Tag Archives: illustrated recipe

Celebrating with Cardamom Buns

Today (October 4) is the kanelbullens dag (Cinnamon Bun Day) in Sweden. Swedes call these type of buns Vetebullar (wheat buns) which refers to the sweet yeast dough that can be baked plain or filled with different types of fillings such as cinnamon, almond paste, vanilla or cardamom. In my opinion, kardemummabullen (the cardamom bun) is the queen of Vetebullar and I think she (and the others) deserves to be celebrated on this day too.

Another good reason to bake these buns is that just a few days ago my book Fika turned 6 months old. The book is doing really well so I’m extra thrilled having some buns with you today.

To make it even more festive I have added some ground almonds to the cardamom filling. I also topping the buns with cardamom sugar, which made these buns super cardamom rich. If you want to minimize the sugar intake, you can top the buns with slivered almonds.

Happy bun day!

Kardemummabullar (Cardamom Buns)
Adapted from the recipe in the book Fika – The Art of Swedish Coffee Break by Anna Brones and Johanna Kindvall

makes 30 buns

dough
7 tablespoons (3.5 ounces, 99 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
1½ cups (360 milliliters) milk
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
4½ cups (1 3/8 pounds, 638 grams) all-purpose flour
¼ cup (1.75 ounces, 50 grams) natural cane sugar
1½ teaspoons whole cardamom seeds, crushed with mortar & pestle
¼ teaspoon salt

filling
½ cup (2½ ounces, 70 grams) blanched almonds
7 tablespoons (3.5 ounces, 99 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
½ cup (3.5 ounces, 99 grams) natural cane sugar
4 teaspoons whole cardamom seeds, crushed with mortar & pestle

topping
cardamom sugar:
4 1/2 teaspoons sugar mixed with 1 teaspoon cardamom powder.
or slivered almonds
1 egg, beaten

Prepare the dough: Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in the milk. Heat until it’s warm to the touch (about 110°F/43°C). In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast in 3 tablespoons of the butter & milk mixture. Mix and let sit for a few minutes until bubbles form.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, cardamom, and salt. Add the yeast along with the remaining butter & milk. Work together with a dough whisk or with your hands until you can shape the dough into a ball. Transfer dough to your countertop and knead for about 3 – 5 minutes until smooth and elastic. The dough should feel moist. If the dough feels sticky, add a little bit more flour. You can check if you are done kneading by making a slice into the dough with a sharp knife. If you see even small air bubbles throughout, you are done. Shape the dough into a ball and place it in a bowl. Cover with a tea towel and let it rise in a warm and draft-free place until almost double in size, about 1 hour.

Grease a baking sheet or place medium paper liners on the sheet.

For the filling, grind the blanched almonds in a food processor together with the sugar until just slightly coarse. Add the butter in small portions at the time. Lastly, add the crushed cardamom. Mix until an even spreadable paste.


When the dough has finished rising, take half of the dough and place it on a flat surface. Roll it out with a rolling pin to an 11 x 17 inch (28 x 43 cm) rectangle. Spread half of the filling on top of the rolled-out dough so that it covers the whole area (see diagram). Grab one of the edge of one of the long sides, fold it over so it meets the other side (like folding a paper on the middle, see illustrated diagram above). Slice the folded dough into 15 equal stripes. Stretch & twist every stripe and swirl them up to a nice bun (see video). Place each of them on a the greased baking sheet or in a paper liner. Repeat with the second half of the dough. Cover the buns with a clean tea towel and let rise for about 45 – 60 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 435°F (225°C).

When the buns have risen and you are ready to bake the buns, brush every bun with beaten egg and sprinkle each with cardamom sugar .

Bake for 8 – 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and cover with a tea towel to cool. Serve freshly baked or freeze when they are completely cooled.

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related links

 Kanelbullar (Cinnamon Buns) – kokblog recipe

• More bun shapes and a sneak peek into my kitchen over at Pantry Confidential

How to twist Cinnamon Buns by Brontë Aurell, ScandiKitchen café. Video by Ryland Peters & Small

• want more?  Check out –> Fika – The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break. The cookbook is all illustrated by me, Johanna Kindvall and the recipes are created and developed together with Anna Brones. Published by Ten Speed Press. You can get the book here (see more shopping links in the left sidebar).

 

Quick Pickled Cucumber

kindvall-salt-gherkin

In our garden we had an earth cellar that my mother stocked with treats during the outdoor season. The whole family went for weekend walks in the woods to forage for plants, berries and mushrooms. Some of the fruit and vegetables came from our own garden or nearby orchards and neighbor’s vegetable gardens. My mother made strawberry and raspberry jam, cooked apple compote, pickled gherkins and beets. With a steam juicer she made both elderflower cordial and black currant juice. She also made lingonberry jam that is very common as a side for typical Swedish everyday dishes such as meat balls, potato pancakes, kroppkakor and blood pudding. Some Swedes even enjoy this jam with fried herring. My father made different kinds of spirits (blackthorn and figs), that they stored and forgot until it was found (to their happy surprise) several years later.

Some of these wonderful treats I do myself today, but at a much smaller scale as I don’t have the storage or a family of five to feed.

My latest favorite are these quick pickled cucumbers that I created from memory from a restaurant visit to Amsterdam last summer. The original origin is definitely not Dutch or European,  it’s more likely Korean or Japanese.  These pickles can be done just a couple of hours before serving. They are fresh and crunchy and the rice vinegar together with the  sesame oil give them a very pleasant sweet and sour flavor. I love it as a small treat before dinner, just as it is or together with cured fish. Its also excellent as a side for BBQ, stews and sandwiches.

kindvall-pickling

Quick Pickled Cucumber

2- 3 (about 10 ounces, 280 – 300 gram) kirby cucumber
2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoon rice vinegar
2 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil

½ teaspoon chili flakes
1 teaspoon finely grated ginger
black pepper, freshly milled
fresh chopped dill
toasted sesame seeds

Wash the cucumbers and cut them into small bite size pieces.

Place them in a bowl and add the salt. Toss well and let sit for 15-30 minutes.

In the meantime, whisk together rice vinegar, sugar and sesame oil. Whisk or stir until sugar is dissolved. Add the chili flakes, ginger and season with pepper and fresh dill.

Rinse the salted cucumber lightly with fresh water. Squeeze them slightly to remove water and pat them dry with a paper towel. When dry add them to the vinegar mixture. Toss well until all pieces are well coated. Season with more salt if necessary. Let sit for about an hour.

Sprinkle some roasted sesame seeds over before serving.

Please note that these pickles are not meant to be stored for a long time. The pickles should be stored in the refrigerator and I recommend you eat them within a few days.

You can tweak this in many ways. For example you can take out the sesame oil and switch the rice vinegar to distilled white vinegar and use horseradish instead of ginger.

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related recipes

Raw Stirred Cranberries (kokblog recipe)
Orange Cured Carrots by Sofi Meijling
Lemon & Olive Oil Preserved Asparagus by Amy Pennington
Superfast Salt-and-Sugar Pickles by Dave Chang

Red Gooseberry Jam with Thyme

KINDVALL-goosberryjam-02

Every morning my husband walks out and pick handfuls of red & black currants, strawberries, raspberries or red gooseberries. He cooks the berries slightly into a sauce together with cardamon & cinnamon and serves it together with his oatmeal. Unfortunately I’m not a porridge girl so I just simply have it with some Swedish traditional filmjölk.

Gooseberries are one of our favorites. When really deep red and totally soft and ripe they taste a little like grapes. Last week I picked the ones we had left and made some jam.

Red Gooseberry Jam with Thyme

2 cups red gooseberries
a bunch of fresh thyme, cleaned and striped from branches
½ – ¾ cup (100 – 150 grams) natural cane sugar*

Clean the gooseberries and remove the top and tail. Place the gooseberries together with the sugar and thyme in a medium sized pan. Bring to a boil and cook over medium heat until your desired thickness has been reached (between 15 – 30 minutes).

To check the consistency, take a spoonful of jam onto a chilled saucer, leave to cool for a minute or so before run your finger through it. It’s ready if the jam wrinkles up. If not, let it cook for another few minutes before testing again.

When ready, remove the jam from the heat and pour into a clean sterilized jar. Screw on the lid and turn the jar upside down to create a vacuum. Let cool completely.

Store the jam in the refrigerator for up to a month. If you want to store it longer, place the jam in the freezer.

The jam is nice on top of aged cheese and toast.

* I recommend to start with the lower amount and add more sugar if you want a sweeter jam.

Related recipes

Sofi’s Caramelized Rhubarb Jam
Pear Marmalade (and the boy who poisoned a whole scout camp)
Canning How To – Prepping & Sealing Jars – by Amy Pennington
Rosemary Flavored Plum Jam – by Ilva Beretta
Orange Blossom Jam – by Anissa Helou
Cherry compotê – by Rachel Alice Roddy

 

 

Pantry Confidential in my Kitchen

© Johanna Kindvall

A couple of weeks ago I was baking cardamom buns for the wonderful ladies Hana Choi and Christine Han at Pantry Confidential. If you are interested, you can read the interview and get a sneak peek into my kitchen here. The post also includes the Fika book recipe of Vetebullar (base dough for cinnamon and cardamom buns).

Hana has a background in journalism and food with a Grande Diplôme at The French Culinary Institute. In 2011 she started her blog style fare, where she shares beautiful things mixed with recipes and reviews of places she visits in NYC or when traveling. Christine is an anthropologist and photographer, based in NYC. She use photography as a tool to tell people’s stories. And she does that really well. Her specialities are food, weddings and travel.

Together they run Pantry Confidential, were they peek into food lover’s home kitchens around the city of NY.  I really like their concept and I find it really fun to get a look into the kitchens of other food personalities. Here are a few of my favorites: Michael Harlan Turkell, Olga Massov, Yossy Arefi and Kristin Appenbrink.

So when Hana contacted me three years ago and asked if they could come to my kitchen, I was obviously super flattered. But as I was in the middle of packing my kitchen stuff in the East Village, on our move to Brooklyn, I asked to postpone it. Then a year past while I was waiting for building approvals and what else you need to start a major house renovation. We definitely had a “gut” job ahead of us. Our new place was unlivable with plants growing into the kitchen and many other issues I don’t want to talk about.

During this time we rented a friend’s apartment. As the kitchen wasn’t really mine we decided to wait a little bit longer. The following year we finally lived in the house with a barely functional kitchen and a bathroom. But that was pretty much everything that was working. Our first night in the house we didn’t even have proper heating (and that was in February 2013).

The year after when our kitchen was almost ready we decided to take a break from renovating. We were almost ready but hungry to fully work on our own projects. Then Hana gave birth to her daughter Lana so Pantry Confidential took a year off. This year we were all finally ready.

It’s not everyday my food gets this kind of exposure (normally I just take a quick photo to document the process for potential drawing later).  At first I was nervous and worried if the bread would be baked properly or if the cardamom buns looked good enough in front of the camera. But as soon as Hana and Christine entered my home I felt totally relaxed. Both of them are so professional and they made me feel I was just baking with friends. And in the end, I was.

Thanks Hana and Christine! It was a great pleasure to have you in my kitchen. You are welcome back anytime.

© Johanna Kindvall

Follow these lovely ladies on Instagram: Hana,  Christine and Pantry Confidential.

Also check out my recipe for Cinnamon Buns (kanelbullar)

Fika: Cardamom Biscuits

kindvall-biscuit-diagram-5

A couple of years ago I had the honor to have lunch with Russell at London Eats here in Brooklyn. It felt like we had known each other for years. Like me, he is very much into baking. And he does it pretty well. In December he has the wonderful tradition of baking 12 cakes and cookies, which he share on his blog. As Russell lived in Sweden for a while, you can also find some Scandinavian pastries on his site as well.

The other day I baked Cardamom Biscuits based on one of Russell’s recipes. But don’t confuse this kind of biscuit with a typical American biscuit. In UK a biscuit is a sweet or savory small cracker (or cookie) while in US a biscuit is like a small soft scone. In Sweden you call it kex.

The recipe is based on Russell’s recipe for Abernethy biscuits. Instead of using Caraway seeds, which is the tradition for this kind of biscuit, I used cardamom as the flavor. The result was fantastic. It really is a perfect snappy biscuit that works beautifully together with a strong cup of tea, coffee or a glass of milk.

kindvall-biscuits

Cardamom Biscuits
(about  40)

Adapted from  Russell’s (London Eats’) Abernethy biscuits

240 grams (little more than 1 2/3 cup) all purpose flour + extra for dusting
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
85 grams (3 ounces) butter
85 grams (3 ounces, little more than 1/3 cup) caster sugar
2 teaspoons whole cardamom, crushed
one egg
one tablespoon milk

Mix together flour and baking powder in a bowl. With your fingertips rub in the butter until it resembles a coarse meal (a little like breadcrumbs as Russell describes it).  Mix in the sugar and the crushed cardamom.

Beat the egg in a small bowl and add it together with the milk to the flour mixture. Work the dough together with your hands until you can shape it into soft ball.  If the dough feel too sticky or too dry, add more flour or milk.  Wrap the ball in plastic wrap. Let rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC (355ºF). Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper.

On a floured flat surface roll half the dough thinly (less than 1/2 cm thick, about 1/8 inch). Cut out rounds with a small glass. Place them on the prepared cookie sheet and make neat patterns with a wood skewer. Repeat until all dough is all used up.

Bake the biscuits for about 10 – 15 minutes. The should have a nice color. Watch them carefully so they don’t get too dark. You may need to turn the baking sheet once to get an even color.

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also check out my other fika related recipes here.