Norwegian waffles are popular in our house all year long! Use your fave recipe, poured about a fourth of a cup at a time into either our Belgian waffle iron or the four-heart Norwegian style waffle iron, cook about 3-4 minutes. Serve hot, with either syltetøy and smør (jam and butter) or fresh whipped cream, or just with butter as I like. The kids like syltetøy and smør!
In winter, we also have hot cocoa or hot gløgg. You can buy packets of gløgg and add hot water to it, or easily make it yourself at home with spices and hot apple/cranberry juice. The spices I usually use are a combination of whole and ground spices: cinnamon, cardamom, star anise, all spice, cloves, nutmeg, the slightest dash of black pepper, and sometimes a touch of sugar. Most gløgg is imho sickly sweet so only good if served piping hot when that sweet. I prefer mine to be no sugar or barely sugar, as I think the fruit juice is sweet enough. YC of course:)
grrr my photos have melded together into one. Will have to post the lussekatter recipe on another post! The two other photos are easy petit fours. Just make any cake, layer with what you like, frost with some apricot jam then top with thinly rolled out marzipan. Chill a few hours in the fridge, then cut to shape. It won´t look perfect, as when you make them properly individually, but then it also won´t take you half the day!,) They will however, most importantly, still taste as good!:) yum! nom nom. These I made last summer for a birthday. They´re topped with local homegrown raspberries, cloudberries and red currant berries ripe that week.
Melding photos again. Martha Stewart pate brisee for the pie crust, chilled in fridge, turned into the pie pans and chilled again while making the lemon meringue filling and whipping the egg whites for the meringue topping...
Finished. It is not undercooked, I just don´t like my crust double cooked, so I don´t prebake my crust for certain pies, such as lem-mer or pumpkin! That way the pie can be easily frozen, then rebaked without ruining the crust making it burnt or overcooked.
Beginnings of my Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny cake, which is a fun springtime cake to make with marzipan figures. It´s a good way to use up the left over marzipan,) uh huh!:) yep...Start with any cake. I made a simple vanilla bean butter cake. Two cakes, cut into two, equals 4 thin layers. Or bake four thin layers, but I don´t have time usually for that. Cool cakes, THEN cut.
Make any frosting of your choice, and pick a jam. I used fig preserves, and made a cappuccino chocolate cooked French buttercream frosting...
Spread each layer with the jam, then frost...adding a layer at a time, It´s no problem to worry about crumbs, as you will then cover this with the marzipan...
Marzipan, rolled thinly for the outer cake layer, and marzipan below which I´ve formed into the figures of rabbit and bunny, carrots, radishes, lettuce, etc. Some of the marzipan I added gel cake colours to whilst molding, and some marzipan I painted after moulding into shapes. Let dry a few days, for best results. I only had a day to make these, so they aren´t as good as I´d have liked...and are the only photos of this bunny cake I make. Must. Take. better. photos,) But it tasted very good!:)
Toothbrush to add texture and splatter paint; paintbrushes are only used for food colouring painting, not other non-edible paints. Add marzipan figures/shapes onto marzipan layer top, either using vodka/aquavit or liquid sugar. The alcohol evaporates and will not show a glossiness, as does the liquid sugar I used in this photo...
Not quite finished cake. After letting set for a few hours, then add details and finishing touches. The gels can be painted directly onto the top to say Happy Easter, for instance. Use a sharp knife to trim the excess along the bottom of the cake.
Making the choux pastry for tiny New Orleans eclairs, like we used to get in The Quarter at Cafe Beignet:). If you don´t boil the water as much as required, you get a really nice eggy Neiman Marcus style popover type eclair! mmm. (It´s much easier than making the actual Neiman Marcus popovers which is fiddly to get the oven temperature exactly correct! Love those popovers, and the strawberry butter...which you can also serve with these eclairs instead of the chocolate genache topping I´ve made here)...
Whipping the fresh cream...T had to help me! It can take a bit of time. Though I´ve actually seen folks with electric mixers take much longer to make whipped cream, than it takes me to make it with hand whisk!
The bear cake is one of our faves. If you butter and oil, then flour and cocoa/sugar the bear shape, TWICE for heavens sake!, then you actually can get the cake out of the pan in one piece! At the time this photo was taken I didn´t know that, and couldn´t get the cake OUT of the PAN!;) So we ate it out of the pan...it was very good anyway!:) So not a complete disaster...and since then I´ve been able to get the cake out in one piece with all the details intact and perfect, by the above instructions. Or you can add a piece of parchment/waxed paper along the bottom, but the sides still must be butter/oiled and floured. My pan is not non-stick, just the metal pan shaped into the bear. Works pretty well now...
And those are the sparkling sparkler type candles I´d wanted for n´s cake, but couldn´t remember where I´d packed them!,). They´re very pretty on a cake, but keep a window open nearby, as they tend to smoke fiercely once blown out... like real sparklers obviously, but you´re not outside usually with a birthday cake!,)
The Blue Cake! Yum! Made two simple vanilla bean butter cakes. Cooled. Frosted with a simple uncooked American (not cooked French) buttercream. The butter shortage here in Norway meant I had access only to the very best butter available(even better than the usual ordinary butter here which is in short supply), and it is unbelievable what a HUGE difference it made in the frosting!!! This was the BEST frosting I´ve ever had! Probably the most expensive too...as it was made with small batches of organic farmers butter made from cows who grazed on grass and herbs...type of gourmet butter. And I will only ever make frosting with this butter from now on! It really was absolutely delicious. I usually don´t like frosting, and throw out any leftovers. This time, I kept every single bit of it! We had blue buttered toast, blue oatmeal, blue glazed carrots...yum!
HINT: It was much easier to make the frosting, when I added the cake gel colour into the butter before adding the confectioners/powdered sugar! I beat it all by hand, using a wooden spoon with a hole in the middle, it was very easy to make, and quick. The gourmet butter gets softer much quicker and easier than some of the other butter I´ve used before for this. The only thing with adding the coloured gel into the butter is the colour will be less easy to decide. I´d wanted a bit less intense colour, but didn´t realize how intense it was until the white of the confectioners sugar was not lightening the colour any. Overall though I´m very pleased with the not-pink cake frosting:). Sometimes, with 3 girls, I do get a bit tired of all the pink! I´d decided on anything but pink frosting! Soft baby turquoise or pale eggshell blue was the original colour I´d had in mind, but was very happy with both the colour and flavour of the end result!
Last but not least is the deep dark chocolately (how is that spelled?!) fudge brownies. Crackle top, chewy inside. Quick easy one pan..
hmm can´t find my recipe..but I promise to post it when I do! It´s just melted butter, mixed with sugar, spice/cocoa. Then the dry (flour, salt, NO BAKING POWDER) added in. Then two eggs, slightly beaten first, added into the center, then barely stirred in. Baked in a round pan, til the top cracks. mmm
Happy Cooking!
PS my chili recipe from somewhere above:
Fry your spices in oil, using whole cumin seeds, whole fennel seeds, whole coriander , salt, pepper. Add chopped onion and shallot, sweat til nearly clear, then add garlic. Add in strips of grill meat such as beef, reindeer, venison, lamb or chicken. Add in cubes of veggies (aubergine/eggplant, green zucchini, tomato, red chili pepper, green bell pepper...), your spices (dried chili, oregano, thyme). Cook til the veggies are al dente/not mushy. At the last, add in black beans, fresh herbs (cilantro, oregano, thyme). Serve hot with some cold sour cream or creme fraiche, shredded cheddar...and blue corn chips.
Lately, I´ve had to substitute Doritos chips, as the only place which used to sell blue corn chips just stopped selling them. Some of us are trying to persuade the shop owner that many of us would like if she would start selling the New Mexican blue corn chips again:)
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