Category: Recipes

Did you have plans today?  Cancel them, because you are going to need the entire day to make these cardamom buns.  I'm serious.  You might be able to read a New Yorker article while you're waiting for the dough to rise, or maybe catch up on an episode of 30 Rock, but this triple-rise dough -- or the homemade almond paste, or the hand-ground cardamom -- will hold you hostage for the next seven hours.  

Also, be warned that this recipe yielded 72 cupcake-sized buns.  72!  But this is good, because you will not want to make them for a long time once you realize how jobbigt (an adjective meaning much hard work) they are, as the Swedes would say.

But oh gentle marzipan sweetness, sultry slow-burn cardamom and rich, salted butter filling!  The pärlsocker (pearl sugar), looking like little crunchy bits of snow melting on a golden brown pillow!  "They're like chips," said La Doug.  It takes an uncommon amount of willpower to eat just one.

These bullar are sturdy yet seductive, never cloying, like a seasoned belly dancer gently stoking a fire you didn't know you had in you, leaving you wanting more.  With coffee for fika, or toasted in the oven in the morning, nothing brings me back to Sweden like this flavor. 

 

 

This recipe is adapted from the beautiful Vete-katten cookbook.  Vete-katten is the unbelievable konditori that was just down the block from my Stockholm office.  This is the second recipe I tried -- the first, from another book, was not nearly as good. The dough requires THREE rises -- the first rise apparently makes the yeast stronger, and the long second and third rises make for a lighter dough.  Or something like that -- my Swedish isn't that good.  

Swedish Cardamom Buns

 

A few tips:
 
1. Use a scale to measure the dry ingredients.  
2. You must use whole cardamom -- not the pods, but the kind that are little black B.B.'s.  And you must hand grind, preferably with a mortar and pestle, so you get some big bits and some tiny bits -- think cracked black pepper.   
3. The recipe calls for 375 grams each of butter and almond paste for the filling. I only used about 3/4 of the filling I made, so I'm cutting down the amount by a little here.
4.  In Sweden, you can get mandelmassa, or 50/50 almond paste, from any grocery store.  I could only find atrocious looking canned crap at my local shop.  I've included a simple recipe for mandelmassa I found online which worked really well and was probably the easiest part of this very long recipe.
5. I also used Doug's mom's rolling technique instead of Vete-katten's, which I didn't really understand through translation.  The picture above features buns wrapped in the Vete-katten method, which is to take a wide strip and wrap it in a knot around your finger.  I much preferred the swirl to dough ratio of Doug's mom's method, detailed (but not pictured) here.   

Translated from the Swedish and adapted to American measurements and ingredients.  I hope you had a good breakfast this morning because you are going to need some energy. 

For the almond paste:
Adapted from CHOW
1 1/2 cups whole raw almonds (make sure they're fresh)
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
5 Tbsp. light corn syrup

1.  Boil water in a medium pot.  Blanch almonds for one minute.  Rinse under cool water.  Squeeze the skins off.
2.  Pulse in a food processor until it's a coarse meal, 20 seconds.
3.  Add powdered sugar.  Pulse again until sugar is blended in.  Add corn syrup and grind until you get a pretty smooth almond paste, 40 seconds.   Set aside. Makes 1 1/2 cups of almond paste. Are you tired?  I hope not.  There are a gajillion more steps.

For the starter dough:

1 block (50g) fresh yeast (or 1 packet dry yeast)
1 cup (250g) finger-warm whole milk (80 degrees F or 26 degrees C)
3 Tbsp. (50g) sugar
12 1/3 oz. (350g) flour

1.  Dissolve yeast in the milk.  Mix in the sugar and flour and work the dough until it's elastic, about 5 minutes in a mixer or 10 minutes by hand.
2.  Cover the dough and let it rise in a warm place until it has doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

For the second rise:

starter dough above
1 cup (250g) whole milk
Scant 1/2 cup (150g) sugar
Scant 1 cup (200g) room temperature salted butter, cut into pieces
2 tsp. (10g) salt
1 1/2 Tbsp. (20g) whole cardamom, coarsely-ground (mortar & pestle work best for this)
26 1/2 oz. (750g) flour
1 egg

1. Mix the starter dough with the rest of the ingredients for the second rise.  Work the dough until it is elastic again, about 15 minutes by hand or 10 minutes in a mixer.  You know the dough is ready when you can stretch it into a thin film without it breaking.
2.  Cover with plastic wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes.  Watch some TV.  Grab a magazine.  Maybe grind some more cardamom -- you're gonna need it later.

To make the buns:

Dough above
About 1 1/2 cups (340g) almond paste from above
About 1 1/2 cups (340g) room temperature salted butter
1 1/2 Tbsp. whole cardamom, coarsely ground
2 eggs, beaten
Pearl sugar (pärlsocker), available at European markets like Eagle on 5th Ave. and 17th St. in Brooklyn
Foil cupcake liners
Baking sheets

1.  Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C).
2.  Drop a bunch of foil cupcake liners onto your baking sheets, with about an inch of space between each cup.
3.  Blend almond paste, butter and cardamom in food processor into a light and airy filling.  You can grate the almond paste to make it easier to mix up. 
4.  Divide the dough in half.  Working quickly, roll out one half into a rectangle a bit thinner than 1/4 inch (4mm) thick and 12 inches (30cm) wide.
5.  Spread half the filling over the rectangle.  Starting with the long edge, roll the dough into a tight log.
6.  Using a sharp paring knife, slice through the log in 1/4 inch increments but leaving the last 1/4 inch intact.  Every third cut, slice all the way through the log.  It's like you're making a bunch of pieces of dough in the shape of the letter "E". 
7.  Take the middle slice of each "E" and flip it over so you have a "Y" instead. 
8.  Drop the Y, swirly side up, into a foil cupcake liner.  Don't worry if it's a mess, it'll work itself out in THE NEXT RISE.  Yes, there's still another rise.
9.  Repeat with the other half of the dough, still working quickly.
10.  Brush tops of buns with some egg and sprinkle with the pearl sugar.  Cover with plastic wrap.
11.  Let the buns rise AGAIN for about 45 minutes or until they are double the size. 
12.  Bake in the middle of the oven for 5 minutes.  Then reduce the heat to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) and bake for 10 more minutes until they are golden brown.  Do not overcook or you will have dry buns and you will cry because you worked so very hard all day.

Makes 72 little buns.  If you aren't going to serve them right away, as soon as they are cool, freeze immediately in single layers in Ziploc bags.  Then reheat in the oven any time you are sugen för något söt (craving something sweet), as they say.

Oof, even writing that out made me tired.

In case you haven't ascertained on Twitter (or berated me for not calling on Facebook), I'm in L.A. for a visit with the parents.

My Pau's Asian sauce arsenal is unparalleled. Over the years, the collection of bottles has creeped ever closer to the edge of the counter and stove, multiplying and spreading across the tile like an urban colony of salty sauces in tall glass buildings.  For a few years, the condiments were banished out of sight to a cabinet underneath the sink.  Today, they have reclaimed their proper place in arm's reach, right next to the stove, so you never forget what you've got in stock.  The counter display would probably fill other people with anxiety, but its sprawl comforts me.

This morning, I got a note from a reader who asked me:

"Hi,

My jeans are splattered in fish blood from the broken spine of one particularly tenacious perch. I've got purple splotches on the ass of my jeans where I leaned into a blueberry bush.  My foam and leather sneakers have soaked in some of the bilge water from the boat's bottom.  I am like a mixed media canvas painted by Saltvik, where La Doug's uncle Jonas and aunt Carola live.*



Saltvik is a little Swedish coastal village near Hudiksvall, an almost four hour bus ride north of Stockholm.  Along the highway, the wild archipelago opens out occasionally, flashing its waters between the tall, slender birch trees which dominate the landscape.  The branches hang loose and sparse on the trees' pale limbs, like the thinning, stringy hair of an old woman.





Jonas and Carola live in a picture-perfect Svealand summer house, with a carefully tended garden of flowers and berries and potatoes.  It used to be their summer home, but now they live in Saltvik all year round.  There are neighbors around, but at country distances.

Though they have adult children, Jonas and Carola are lighter on their feet than I am.  Carola jumps through the brush and off the boat with the agility of a teenager.  They are fit and healthy in a very Swedish way, from daily activity like long walks through the country in the morning and evening. 



I get to stay in the unbelievable guest house, a fully-contained apartment with four bunk beds lining the back wall.  The kid in me wants to try all four beds to see which one I'll like best.





Carola and I pick buckets of blueberries by the side of the road.  The land is carpeted in blueberry bushes.  Long clusters of unripe lingonberries are still pale green, touched with rose.  Sweden has a law called allemansrätten, or every man's right, which says that anyone can pole fish and pick berries and mushrooms anywhere, including privately-owned land (to a certain degree).   



We take Jonas and Carola's power boat out and cross the sea to one of the many sparsely populated islands in the Swedish archipelago.  The wind is crisp and cold, but it feels good to be out in the ocean.  At the end of the day, as the rain begins to pockmark the water's surface, we pull dozens of aborrar, perch with fluorescent orange fins, light blue vertical stripes and deep maroon gills, up from nets we've dropped into a little rush-lined bay.  The largest of them becomes dinner.  We steam the 8-inch fillets and serve with a garlic cilantro lime sauce.  Its tender white flesh is moist and firm, juicy and mild, though the skin is quite tough and inedible.  The rest of the aborrar get cleaned and frozen for later.





But my favorite consumption of the weekend is Carola's cake!  It's a masterpiece that couldn't be easier to make. It's perfect for those late summer berries I'll hopefully catch when I get back to New York.  A soft meringue shell is topped with a vanilla custard, fresh redcurrants and blueberries.  I could eat the whole thing in one sitting, easily.

I feel like I don't have enough time to write about all of these brand-new experiences.  I want to write more, remember everything, but then I want to spend my time experiencing more so I have more to remember.  Everything is so exotic to me -- the feeling of a fish in my hands, wriggling and gasping for its life, its belly taut, a half-digested herring stuck in its throat; raking my fingers through the wild blueberry ground cover, catching the tiny orbs in my purple-stained palm; trying desperately to follow dinner conversation in Swedish until my head hurts and I lose all sense of the language.

I hope that when I get back to New York, I can be a tourist in my own life -- to accept every invitation, to not be afraid to hang out with strangers, to be open and brave and willing to tire myself out.  That is allemansrätten, too.

Anyway, it's almost 11am!  I've got to get out of the house.  You should get out of the house, too.  There's a lot of world to see out there.

Carola's rödvinbär tårta

The meringue and custard can both be made ahead of time.  Put plastic wrap directly on your cooled custard so you don't get a custard skin.  Assemble just before serving.

For the meringue shell:

4 egg whites
100 grams ground almonds (7/8 cup)**
1 1/2 dl (2/3 cup) sugar

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F).  Whip egg whites hard.  Fold in almonds and sugar.  Draw a 30-cm (12-inch) circle onto a sheet of parchment paper using an overturned plate.  Spread the meringue onto the parchment paper in the circle shape.  Bake in the bottom shelf of the oven for 20-25 minutes until very very light brown and top is no longer glossy.

For the custard:

4 egg yolks
1 dl (scant 1/2 cup) sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla sugar (or vanilla extract)
1 dl (scant 1/2 cup) cream
100 grams (7 tbsp.) butter

Whisk all ingredients except for butter in a small pot.  Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until custard is thick.  Remove from heat and add butter.  Let cool. 

To assemble:

Beaucoup berries
Meringue
Custard

Top cake with cooled custard.  Top custard with beaucoup berries.  Serve immediately.  Carola suggests something tart, like redcurrants, mixed with wild blueberries.  I am sure it would be just as lovely with whatever berries you have on hand, or fresh peaches.  Serves 8 civilized slices, or 4 slices with 4 second servings.
 

*Did I tell you La Doug is half-Swedish?  Isn't that a fantastic coincidence? Makes me feel that much closer to him.

**Almonds are usually ground with a mandelkvarn, or an almond mill, which is like a hand cranked cheese grater with a vice grip so you can clamp it to the side of your table.  I bought one just to make this cake, but I'm sure you could use a coffee grinder if you don't object to loud electronic devices like I do.

Happy Sweden National Day!  Yesterday's National Day only became an official, no-work holiday about three years ago.  My Swedish friends tell me it wasn't a big deal because it's not like Sweden was celebrating escape from tyranny, since they were always the ones ruling over others.

Sweden is a small country, and despite the fact that their IKEAs have taken over our suburbs, they're unaccustomed to celebrating themselves.  Check out this clip of the country's greatest sports moment in recent history, Sweden's bronze medal in the 1994 World Cup:



Happily, Swedes are plenty good at eating and drinking.  My friend Malin invited me over to celebrate National Day over a kick ass Swedish meal at her house, complete with a variety of snaps (including one lovely fläder-flavored one) and a Sweden v. Denmark football match on TV.  We did a shot for every goal scored -- sadly, the Danes prevailed -- not very nice of them. 

The starter was a stunner -- red onion panna cotta with fresh dill and bleak roe toast.  If you've never had bleak roe, you should see if you can hunt some down -- the roe is tiny and orange, mild and not too salty.



I also had my very first plate of meatballs in Sweden!  Can you believe how long I've held out?  I'm glad I waited for homemade ones.  Köttbullar are to Swedish kids as chicken nuggets are to American kids.  Malin's köttbullar are adult-palate friendly, with tons of pepper and dijon mustard.  I think it's important not to make them too big -- Malin's are about the diameter of a nickel, very dainty.  The gravy is made just by adding water to the browning pan -- genius!

I'm translating and converting her recipe for you here (with the help of Google translate, of course). 



Cutie's Spicy Christmas Meatballs

The Allt om Mat staff used to call Malin "Gullemallan", which means "cutie".  The notes say that the milk and breadcrumbs mixed directly into the meat swells, so you get a solid mixture that's easy to roll, but not dense to eat.  At least I think that's what it says.  Serve with mashed potatoes, lingonberry jam*, sliced mushrooms sauteed in butter, and sweet pickled cucumbers (you can also try this recipe in English).  We finished dinner with a Swedish strawberry parfait -- himmelsk, as they say.  I'm sure these will make an appearance at the Swedish dinner party I'll have to have when I get back to Brooklyn.

1 yellow onion
1 tbsp. butter
1 kg (2.2 lbs.) ground beef, 10% fat
1 egg
2 tbsp. dijon mustard
1 tbsp. salt
1 tsp. white pepper
1 tsp. four-pepper blend, crushed fine
2 tbsp. brown sugar
2 tbsp. breadcrumbs
1/2 dl (3 1/3 tbsp.) milk
3 tbsp. butter for frying
2 dl (about a cup) water

1. Mince the onion.  Malin says, "It's very important that the onion is chopped into smithereens! Now I always grate it and then chop it some more. If it's too big pieces the small meatballs will crack." Saute in butter.  Let cool.
2. Mix onion, meat, eggs, mustard, salt, pepper, brown sugar, breadcrumbs and milk.
3. Roll very small meatballs (about the circumference of a nickel).  Wet your hands with some cold water if the meat is sticking to your hands.
4. Melt butter in a frying pan, cast iron or nonstick.  Fry a meatball and taste it.  Fix seasoning as needed.
5. Brown meatballs about 20 at a time on high heat in the butter.  Let them fry until brown on all sides, not too long.  Transfer to a large pot on low heat. 
6. Pour a little water into the frying pan, picking up the fond.  Pour this gravy into the pot with the meatballs.
7. Repeat until all meatballs are browned and all water has become gravy.

*When I first posted, I forgot to include the lingonberry jam.  Malin says, "You must serve the meatballs with lingonberry jam! It is important. :)"

Kladdkaka is not a brownie.



Sure, the ingredients are similar, and the looks are similar, but trust me, they would be in totally different cages at the zoo.

Kladdkaka is a chocolatey, gooey or chewy thing with a crusty top. 

Beyond that, all bets are off.  Some people use flour, some people don't.  Some people use cocoa, some use only bar chocolate.  Some people use a round springform pan, some spread it out in a glass rectangle.  Some serve it with whipped cream, some serve it with ice cream, some serve it with a little sprinkle of powdered sugar.

Best of all, everyone here has their own version.  It's the kind of sweet Swedes seem to always have lying around under a piece of plastic wrap, ready to nosh on. 

"Oh, try a piece of my wife's kladdkaka -- it's the best." 

"Do you want some kladdkaka?  It's a bit dry, maybe have it with a lot of ice cream."

"Oh, I have a recipe.  But it's not a real recipe or anything.  I can write it down for you." 

"Kladdkaka is the one thing I can make that comes out perfect every time."

Kladdkaka recipes vary wildly.  Malin kept her favorite kladdkaka recipe in her purse, a recipe which calls for no flour and a day of refrigeration (!).  My co-worker Sofia knew hers by heart and wrote it up in an e-mail -- a whole recipe with ingredients in about 30 words.  At Kitchen Coup #4 (coming soon), Anja threw one together without measuring anything -- a shake of this, a crumble of that, chop chop chop, poke poke, done!  Anja's, a marvel of crackly top and gooey innards, had a slew of secret ingredients which she wouldn't divulge to the dinner party.

I plan to try a lot of different kladdkaka recipes. We'll start with my variation on Sofia's recipe.  This is not the intense coconut of Mounds or suntan oil.  The silky young coconut gives it a very mild coconut perfume.  Your friends who don't like coconut might even like it.  And if they don't, they can go mooch off someone else's kladdkaka.

If you want to try Sofia's original, classic non-kokos recipe, omit all the coconut stuff, up the sugar to 3 dl and up the butter to 150 grams. 



Kokos Kladdkaka
(which I would call Ko Ko Ko if it didn't have such a terrible meaning in English.)

3 eggs
2.5 dl sugar
125 grams salted butter
25 grams coconut oil*
1 dl flour
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla sugar**
4 tbsp. good quality cocoa
1/2 can young coconut meat*** (don't add the syrup)
Toasted coconut flakes for garnish

1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius.  Grease and flour a 30 x 15 cm glass pan.
2. Melt butter and coconut oil together.  Whip eggs and sugar together.  Mix in butter/coconut oil.
3. Mix flour, vanilla, cocoa together.  Add to dry ingredients to liquid and mix well.
4. Add young coconut meat.  Stir into batter to coat.  Pour batter into greased pan.  Top with coconut flakes. 
5. Bake for 35 minutes.  Let cool completely before serving.

*Available in health food stores.
**I'm not sure how much vanilla extract is equal to vanilla sugar.  My best guess is that 1 part extract = three parts vanilla sugar.
***Available in Asian markets.  Can looks like this.

I remember fawning over my friend Helen's bread the first time she made it for us.  "Everyone in Denmark can make this kind of bread," she said, bewildered at my enthusiasm.

I like that attitude.  Why has bread become this special occasion thing?  I would never buy pre-made rice.  Why should I buy pre-made bread? 

Look, this is not some slender, golden Parisian baguette with slashes and leaves, or a ciabatta with holes big enough to put your fist through.  But it's a sturdy, honest bread, the kind of bread your body would be happy to wake up to.

When I was in Copenhagen, I asked Helen to teach me to make her bread.  No measuring, no kneading, no chopping, and she can make the dough after partying until 8am.  I've seen her do it.  And now I can do it.

Now that I understand how it works, I can make as few or as many buns as I want to at a time.  I can make it in metric countries or in non-metric countries, whether I can read the food labels or not.  The world is mine.



Ingredients: flours, water, yeast, salt, honey/sugar, whatever hippie flourishes you want in the bread.

Equipment: A bowl, a spoon, parchment paper, a rice paddle, a baking sheet, a dish towel, an oven



Take 1/8 of a block of cake yeast.  That's a little bit of yeast.  And drop it into some warm water.  Like a couple of cups.  Add a generous teaspoonish mound of salt and a tablespoonish squirt of honey.  Mix it all up until everything dissolves and the honey smell blooms. 
 


Add nuts, seeds, dried fruit and a glug of oil.  Whatever you got, that's fine.



Add enough spelt flour (or rye flour, or wheat flour, whatever alternative brown flour you can find) until you get the consistency of pancake batter.



Sprinkle in some muesli.



Add enough regular flour so you get a wet bread dough.  It should be kind of elastic and pull away from the sides of the bowl.



Cover with a well-wetted clean dish towel and go to work.  Or go to bed.  Or set it in a warm place and do your laundry.
 


The dough will be twice the size.  Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius.  (That's 375ish Fahrenheit, or 3/4 to the top of the dial on a home oven.)  Use something like a rice paddle to plop bun-shaped mounds onto parchment paper.



Bake until brown and crusty.  I don't know how long this takes.  Use your nose.  When your kitchen smells like bread, take a look at them.  The buns should be brown, and the exterior should be crusty.  



Enjoy with sliced cheese.

I spent the whole weekend cooped up at home, trying to kick a cold I got on Wednesday.  I tried (unsuccessfully) to patch my bicycle tire on Saturday morning, and that was about as much activity as I could handle. 

Luckily, I finally did get around to buying cream of tartar last weekend, the key ingredient in Snickerdoodles.  For years, I've been wanting to make Snickerdoodles, only to be thwarted by the fact that I never have any cream of tartar on hand. 

So what is this mysterious cream of tartar?  Wiki sez:

Potassium bitartrate crystallises in wine casks during the fermentation of grape juice. In wines bottled before they are fully ripe, it can precipitate on the side of the bottle in a sort of crust, thus forming what is called "crusted wine".

This crude form (known as beeswing) is collected and purified to produce the white, odorless, acidic powder used for many culinary and other household purposes.

I don't know who decided to collect the wine scum and cook with it, but the world is a better place for it. 

I love crisp-chewy Snickerdoodles + I love tweaking recipes = Tweakerdoodles.  Bring 'em to your next holiday function.  The pepper, cardamom and ginger add a touch of warmth.

I have to admit that I didn't add any rosewater to this batch because I didn't have any, but I have a feeling that it would tie the whole thing together nicely.  Add at your own risk.  The flavor combination is a riff off some chai I bought from the T Bar in Australia.  You could probably get even closer to the flavor combo there by adding orange zest and slivered almonds. 



Tweakerdoodles
Makes 30 cookies 

2 1/4 cups flour
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 cup plus 4 Tbsp. granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. rosewater (optional)
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cardamom
1/4 tsp. ground pepper
1/4 cup chopped candied ginger

Grease two cookie sheets.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt together and set aside.

Cream butter and 1 cup sugar.  Add two eggs, vanilla extract and optional rosewater; mix well.  Incorporate flour mixture until blended.

Mix 2 Tbsp. sugar with cinnamon, cardamom and pepper in a shallow bowl.  Toss candied ginger in 2 Tbsp. sugar in separate shallow bowl.

Make a 1 1/2 inch ball of dough.  Dip once in sugared ginger bowl, then toss to coat in spice sugar.  Place on greased cookie sheet 2 1/2 inches apart, ginger side up.  Repeat until done.  (If you have leftover dough balls, freeze and save for coming economic dark age.)

 

Bake cookies in oven for 9-12 minutes until edges look crisp and centers look soft but done.  (If you're using two racks in the same oven, switch the top and bottom sheets halfway through baking.)

1. Take your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. 



2. Use dark chocolate chips; add 1 tsp. cinnamon and 1 cup chopped sweet & spicy pecans.



3. Bake a few cookies as directed. 



4.  Prep and freeze the rest of the dough for coming economic dark age; pray that your freezer doesn't bust.

Number of search results in Google news for downer cows: 462