Sticky Chocolate Cake (kladdkaka)

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Most Swedes have probably made Sticky Chocolate Cake (kladd kaka) at least once or twice in their lives. If not they’ve eaten it for sure. I don’t know if this sticky chocolate cake is originally from Sweden but its something that’s definitely a Swedish thing to bake and enjoy. The ingredient that really makes this cake, aside from the unsweetened cocoa powder, is the ingredient that isn’t there: baking powder. The idea is that the cake should be chocolate rich, sticky and dead baked (it doesn’t rise)!

Most recipes for Sticky Cake contain the ingredients: egg, sugar, cocoa powder, flour, salt and melted butter. The ratio varies from one baking Swede to another. However the ingredients are simply mixed together with no fuss and baked just enough.

I have enjoyed it filled with mint or licorice, topped with whipped cream and bananas, flavored with Cognac or just plain and wonderful. In my latest version I have switched the flour to milled almonds. I also use the richest unsweetened cacao powder (like Valrhona) and, as I’m married to a Pole, I like to top the cake with Poppy seeds (makiem). The flavoring is plain, with Rum or star anise.

Kladdkaka

2 eggs
250 ml (1 cup) sucanat (or muscovado sugar)
4-6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (of good quality)
one teaspoon salt (less if using salted butter)
200 ml (almost 1 cup) milled almonds
4 oz (a touch more than 100g) butter, melted

alternative flavors (optional)
1-2 star anise (crushed and soaked in 2 tablespoons of vodka for one hour)
about two tablespoons Rum

topping
poppy seeds

Whisk eggs and sucanat together in a bowl. Stir in the milled almonds, cocoa powder and salt. Pour in the butter and stir until smooth.

Add the flavor (optional), either Rum or the star anise infused vodka to the mixture.
Pour the mixture into a greased 9” spring form. Sprinkle some poppy seeds on top.

Bake the cake in the oven at 350 F (150°C) for about 15 minutes. The cake should just be set on top and sticky inside. Let the cake cool off.

This recipe was first published on Honest Cooking, 4 May 2011.

 

Akvavit

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In the old days they used to add different kinds of herbs to vodka. Back then it was often for healing purposes but also as a way, I think, to take out some of the sharp taste in pure spirits. Wormwood was used to cure loss of appetite, both Caraway seeds and Fennel was used to treat digestive problems and St John’s wort was supposed to heal angst and depression.

Whether these cures are true or not my husband and I enjoy flavoring pure vodka with different kinds of herbs and plants. Some of the herbs we find during the summer in the woods (St John’s wort and Bog Myrtle) or in our own garden (black currant, wormwood and coriander). My husband has even engaged one of our friends, who has a backyard garden in Brooklyn, to grow wormwood (for Swedish Bäsk) and sweetgrass (to make Polish Zubrówka).

To make aquavit you don’t really have to go to the woods, you just need three simple spices that you may already have in your pantry: (one table spoon) coriander seeds, (one table spoon) fennel seeds and (one and half tablespoon) whole caraway seeds. Crush them roughly with a mortar and pestle and soak them in 200 ml pure vodka for a day or so. Let it soak longer for a stronger essence or less if you want a lighter taste. Strain and dilute with more vodka to the taste that you like. I recommend using the lightest pure vodka that you can find. For example, outside of Sweden I suggest Swedka or triple-distilled Smirnoff and in Sweden I recommend Renat.

Enjoy Snaps with different kinds of cured herrings, crayfish (Swedish style), caviar and oysters.

This recipe was first published on Honest Cooking, 28 April 2011.

Underground Potato Pancakes

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Just want to announce that I was the winner of the Foodie Underground competition over at Ecosalon last week. It was part of the one year celebration of Anna Brones’s column Foodie Underground. Happy Birthday! This was the winning entry (I’m deeply flattered)!

 

What can be  more foodie underground than making potato pancakes while house squatting in London? The fact is that next door to the Rolling Stones in Chelsea my husband M learned how to make Potato Pancakes. It was during the punk era and M had just been thrown out from home. House squatting was just one way to survive while struggling with his studies at AA.

The recipe is simple: (for two people) Peel two potatoes. Cut them in smaller pieces and mash them in a blender. If the potatoes are to watery you need to squeeze out some of the liquid before adding two small eggs. When the mixture are well blended add some flour and season with salt. Pour about five – six small amounts of batter into a standard frying pan on medium heat. Fry them with some olive oil or butter until they are golden brown, turning once only.

The pancakes can be served with many different things. Back in Chelsea M ate them with just butter and sugar. Today we serve them with a variety of small sides, for example lingonberry jam, freshly grated carrots, sautéed bacon pieces, goat cheese mixed with sour cream and caviar.

A Boy and His Pie (guest post)

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My third guest on Kokblog is Jules Clancy, who lives and works in Sydney and the Snowy Mountains, Australia. Jules is a food scientist, writer, minimalist, photographer and the author of the site thestonesoup.com. I really enjoy Jules’ minimalistic approach to cooking and her concept of 5 ingredient recipes is inspiring! We met on twitter about a year ago. Since then we have kept in contact through emails and tweets.  I also have the honor to make drawings for her web site and her Virtual Cooking School that started in Autumn last year. Last week we finally met for real and went for brunch here in New York City.

A Boy and His Pie
by Jules Clancy

Mention that classic dessert, Lemon Meringue Pie and my thoughts turn instantly to my gorgeous not-so-little brother. For as long as I can remember Dom has been fanatical about his pie, think Homer Simpson and his devotion to beer or doughnuts and you’re not even in the same ballpark as to how much Dom loves LMP.

From when he was little, whenever Mum would give Dom the option of what to have for dessert there was only one answer. I can’t remember him ever having a normal Birthday cake, it was always LMP.

One year, I think it was around his 21st, when Mum asked Dom what he would like as a birthday present he somehow convinced her to make him one pie a day for 21 days.

So she did and not even that sort of over exposure was enough to dampen his love for the pie.

It’s a bit of family legend that Dom was so good at asking for his favourite dessert that he was able to get it out in just one syllable ‘lemeringuepie’. No mean feat for a small boy, try it yourself.

Last year we had a bit of a belated Birthday dinner for my favourite (and only) brother and there was no question when it came to the dessert decision. It was my second attempt a recreating my Mum’s legendary LMP, using the recipe she had lovingly hand written into her little cook book. And while it came nowhere near close to looking like my Mum’s creation, I’m pretty sure for Dom it was better than no pie at all.

Think rich lemony goodness in the filling balanced by light-as-air-sweet sweet meringue and you’re there.

mum’s legendary lemon meringue pie
serves 1 if you’re my brother or approx 6 normal people

I was always impressed that my mum went to the effort of making her own pastry, and one of my strongest memories is of her is how clever I though she was balancing the pie on hone hand while trimming the pastry edges with a knife. The sound of the knife rubbing down the ceramic pie edges still reminds me of her.

I’ve copied this across from my mum’s recipe book and this is exactly as she had it written down. Apologies if it seems a little confusing but it felt wrong trying to re-organise it.

Sift together 1 cup plain flour, pinch salt.
Rub in 2oz (60g) butter until like fine breadcrumbs.
Add 2 tablespoons water and mix well.
Roll dough to fit an 8in pie plate.
Prick base lightly with a fork.
Bake in a moderate oven for 15mins only, cool.

Combine:
1 400g (14oz) can Nestles condensed milk
1/2 cup lemon juicegrated rind of 1 lemon
3 egg yolks
Place in shell
Beat egg whites until stiff. Gradually add in 1/4 cup castor sugar. Beat until dissolved.
Place meringue on top of filling.
Bake in moderate oven 15 minutes, or until golden.

It seems a little sacrilegious to admit it, but I have always thought of the pastry as the weak link in her pie. If you’re looking for the crunch of a more of a classic short crust try my favourite sweet pastry recipe here. And bake blind for about half an hour before filling.


You can follow Jules on twitter, @jules_stonesoup

 

Semi Slow Cooked Lamb Shoulder

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Two of the reason why we bought our cottage on the edge of nowhere was that the house was in range of the Internet and that our neighbor had sheep. Later on we found out that he had just enough lambs each year to feed himself and his two daughters’ families! By that time it was too late as we had started our long renovation of the house. We kind of love the place for other reasons too. However, I can’t help thinking how great it would be if we could get lamb meat that was that ultra-local. My neighbor doesn’t help as he keeps telling me about all the treats he’s been cooking over the winter. For example he makes slow cooked roasts, tasty stews and he salts and dries the leg of lamb (lammfiol). Sigh! Anyway I have to say I like his stories, they are inspiring. So in the end I’m very happy and just up the road from us I can get fresh eggs and chicken. And in my garden I grow flowers and vegetables.

Read the rest of the post and get my Lamb Shoulder recipe at Honest Cooking.