Nutty Cookies with Hazelnuts and Almonds

Hi everyone!
This cookie is one of my childhood baking things I want to remember. My grandmother on my mother's side baked these cookies, or a cookie close to this cookie, and I imagine it was one of her favourites because they are very easy to bake and also very delicious. And that is also my favourite combination ;) If it was exactly this recipe I don't know but I think they taste like my grandmother's cookies.

Nutty Cookies with hazelnuts and almonds (40 cookies)
100 grams of hazelnuts without the shell
100 grams of almonds
2 deciliter sugar
1 tablespoon potato flour
2 eggs

Garnish
Hazelnuts
100 grams of baking chocolate

How to...
1. Put the oven to 200 Celsius (175 Celsius for convection oven)
2. Grind the nuts in a almond grinder and put them in bowl.
3. Add sugar, potato flour and eggs to the bowl and stirr it all together until you get a firm batter.
4. Use your fingers to portion out small balls on baking plates (use baking paper or grease the pan!)
5. Push one hazelnut in the middle of each ball, if the almonds are very big you can divide them in two.

6. Bake in the middle of the oven for about 8 minutes.

7. The cookies are easily getting stuck on the paper so remove them from the paper before they cool.

8. Tempering 50 grams of baking chocolate over water bath (melt and heat to 45 Celsius, add the rest of the chocolate and let it cool to 25 Celsius, then heat it to 30 Celsius - done!)

9. Dip the bottom of the cookies into the chocolate and lay them with the up side down to solidify.

Happy baking everyone! :)
 

Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Icing and Coconut

This cake is very common on the Swedish "fika" table when we drink coffee or tea while we sometimes eat pastries or just a little biscuit. This cake is usually baked in a large oven pan with high edges (about 3-5 centimeters) and that is mentioned in the recipe below, but this time I tried using an ordinary baking pan with removable rim (diameter approximately 24 cm), which works equally great.

I admit that I am not a fan of coconut (not the texture nor the taste), however, this cake is the only cake with coconut that actually works fine with me :)

Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Icing and Coconut
150 grams of butter or margarine
2 eggs
3 deciliter sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa
4 1/2 deciliter flour (wheat)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 deciliter milk

Icing
75 grams of butter or margarine
1-2 tablespoons cold coffee
1 tablespoon cocoa
2 teaspoons vanilla sugar
3 1/2 dl icing sugar

Garnish
Coconut flakes

How to...
1. Put the oven for 175 degrees Celsius.
2. Melt the butter and let it cool down. 
3. Whisk the eggs and the sugar until it becomes a white and fluffy texure.
4. Mix the flour, vanilla sugar, baking powder and cocoa and add this mixture alternately with the melted butter into the egg mixture. 
5. Pour the batter into a greased oven pan (about 30*40 centimeters) covered in bread crumbles.
6. Bake in the lower part of the oven for about 15 minutes.
7. Let the cake cool.
8. Melt the butter for the icing into a sauce pan and then add the rest av the ingredients into the sauce pan while stirring.
9. Spread the icing on top of the cake and spread the coconut flakes over. Work fast because it will harden quite fast. 
10. Cut the cake in squares.

Raspberry and Blueberry Muffins

On a grey Monday afternoon a batch of lovely berry myffins can make the sun shine! 
I found this recipe in the golden "Swedish cakes and Cookies", a Swedish classic baking book. If you would like to buy this book you can find the swedish edition here and the english edition here!

Happy baking!

12 Raspberry and Blueberry Muffins
100 grams of margarine or butter
1 1/2 dl sugar
4 eggs
5 deciliter flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar powder
1 deciliter milk
1,5 deciliter frozen berries, I chose raspberry- and blueberry mix

How to...
1. Put the oven to 175 Celcius.
2. Stirr the room temperatured margarine with the sugar until you get a white and homogeneous mixture. 
3. Add one egg at the time and stirr carefully. 
4. Mix bakingpowder, vanilla sugar powder and flour in a bowl.
5. Alternate between adding flour mixture and milk to the margarin/sugar/egg mixture little by little while stirring carefully until you have the final smooth batter.
6. Distribute the batter into the paper baking cups.
7. Use your fingers or a spoon to poke down the berries deep into each cup with batter. Make sure to spread the berries.
8. Bake in the middle of the oven for 15-20 minutes.

Tosca Cake

One of my grandmother's classic recipes was the tosca cake, a soft spunge cake with a layer of caramelized almonds on top. I remember as a child I found the topping was the goodiest thing so I ate that first :)
I haven't baked this cake before, and I haven't eaten one since my grandmother made it maybe ten years ago, so I experienced a flashback when I took a bite of this :) A good flashback! The almond topping is the best! Try it, you won't be disappointed :)

Tosca Cake
100 grams or magarine or butter
2 eggs
1 1/2 dl sugar
2 dm flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 deciliter milk

Topping
100 grams of margarine or butter
1 deciliter sugar
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons milk
100 grams chopped sweet almonds (peeled or unpeeled)

1. Put oven to 175 Celsius.
2. Grease and bread a round cake tin with removable rim, aproximately 24 cm in diameter.
3. Melt the margarine/butter and let it cool for a while.
3. Whisk sugar and eggs until the mix is light and fluffy.
4. Add the flour mixed with baking powder, the melted margarine/butter and the milk until you get a smooth fluffy batter.
5. Pour the batter into the cake tin and let the cake bake in the lower part of the oven for about 20 minutes.
6. While the cake is in the oven you can start preparing the topping.
7. Mix all the ingredients into a saucepan and let it warm slowly while you stire carefully.
8. When the mixture has started to thicken it is ready.
9. Spread the topping on the cake.
10. Let the cake bake approximately 15 minutes more in the middle of the oven until the color is nice on the topping.

Pizza Buns

Sometimes you just need something good for lunch, or for the picnic or just a snack that is more than just a sandwich. A great candidate for that mission is the pizza bun. It is simple to bake them and they are both delicious and fills the stomach good. Today I paired these lovely buns with a bowl of fresh water melon, pear and milk - a very tasty combination!
These buns are fast to bake and you don't even have to let them raise anytime before sending them into the oven. Perfect for those of you who think you may not have the time to bake.
I baked these with dryed yeast and therefore I used 40 degrees Celcius water in my recipe. If you use fresh yeast you should use maximum 37 degrees Celcius water.

Pizza Buns (~24 pieces)
Dough
50 grams of dryed yeast
2 1/2 deciliter 40 degrees Celcius water
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons oil
420 grams of flour

Filling (here you can choose your favourite ingredients)
400 grams of crusched tomatoes
1 decilter chili sauce
1 tablespoon dryed oregano
400 grams of sliced ham
400 grams canned muschrooms
400 grams grated cheese

1. Put the oven to 250 Celcius.
2. Mix water, oil and salt into a bowl.
3. Mix the flour with the yeast and add the flour little by little to the water mixture.
4. Knead the dough for five minutes until it is smooth and easy to work with. If it is sticky, add flour carefully, you do not want the dough to get too much flour.
5. Roll out the dough to a rectangle, approximately 40 cm wide and 30 cm high.
6. Mix the crushed tomatoes with the chili sauce and spread all over the dough rectangle.
7. Add ham, muschrooms, oregano and cheese on top of the tomato mixture.
8. Finally, start rolling from the 40 cm side to the other 40 cm side until you get a nice big roll.
9. Slice the roll into 2 cm thick pieces and put them with the sliced side up into paper cups.
10. Bake in the middle of the oven for about 8-10 minutes.

Marbled Cake / Tiger Cake

Grrrr! Hello friends, this week I will show you a recipe for marbled cake, or as I have always called it, Tiger cake :) This classic cake is basically 1/3 chocolate batter and 2/3 vanilla flavoured batter, but you could of course use two other flavours if you want, I guess the variations can be unlimited :)

Marbled Cake / Tiger Cake Recipe
200 grams of butter or margarine
2 1/2 deciliter sugar
3 eggs
4 deciliter flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 deciliter milk

Flavours:
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 tablespon vanilla sugar (or 1/2-1 lemon zest)

Put oven to 175 Celsius.
Grease and bread a baking pan size about 1 1/2 liter.
Stirr the margarine and the sugar white and smooth and add one egg at the time while continuing stirring.
Mix flour and baking powder and add to the egg mixture along with the milk little by little to avoid lumbs.
Put 1/3 of the batter in a bowl and add the cocoa.
Flavour the rest of the batter with vanilla suger or lemon zest.
Pour half of the vanilla batter into the baking pan, and then pour the coca batter on top. Finally add the last of the vanilla batter on top of the cocoa batter.
Use a fork and draw it around through all the layers a few times so the layers mix into each other.
Bake in the lower part of the oven for about one hour.

Have a great week folks!

Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

What would be better than celebrating Saturday with baking carrot cupcakes?! Well, I didn't have a good answer to that question so I stepped into my kitchen with happy feet and started making some :)

Beacause I personally think that frosting that contains only icing sugar and butter is a bit too sweet for my taste, I wanted to try this frosting because I have heard cream cheese frosting is not as sweet. However, I found that this frosting also is a way too sweet for my taste so for future cupcake baking I will spread my wings and do some serious digging on the Internet to find a frosting that is very fresh, creamy and not so sweet. 

This recipe is originally from Leilas homepage but I will also give it in English here in this post - YAY!

 Carrot Cupcakes

3 eggs
270 grams of sugar
180 grams of flour
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 pinch of salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
2 teaspoons ground ginger
150 ml sunflower oil
450 grams grated carrots

Cream Cheese Frosting

65 grams of soft butter

300 grams of icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
100 grams of cream cheese 

1. Put the oven to 175 Celsius.
2. Beat the eggs and the sugar until pale and fluffy.
3. Mix the dry ingredients and turn into the egg mixture.
4. Stirr in the oil and carrots.
5. Put paper cases on a tin and pour in the mixture until the cases are two-thirds full.
6. Bake in the centre of the oven for 12–15 minutes. Leave to cool.
7. Make the frosting by mixing together the ingredients until creamy.
8. Spread the frosting on top of the cupcakes.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Blueberry Cream Cheese Frosting

When my husband and I had our birthday party my mother in law gave us a new kitchen machine - a cupcake maker! I didn't even knew they existed! My first thought was that this machine was one of all new inventions that would be great for two tries and then one would discover that the result gets better in the oven. Well, I was wrong, the result is very good! I will definately use it many times in the future :) The concept of this machine is to be able to make cupcakes easy and fast without oven and without all the oven plates and baking cups in paper or silicone. Well I used silicon cups anyway :)

The cupcake maker we got was bought at the store Clas Ohlson, a large retail chain in Sweden. The store has a English homepage and a Swedish homepage. The cupcake maker you find with the English link doesn't look exactly the same like mine but I am sure it is basically the same machine.

I started from a recipe from a little book called "Cupcakes" by Corinne Jausserand (but I made a few changes on the way). Together with this little book you also get 16 small silicone cups that you can use again and again. I use them when I bake and they fit very well in the cupcake maker :)

Vanilla Cupcakes with Blueberry Cream Cheese Frosting

Vanilla Cupcakes
1 3/4 deciliter flour
1 milliliter salt
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate
1 deciliter sugar
100 grams room temperatured butter
2 teaspoons vanilla sugar
2 eggs

Put the oven on 175 Celsius (I turn on the cupcake maker and wait until the green indicator lamp light on the top goes out)
Mix flour, salt and bicarbonate into bowl number 1 and set it aside for now.
Put the sugar into bowl number 2 and add the butter in pieces.
Add the vanilla sugar into bowl number 2 and whip the butter, sugar and vanilla sugar with a electric mixer.
Crack the first egg into bowl number 2, whip, add the second egg and whip again until the it is all homogeneous.
Use a fine mech strainer to get the flourmix from bowl 1 very fine and add the flourmix to bowl number 2 while you are whipping with the electric mixer.
Whip the mixture in about 2-3 minutes until it is very smooth and fluffy.
Fill the cupcake silicone cups with the mixture using a spoon. Fill upp about 2/3 of the cups.
In an ordinary oven you let the cupcakes bake for about 15-20 minutes (depending on the size of the cupcakes), however if you use a cupcake maker like me the time is about 10 -11 minutes.
When the cupcakes are ready you let them rest and cool on a plate.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Frosting
100 grams of Cream Cheese (Philadelphia is one option)
1 deciliter icing sugar
2 tablespoons of blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Mix the blueberries and the sugar in a saucepan. Let the mixture simmer and crush the berries with a spoon. Let the mixture cool.
Stirr the cream cheese with a fork to get it smooth. 
Use a fine mesh strainer to get the icing sugar very fine and add it to the cream cheese. Stirr well.
Add the cooled blueberry mixture little by little into the cream cheese/icing sugar mix to get a 
Spread the frosting on your cupcakes with a knife or pipe it out as a swirl (but remember to have a big opening so the blueberry pieces in the frosting don't get stuck).

Semlor

So, my dear friends, it is time for the special day, Fettisdagen (Shrove Tuesday), tomorrow and of course I want to give you my recipe of these lovely pastries we eat like crazy here in Sweden this time of year: Cardamom wheat buns filled with almond paste and whipped cream!
The recipe for the buns is very easy, it takes quite some time to let the buns raise but they will be worth the wait! The filling is quickly managed, especially if you use ready almond paste from the store like I did. However, if you don't have the possibility to buy almond paste, I will give you a recipe for it in this post too.

Cardamom buns filled with whipped cream and almond paste

Buns
640 grams flour
112 grams sugar
112 grams room temperatured butter
15 grams powdered cardamom
3 grams salt
280 grams milk
1/2 egg
25 grams fresh yeast

Filling
Whipped cream 
Almond paste 

Almond Paste
This recipe gives 100 grams almond paste
75 grams of almonds
2 bitter almonds
3 deciliter icing sugar
1,5 tablespoon water

1. Boild the almonds and the bitter almonds in water a minute until the shells will begin to loosen.Rinse the almonds with cold water and remove the shells.
2. Dry the almonds.
3. Mix the almonds together with sugar in a food processor until you get a flour.
4. Add water and mix until it gets a smooth texture.


Garnish
Sieved icing sugar

1. Put all the ingredients in room temperature for a couple of hours before baking.
2. Use a baking machine and just put all the ingredients into the bowl without heating or sifting and led the machine work the dough for about 20 minutes on low speed. 
3. When the dough is ready you will be able to take a piece of dough between your hands and make a thin membrane that will not crack. If you are kneading my hand you will have to knead for about 40 minutes.
4. Without letting the dough raise you make buns (60 grams each) of it and put them on a baking tray. Make sure you give them space so they will not raise into eachother.
5. Boil water and put the pan with the water in the bottom of your cold oven. Put the trays with the buns. The water will evaporate and it will me warm and moist into the oven while the buns raise. Let the buns raise to double size, it took about 90 minutes for me.
6. Get the trays out of the oven and put the oven to 200 Celcius.
7. When the oven is heated, bake the buns for about 5 minutes until the buns have a nice golden color.
8. Let the buns cool on a grid.
9. Whip the cream until the texture is good enough to pipe it.
10. Mix the ready made almond paste with a spoon of water and use a fork to make the texture smooth.
11. Cut off the top of the buns so you get a little hat.
12. Put the almond paste on the cut surface and this is a matter of taste how much you want to put on.
13. Now it is time to pipe the cream on top of the almond paste. Try to cover on the sides som the almond paste doesn't show.
14. Put the little hat on top and sift powdered sugar over.

Valentines Day Cinnamon Heart Buns

Next Saturday, the 14th of February, is the day you either hate or love - Valentine's Day. Regardless what kind you are, these buns I show you today will be the answer to a happy day in both cases. Even if we may be heartbroken, happily married or not interested in romance at the moment we all can find a reason to enjoy a coffee break (well, I prefer ice cold milk any day!) with cinnamon hearts.
I have always been quite disappointed in ordinary cinnamon buns because they are heavenly to eat freshly baked but gets dry and boring after a day or two. The main reason is that the filling I use to make is containing just sugar, cinnamon and a little bit of butter just prinkled on the dough before rolling it together. This time I made a new twist mixing butter, sugar, cinnamon AND almond paste! The result is mindblowing for me, the filling is sticky and delicious even after several days. I can assure you I will never go back to my old ways again!

Happy Valentine's Day people!

Cinnamon Heart Buns (approximately 15 buns)
600 grams flour
3 deciliter milk (room temperatured)
75 grams butter (room temperatured
1,5 deciliter sugar
25 grams fresh yeast (for sweet dough)
1 teaspoon cardamom

Filling
100 grams butter (room temperatured)
1 deciliter sugar
1,5 deciliter grated almond paste
2 tablespoons cinnamon

Decoration
1 egg
granulated sugar

1. Dissolve the yeast in the milk and then add sugar and cardamom.
2. Add 300 grams of flour little by little while stirring with a ladle or use a baking machine. If you use machine let it work for about 15 minutes.
3. Let the dough rise for about 30 minutes.
4. Keep on using the machine or and start working the dough while adding the rest of the flour and the butter in small pieces. You can also knead by hand if you feel more comfortable with that.
5. When the dough is nice and even without being sticky, let it rise for about 30 minutes.
6. Roll out the dough to a rectangle shape approximately 40*30 centimeter (40 cm horizontal) and about 0,5 cm thick.
7. Mix the room temperatured ingredients for the filling in a bowl and then spread it evenly all over the rectangel all the way out to the edges. 
8. Start rolling the two 40 cm edges into the middle of the rectangle and make sure the rolls are getting the same size when they meet.
9. Use a sharp knife to make 2 cm slices and lay the buns on a baking tray covered with baking paper. To get the heart shape you need to use the handle of a spoon sticking it right between the two rolls and drag the middle part down so you get the sharp lower edge of the heart. You can also use your thumb and forefinger to squeeze the rolls together a bit. Let the buns raise for about an hour under towel.
10. Put the oven on 225 Celcius.
11. Beat the egg and brush it on top and around all edges of the buns, sparkle the granulated sugar on top.
12. Bake in the middle of the oven for about 8-10 minutes until they get a nice golden brown color.

Apple and Cinnamon Muffin

This weekend I have had a terrible cold and while my nose was running and my head was hurting I wanted to make something easy and really tasty to bury my troubles in and I came up with the perfect treat - apple and cinnamon muffin!
I bought the lovely baking cups in a Swedish interior design shop called Lagerhaus, click here to see their offers on baking accessories!

Apple and Cinnamon Muffin
100 grams margarine or butter
1 1/2 dl sugar
4 eggs
5 deciliter flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla powder
1 deciliter milk
2 peeled apples in small pieces
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons sugar

Put your oven to 200 Celcius.
Work margarine and sugar together well in a bowl.
Add one egg at the time while you stirring vigorously.
Mix flour, vanilla powder and baking powder.
Pour the mixture into the egg/margarine/sugar batter and then add milk little by little.
Make sure to stirr until the batter is homogeneous and without lumps.
Use two tablespoons to distribute the mix into paper cups.
Poke down the apple pieces into the batter and sprinkle a mixture of sugar and cinnamon on top.
Bake in the middle of the oven for 15 minues.

Double Caramel Cookies

Happy 4th Advent! Today we light the fourth candle and counting down to the big holiday!
Christmas means good things to me and one good thing I really craving for during this time of year is caramel cookies. I remember this type of cookie from my grandmother on my fathers side who baked them around Christmas. Unfortunately I can't find the original recipe that she used but I made the conclusion that she probably used a shortcrust pastry and a classic caramel cream. So I took a chance and I think I nailed it! I almost always search in my "Sju sorters kakor" recipe book to (translated "Seven cakes and cookies" - a classic Swedish home baking book). Here you can find the Swedish version at Adlibris online book store. I also found on Adlibris homepage the English version Here
I used the shortcrust pastry ingredients from "Chess-cookies" from an earlier post :)

 

Double Caramel Cookies (approximately 70 cookies)

Shortcrust pastry
1 deciliter sugar
200 grams butter/margarine
4 1/2 - 5 deciliter flour
2 teaspoon vanilla powder

Caramel cream
2 1/2 deciliter cream
1 deciliter sugar
1/2 deciliter syrup
50 grams butter/magarine
1 teaspoon cocoa

Put the oven to 175 Celcius if you have a convection oven and 200 Celcius if you use an ordinary oven.
Mix all the ingredients for the shortcrust pastry and work fast with your hands and fingers to make a pastry that hold together but is not sticky.
Divide the pastry into four parts and roll each part into a roll with a diameter of 2 cm.
Lay the rolls on a plate and let them get cool in the refrigerator while you prepare the oven plates and cover them with baking paper.
Cut each roll in about 0,8 cm slices and lay them on the baking paper. The cookies will not flow out so much when you bake them so you can position them with a 2 cm distance. 
Bake the cookies in the middle of the oven for about 8 minutes, but since all ovens are different the time can differ but I would say that you should not wait longer than 10 minutes.

Now to the caramel cream. Mix all the ingredients in a heavy saucepan (strain the cocoa in a sieve to avoid lumps) and let the mixture reach the boiling temperature.
Lower the temperature and let the mixture simmer for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Do the "caramel-test" by let a drop of caramel fall into a glass of cold water - if the caramel drop gets hard and doesn't dissolve in the water the caramel is ready.

Let the caramel cool down and then use a snall spoon to spread little caramel on the downside of a cookie. Then put an other cookie on top and push the cookies together so the caramel squeezes out to the sides. 

Tip: When the cookies are cooled down and ready, restore them in the fridge. When it is time to serve, just put them out in room temperature for 10-15 minutes and they are ready to eat.


Happy baking!