Summer strawberry cake

Before the thunder and lightning struck on Midsommar, we had a lovely lunch outside. Three different types of herring (very traditional); warm smoked salmon with a horseradish cream; a smörgåstårta or 'sandwich cake' with salmon and crayfish; Swedish strong cheese; dark bread and of course knäckebröd. No potatoes, as you could read in my last post.



And then the pièce de resistance: a strawberry cake, with lots of fresh strawberries and filled with strawberry mousse. I will give you the recipe for this cake now, as the strawberries are still in season and rather cheap.



Strawberry cake (adapted recipe from Dagens Nyheter)

Step 1
Mousse: (can be made 2-3 days in advance)
4,5 sheets of gelatin
200 g strawberries (not more or less)
4 dl cream
0,75 dl sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla sugar

* cover a springform (24 cm in diameter) with plastic foil. It's important that the filling will not leak, so make several layers of foil and press it down gently along the edges
* let 4,5 gelatin sheets soak in cold water
* purée the strawberries with a blender
* put the puréed strawberries in a pan, together with 4 dl cream, 0,75 dl sugar and 2 teaspoons of vanilla sugar
* bring to the boil and then take the pan of the heat
* take the gelatin sheets out of the water and shake excess water off
* put the gelatin sheets in the pan and stir until the sheets have dissolved
* let the mixture cool down for 5 minutes and then pour it into the prepared springform
* let it stand for 30 minutes and then place it in the fridge
* it needs to stiffen up in the fridge for at least 4 hours

Step 2
Cake: (can be made 1 day in advance)
100 g butter
3 eggs
2 dl sugar
180 g flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar
1,5 dl milk
some good strawberry cordial (NL: siroop, S: saft)

* preheat the oven to 175 C
* use a springform the same size as the mousse. Cover the bottom with baking paper and grease the form
* melt 100 g butter
* in a bowl, mix 3 eggs together with 2 dl sugar until fluffy
* while stirring, you can bit by bit add 180 g flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, a pinch of salt, 1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar, 1,5 dl milk and the melted butter
* pour the mixture into the springform and bake for 40-45 minutes
* when the cake has cooled down, take it out of the springform.
* using a sharp bread knife, cut the cake horizontally so you have two cake halves
* sprinkle both halves, on the cut side, with some cordial

Step 3

Take the mousse out of the fridge and, with a steady hand, flip the mousse on top of one half of the cake. Place the other half on top it. Cover the cake with some foil, and put in the fridge. This is best done the day before serving, so that the flavours can be soaked into the cake.

Step 4 - just before serving
2 dl cream
250 g strawberries
icing sugar

* whip the cream, but not too stiff
* clean the strawberries
* using a spatula, spread the whipped cream on all sides of the cake
* place the strawberries on top and dust with some icing sugar



This cake is quite a lot of work, but it tastes heavenly and looks spectacular (or so I think). If you really want to make something special, then let this cake be it. The good thing is that most is done in advance, so you don't need to do much before serving, which is nice when you have guests!

Tunnbrödsrulle - Swedish wrap with real potato salad

On nearly every street corner in Sweden you will find some sort of a 'gatukök' - literally a street kitchen, where you can buy different kinds of snack food. The most common is a grilled hot dog, optionally served with a prawn salad and roasted onions. It is the weirdest combo, but tastes pretty good - especially at 3 AM in the morning when you are so drunk that you can hardly stand on your legs. This of course never happened to me, and if it did - hey, I'm just trying to integrate with Swedish culture.



Anyway, you can also get Swedish wraps. Much healthier and also easy to make at home. The wrap is made of 'tunnbröd', which is a thin and soft bread. The most common tunnbrödsrulle is served with roast beef and potato salad. I love these, and I happened to have some roast beef left over. I made the potato salad myself: much tastier and you spare yourself from a lot of E-numbers.



Potato salad (serves 4)

500 g waxy potatoes (NL: vastkokend), unpeeled
4 big tablespoons low fat sour cream/crème fraiche
1 big tablespoon mayonnaise
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
handful of parsley, chopped
3 tablespoons chopped chives (NL: bieslook)
1 red onion, finely chopped

* cut the potatoes in even sized chunks
* boil them in salted water until just tender when pierced with a knife, around 15-20 minutes
* in the meantime: stir 4 big tablespoons of crème fraiche, 1 big tablespoon of mayonnaise, 1 teaspoon mustard, a handful of chopped parsley, 3 tablespoons of chopped chives and plenty of salt and pepper together
* when the potatoes are ready, discard the water and let the potatoes cool down until you can easily touch them
* remove the skins and cut the potatoes in slices of 1-2 cm
* carefully stir in 1 finely chopped red onion and the crème fraiche mixture
* leave to rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour

This potato salad is also great when you have a barbecue and you can easily make a bigger amount. Don't serve it ice cold - take it out of the fridge a while before serving.

Tunnbrödsrulle

To make the tunnbrödsrulle you simple fill a soft bread (or a tortilla; softened in the microwave) with some roast beef, potato salad and rucola. If you want to do it the 'gatukök' way, skip the rucola and add some roasted onions, ketchup and mustard. Roll it up and eat!

Spicy muffins

After eating lunch, I didn't feel quite ready to face the computer and books again and I really felt like eating something 'lekker' (tasty/delicious). Desperately rummaging through my cupboards and fridge, I ended up with flour, sugar, one egg, a little bit of butter and some cream. Hmmm...
Flipping trough an old cookbook I came across this recipe for cardamom muffins. Yippee, it fitted exactly with what ingredients I had on hand.



Cardamom is a favourite spice here in Sweden: the famous kanelbullar have some cardamom in it, so do 'semlor' and you even have cardamom cakes and buns.
But cardamom is not every one's favourite. A visiting friend thought they had put black pepper in her cake! She refused to eat it.
I agree that too much cardamom is no good, so I took a little less cardamom than the original recipe requires, and replaced it with some cinnamon.

Cardamom muffins (cupcake size)
(12 pieces)

50 g melted butter (original recipe requires margarine, but I think that's all wrong)
paper cups + little butter for greasing
1 egg
130 g sugar
120 g flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 dl cream (NL: slagroom, S: vispgrädde)

* grease the bottom of the paper cups lightly
* preheat the oven to 170 C
* melt the butter: put it in the microwave on 450 watt for 1,5-2 minutes
* mix 1 egg with 1,5 dl sugar until it's white and foamy with a whisk (NL: garde)
* add half of the flour (60 g) and stir it in with a wooden spoon
* add 1 dl cream, stir
* add rest of the flour (60 g) with 1/2 teaspoon cardamon and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, stir
(don't stir too much: with muffins it is better to leave some lumps in the batter, even if it seems strange)
* add 50 g melted butter, that has cooled down a little bit and stir shortly, just so it's mixed
* put one big tablespoon of batter (NL: beslag, S: smet) in each paper cup, dividing it equally. it's best if the cups don't become too full
* place in the oven for 15 minutes

I think these fluffy cakes or muffins are really nice. A little bit spicy and not too heavy. Happy that I found the recipe in Mildas bästa recept from 1976!

EDIT: keep your muffins in a airtight container (NL: koekjestrommel, wat een leuk woord) and two days later they still taste great! The texture becomes a bit more dense, which is also quite nice.

Kanelbullar - Swedish cinnamon buns

Last week I made some typical Swedish buns: kanelbullar. They turned out so nicely that I decided to take a picture of them. That turned out to be a nice picture (or at least not awful) and actually that's when I decided to join in and start a blog. Why not?

The recipe is from a bag of flour from Willy's, a supermarket here in Sweden. Try it!



Kanelbullar (18-25 pieces)

7 g bag of dried yeast
125 g butter (of which 50 g on roomtemperature)
2,5 dl milk
salt
1 dl sugar
1 small teaspoon ground cardamom
7 dl plain flour
1 large teaspoon cinnamon
paper baking cups
1 egg

step 1
* take the butter out of the fridge, and put 75 g of it in a saucepan
* melt the butter (don't let it get brown) and add 2,5 dl milk
* warm it up to bodytemperature
* put the yeast in a big bowl and add a bit of the milkmixture
* stir and then add the rest of the mixture
* add a pinch of salt, 0,5 dl sugar and 1 teaspoon ground cardemom and stir again
* add 7 dl flour in stages; stir in between
* when you can't stir anymore, start kneading until it becomes a supple dough
* put a kitchen towel over the bowl, put the bowl somewhere warm and let it rise for 30 minutes

step 2
make the filling by stirring together 50 g butter (roomtemperature) with 0,5 dl sugar and 1 teaspoon cinnamon

step 3
* sprinkle a little flour on you worksurface and on a rolling pin
* roll out the dough to a rectangle of 20 x 50 cm
* spread the filling out on the dough and roll the dough up (start with the long side)
* cut this into slices of 1,5 cm
* place these in the baking cups and put them on a baking tray
* cover with a kitchen towel and let it rise again for 30 minutes
* preheat your oven to 225 C

step 4
* whisk 1 egg and coat the buns (use a brush if you have one, or your fingers)
* sprinkle some pearl sugar on top
* place in the oven for 10-15 min until goldenbrown and firm
* place them on a rack to cool down

These kanelbullar are best eaten fresh. If you don't eat them all in one day, put some in a bag in the freezer. When you get the munchies, put one in the microwave for 30-60 seconds and let it stand for 30 seconds. Yummie!

* the recipe requires 25 g of fresh yeast, but dried worked fine for me