prepare all the ingredients. Put the chocolate in a fairly large bowl, and prep a 20 cm square tin with some some sort of easy-release paper or silpat. I use a special non-stick foil for this.

Heat the cream and when almost boiling, pour over the chocolate. Stir until melted. Add the butter and all the mix-ins - reserve a little bit of pumpkin and sesame seed.

Stir well, and pour into your prepared tin. Top with reserved seeds, if you want to. Cover with plastic foil and chill until completely firm before cutting. Keep cool.

13 courses for (almost) Twelfth Night 2015

It's that time of year again - we always have a fabulous dinner with our friends at the start of the year. We get together to make a large tasting menu, in total, 13 dishes. This year, we had the dinner a little early.  and we were also a couple short since Dagmar and her husband has recently moved. We hope they'll join us again next year!

We had a lot of ideas for themes but in the end, decided not to have a theme at all. It turned out to be a varied meal, and everything was delicious. Each couple made four dishes, and I added a small snack and a drink, as usual.



Our first course was a drink - Bellini Frutti which was basically sparkling wine with a purée of peaches, pink grapefruit and strawberries - and a caraway-spiced crisp bread topped with Dutch Prima Donna cheese and a fig compote.



Next came a spicy gazpacho with a mint ice cream. Different and very fun!

Erika and Micke made a lovely (but hard to photograph) rösti from sunchokes and potatoes. It was served with crisp bacon, raisins and a caper sauce. I loved it.



My starter was rice crisps - you simply deep fry spring roll wrappers, very fun! - with a mango salsa. I was planning to put lobster on top of this but it smelled a little funky so I didn't dare. It was certainly good on its own! It's also topped with a little bit of soy mayonnaise.



Micke and Erika made what might have been my favorite dish this evening. Arctic char with a beurre blanc and asparagus.



For my main course, I wrapped pork tenderloin in spinach and Parma Ham, and served it with  fantastic cognac-laced mushrooms and a lightly pickled salad.



We also had duck, with a sweet grape sauce and a garlicky potato mash.



The final main course was a classic Beef Wellington from Lena. It was really pretty so I wish I had a better photo of it. The sauce was fantastic!



This dish - deep-fried dumplings -  was so weird I first wondered if it had been included in the cookbook (Dumplings all day wong by Lee Ann Wong) as a joke. The filling has white chocolate, wasabi and pretzels and on its own, it was pretty horrible. But as it turned out, it was really good! The dumplings took a lot of work, since the pretzels are sharp and prone to poke little holes, so I did a lot of patching.



This was so good it should be illegal. Chocolate dipped bacon with toasted almonds. Try this!



Erika and Micke made individual cheesecakes with raspberry coulis, awesome!

My own dessert was a repeat - fried pineapple with caramel sauce, vanilla ice cream and salted peanuts. Yum!



Finally, our very last dish. Limoncello parfait with a raspberry coulis. The perfect to end to our wonderful meal.

Want to look at earlier years?

2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011 - Around the world theme
2012 - Movie and TV theme
2013 - Different main ingredients
2014 - Different flavors

Lamb Burgers with Saffron Bulgur and Sour-sweet tomatoes

This was the first meal of the year to be cooked in my kitchen and wow, what a meal it was. So very flavorful and truly delicious. I really like tomatoes with saffron, and the sweet caramelized onions work so well with the acidity of the sauce. I strongly recommend those two elements together. The lamb burgers were great as well, but you could switch those for some other protein if you'd like.


Lamb burgers: 
500 g lamb mince
3 garlic cloves, minced
zest from 1/2 lemon
1 egg
2 tbsp breadcrumbs
2 tbsp water
salt, pepper, pinch of dried oregano

Mix everything together and shape 12 even-sized balls. Heat some butter and fry - a few at a time. I like to get a little bit of color on one side, then turn them upside down and smash down hard. This makes nice, juicy patties. Then fry as usual, until they reach the right level of doneness (I always, always used a thermometer, but I realize most people probably don't.)

Saffron bulgur
500 ml lightly salted water
300 ml bulgur wheat
0,5 g saffron
1 tsp olive oil

Bring the water to a boil. Add the bulgur and cook for 10-12 minutes. Add the saffron about halfway through. Finish with a little bit of olive oil.

Sour & Sweet Tomatoes
2 shallots, finely sliced
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp sherry vinegar
10-15 cherry tomatoes, halved
salt

Melt the butter and fry the onions on medium heat until soft. Sprinkle with sugar and let the onions color a little bit. Add the sherry vinegar and the tomatoes and let the whole thing reduce for a few minutes. Season with salt.

To serve: thick yogurt, toasted hazelnuts

Peanut Cocoa Candy

This isn't raw food because of the salted peanuts, but it's along those lines. It doesn't have any sweetener and is, as far as candy goes, pretty good for you. And good - very, very good. Do give it a try - it'll take all of five minutes.

Peanut Cocoa Candy

100 ml salted peanuts

20 dates, pitted

3 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tbsp coconut oil

Grind the peanuts in a food processor until finely ground. Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse until you have a grainy mass. Turn it out, and knead it a little bit to help bring it together. Press into a small lined tin or box, and place in the fridge to firm up.