Fika5: Kanelknuter & iced tea; Lom fjord bakery link (add pics)

EDIT NOTES FOR ME. ADD PHOTOS OF A FEW STAGES OF THE BUNS, PLUS PHOTOS OF OUTSIDE NATURE SEASONAL.


A bit chilly, overcast, white grey skies out now. As I type, and look out my window, I can see the fall colours finally breaking through with a vengeance. Spectacular vibrant blood orange, lime yellows, lime, tangerine, red berries, white berries....amongst all the greens. A few summer flowers, a few late vibrant roses which have as wonderful a fragrance as colour are still in bloom here and there. The highest mountains now have a slight bit of snow. I love and look forward to all the seasons, but as I thrill at the new season to be, I also am a bit sad to see the lovely former season go also. Especially here, as much as I love the winter snows, it comes with a bitter pill of blackness long dark hours of black with hardly any actual daylight hours. I am used to it now, and find the darkness romantic, snuggly, comforting. But I also am fine to have the summertime with its endless hours of daylight so much so that darkness hardly exists during that season. Now it is near more common shared darkness  with daylight hours--actual hours of dark for night, rather than having daylight all hours or most hours.

Kanelknuter, twisted gnarled balls of delicious baked cinnamon dough sprinkled with decorative demerara sugar, says winter to me for some reason! It´s good anytime of year, but usually I seem to gravitate towards them closer to wintertime, in autumn, which is the season now. Or Indian summer really now. Yesterday was hot, warm, sunny blue skies, and could have been July. Even though we had snow, hail, cold strong winds the day before. It is a mix of seasons trying to decide which one will win and how soon winter will finally be upon us.

Before I forget, I will go out and take photos! I forgot to take photos of the apples, plums, berries on the trees this year, so won´t have photos for the blog unless I can find some from last year, which were so fine and pretty!

brb.

Right. Am back. With the photos, will upload in a minute.

Back to the kanelknuter. Kanel is Norwegian for cinnamon. Knuter is the gnarled twisted shape of the cinnamon bun. Here on the surrounding islands we call it kanelknuter. In other parts of Norway this bun is called smørboller, snurrboller, kanelsnurrer etc. You can search for your own recipe to try, but an excellent cookbook, and recipe for this and other traditional Norwegian breads and buns is:

Morten Schakenda´s cookbook "Om boller, brød og tilfeldigheter fra bakeriet i Lom." Again, here is a youtube video of The Hairy Bikers cooking with Morten Schakenda in this Lom bakery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5inYTB1zGM


The scenery surrounding the back of the bakery, looking out the back window, as they prepare the breads, is spectacular. Awesome in every sense of the word! There are many places here everywhere I look which look similar but it never ceases to amaze me, never bores me, at how spectacular even the ordinary every day scenery is around here! Wow! Their view as they bake is of a strong flowing fjord loudly raging along the mountain which encloses this beast of a river, speckled with birch and other trees, which are hardly noticed against the waters! Truly lovely, wild, beautiful.

So they bake the buns. In this clip I think it is skillingsboler first. For all the breads and buns, as I try if time, always try to low proof them atleast overnight or even a few days! It gives a best flavour, even he agrees. I will post a cold proofing pizza dough recipe I started using, which is amazing. The cold slow proofing of the pizza recipe, overnight is great, but if you cold slow proof it for 2-3 days in the fridge, it gives it a sour dough flavour without having to make the sour dough starter liquid.


The FIRST  technique in the clip is the forming the skillingsboller, and the SECOND bun made is this kanelknuter (Bergen area local name) aka kanelsnurrer. The video shows exactly how to cut then twist the dough strips around your hand forming the gnarly twisted bun for baking so it does not come apart during baking. There are different ways to twist it, but they are all difficult to explain in words. This video clip is perfect, showing the technique, which can be a bit fiddly and seem weird impossible to learn. It´s quite easy once you get the hang of it.

All buns are using the same basic dough. It is what you do with the dough, that makes the specific buns.

All the buns are gorgeous and delicious! He sprinkles all of them with demerara sugar, but I often leave it out or just use for the kanelknuter. Either way is fine, do what you like. The buns are sparkly and pretty with the sugar, just usually I forget to buy the course sugar so don´t have it on baking day!

Fantastic video, thanks to lesterfontayne for adding it to youtube, so I can link it!:) Of course thanks to The Hairy Bikers, and tusen takk ogsa til Morten Schakenda i Lom bakeriet. Fløtt, skjempabra!




Edit:

here is a timelapse quick view of how the kanelknuter are made (from the finished dough) from the Kaffebønna bakery in Tromsø, Norway. Takk selvfolgelig til moppedanne også.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrX7Tp3dNO0&feature=related