Sugar & Spice - A Scandi Christmas Stall in Covent Garden 10.12.09

Traditional Christmas biscuits from Baker Brun - bakery in Bergen where Papa Scandilicious grew up


In recent years three of my flatmates have each declared Christmas to be their favourite season for food. And I can see why - all the roast meat, the sprouts (yes I love sprouts), the mince pies, the brandy butter, mulled wine - or in my case as I'm Germanic at heart - glühwein...

In Norway we always had smoked lamb ribs which were steamed over birchwood and water for a day, served with creamy and buttery mashed swede (not a pun I promise), steamed potatoes and carrots. It was simple country fare and utterly repellant to anyone who hadn't grown up in Norway. My English grandmother tried it once and came away convinved my Mother had married a barbarian. Well, the volume of aquavit consumed during a Norwegian Christmas meal certainly lends credence to her conviction but I love juleribbe and frankly think the simplicity of it is more in keeping with what Christmas is all about. Forget 14 types of vegetables to go with a roast bird, this meal is as low-maintenance as cooking gets. My Mother loved it as she didn't have to slave over a stove for an entire day and I like the fact that juleribbe harks back to Viking days when smoked meat was a vital foodstuff for survival

Anyway as a child my parents always dispatched me to Bergen for the requisite pre-Christmas family gathering before we'd escape the mad Johansen family to our house in Lanzarote. At the time I thought this was normal, and in fact it is normal for families to gather before Christmas and then to run away, no? My Norwegian family aren't entirely normal, they argue constantly and a lot of hysterical shouting goes on for no particular reason. It's hilarious for an outsider to witness but a little terrifying for a 6-year old and my Mother made a pact with my Father when we moved to Norway that we escape to the sun as we all needed the Vitamin D. Or so she says. At any rate, instead of listening to the aunts' madness I would hide away in the kitchen with my Norwegian grandmother and help her bake

I'd marvel at the huge quantities of biscuits, breads and cakes she baked at the start of advent. Much like here in the UK, the run-up to Christmas in Scandinavia is a sociable time, everyone gathers, eats and gets pickled from too much aquavit or mulled wine and that's really what the festive season is all about. My grandmother only stopped baking the "syv slag" or seven varieties of traditional Christmas biscuits you see above when she reached her 80's

So tomorrow I'll be down at Covent Garden piazza manning a stall that will feature some of the yuletide favourites I grew up with. A few recipes are from my grandmother, others are favourites I've discovered since moving to the UK and having an experimental streak I've baked a couple of new things like the chocolate cardamom cake because I love cardamom. If you're in the area feel free to come by and say hello between 12 and 7pm, and while you're at it you can try author Daniel Young's potato latkes and Niamh Shields aka Eat Like a Girl's roast pork sandwiches too!

Available tomorrow at the Scandi Christmas stall:

* Tropisk aroma or spiced chocolate marble cake replete with nutmeg, cinnamon and a hint of coffee

* Cinnamon buns which may or may not be glazed with marmite salted butter caramel (am looking at you @aforkful and @youngandfoodish )

* Peppernøtter or spice nuts (strictly speaking pepper but there's clove, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger aplenty in these biscuits)

* Serinakaker or butter biscuits with toasted almonds

* Kokosmakroner or coconut macaroons (gluten-free)

* Nigella's gingerbread - not Scandinavian but so good it merits inclusion

* Cardamom chocolate cake

* Almond Raisin cake with Sherry - recipe courtesy of A forkful of spaghetti :-)

* Whisky cake (gluten free)

* Marmite salted butter caramel - not Scandi but a personal favourite of mine

If you can't make it tomorrow but fancy trying something from this list drop me an email or tweet me @scandilicious and I'll see what I can do to help ;-)

From anthropologist to fish wife

On Thursday fellow food blogger Gastrogeek and I traded our quotidien lives for a day as tradeswomen manning the UKFBA stall at the real food market in Covent Garden. Our aim was to raise money for Amnesty International and Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, and as Gastrogeek had asked me a few months back to share the stall with her I had plenty of time to prepare for this debut in trading and flogging

Or so I thought. Until Wednesday I had been quite relaxed about the prospect of spending a day at the market selling food. Mercantile instincts roused I made jars of plum jam to sell at the stall, reasoning that glorious English plums are at their peak right now and who doesn't like plum jam? Having spent last weekend foraging for wild cherry plums with Papa Johansen, made jam from them and some plump, indigo Czar plums from Grange Farm in West Sussex (see previous blog post) I naively concluded "this will be fine, just knock up some cakes and muffins on Wednesday and write a list of what we need, the rest will take care of itself"

Invariably I neglected to take into consideration the hobbit-sized oven in my flat, the time it would take to bake multiple batches in said hutch and how incredibly grumpy I get when on my feet all day, not to mention what a snail's pace I cook at. Much of Wednesday was spent cursing the oven and my singular tardiness, and wondering if this was such a good idea after all

Lest you think this is a whine about how hard it is to cater for large groups of people, let me assure you the experience of manning a market stall was exhilirating and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Be that as it may, Wednesday's seemingly endless preparation for the stall was a salutary lesson that you can never be prepared enough, it always takes much more time to bake than you anticipate and it's exhausting to cook large batches of food in a tiny domestic kitchen. Without a dishwasher, the washing up is endless and eats into your baking schedule

But enough moaning. Gastrogeek is the ideal partner in fish wife crime and so much fun to work with - she did most of the talking, I tried not to frighten away small children with my irascibility. We hit the ground running at 11:30am setting the stall up just before noon by which time Gastrogeek already had customers asking prices of her savoury goodies. It was a perfect summers' day so in terms of foot traffic we were extremely lucky as there was a constant flow of visitors to Covent Garden, and we were in a prime location to catch their attention

We had a mother visit us whose son is being treated in Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, she told us about his debilitating condition and the excellent care he's receiving which really brought it home how vital the hospital is. Because we were raising money for charity many customers gave extra or told us to keep the change, a reminder that despite all the economic doom and gloom the capacity for donating money to good causes hasn't disappeared. The occasional passerby would laugh at Gastrogeek's keema lollies and one bad-mannered teen even mimicked the action of vomiting when walking past our stall which I'll confess was disappointing in comparison to the generosity of the vast majority who sampled our wares

My matcha green tea and blueberry muffins garnered some bemused looks, but children bought them and as they were gluten-free they were more in demand than I expected. In general our interactions with passersby were extremely positive, except for the cheeky Italian teenager who asked where the nearest KFC was. I promptly dispatched him to the nearest cupcake shop which served the pasty, spotty teen right for his culinary insolence. Slow Food, you've got some work to do in your terra madre

Gastrogeek and I both thoroughly enjoyed the day and although it was exhausting the 9 hours flew by in no time. We agreed to make this an annual event, albeit next time we shall cajole local caterers/restaurants to lend us their ovens upon my mother's recommendation. In fact, we might just get the formidable Mama Johansen to cajole them on our behalf - no one says no to Mama J, trust me

You can read more on the build-up to Thursday's stall on Gastrogeek's excellent blog post "From Blogging to Flogging" here and her post-flogging analysis here Suffice to say, we both extend a huge thank you to all the food bloggers and friends who came down to support us. Without descending into an Oscar-esque-thank-you-speech we were fortunate to have a great stall neighbour who I shall call Prosecco Sam. He's on the corner by the Transport Museum and is delightful, go see him if you're moseying through Covent Garden and try a glass of his prosecco. As you can see below, we definitely appreciated his rose prosecco - the perfect sustenance to get through a hot summer's afternoon

And as for the punters and tourists who bought our wares, thank you. Below are a few photos of the day

Gastrogeek's genius idea of Keema Lollies received plenty of attention:

And her ginger chocolate cherries were such a hit with both children and adults alike we ran out by mid-afternoon. You can find the recipe on Gastrogeek's blog post listed above

My mocha & coconut cake proved to be popular so the recipe is at the bottom of this post. The beetroot brownies were also gobbled up, and mostly by children which was gratifying - they're tricky customers :D For those who asked after the beetroot brownie recipe this is the one I used, courtesy of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Needless to say Gastrogeek's olympian ability to talk made her the perfect fish wife regaling her customers with witty anecdotes and upbraiding the odd person who sneered and walked away when told we were raising money for charity (!)

Goodshoeday paying us a visit and Gastrogeek larking about:

a moment of calm during an otherwise hectic day:

Nursing a glass of delicious rose prosecco, one of ahem, a few supplied throughout the afternoon by our neighbour Sam:

Being the donuthead that I am, I clean forgot to put the plum jams out until mid-afternoon, but once they were on display they sold well

And we made it! By 8:20 pm we were all packed up and ready to go home to a cup of tea and a hot bath. Exhausted after nine hours on our feet but thrilled to have raised a respectable £350, the profits of which go straight to our selected charities...

These may be straitened times but what a day observing and engaging with the generous, the friendly and occasionally the quixotic visitors to Covent Garden. Before I forget, a thank you to Joe, Gastrogeek's other half, for taking some terrific snaps of the stall on our behalf, a few of which are in this post

Recipe for Coconut Mocha Cake:

Adapted from my boss Fiona Beckett's recipe for cappuccino cake in her book 'The Frugal Cook' (p. 135 Absolute Press) I used more cocoa and made a mocha style icing - ie very dark and intense, not creamy at all...

Makes 12-16 squares or bars

• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 2 tbsp strong black coffee
• 200g caster sugar
• 225g softened buttermilk spread (e.g. Willow)
• 4 medium eggs
• 225g self-raising flour
• 1 heaping tbsp plain yoghurt (to add extra moisture as there is more cocoa in this recipe than Fiona's)

For the icing:

• 125g butter
• 2 tbsp cocoa
• 200g icing sugar, sifted
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1-2 tbsp strong coffee (adjust to taste)

Preheat the oven to 180C

Line a shallow 18 x 32cm cake tin with baking parchment. Sift the cocoa into a large bowl, add the hot coffee and stir. Add the caster sugar, stir, then tip in the spread, eggs and half the flour. Beat very well with a spoon or electric whisk, and fold in the remaining flour. Spread this mixture in the tin and bake on the middle oven shelf for 35-40 minutes until risen and firm to the touch.

Allow to cool on a wire rack while you make the icing. Place the butter in a saucepan, allow to melt and then add the cocoa, the sugar and the vanilla. Stir really well, sometimes this has a tendency to separate but adding the icing sugar helps to smooth out the icing. Add the coffee to taste, stir and allow to cool for 10 minutes before icing the cake. If it's hot the icing will just run down the sides, and by cooling it slightly the icing will thicken. You can see a photo below of what the icing looks like, and frankly it rocks. Sprinkle a generous amount of desiccated coconut and eat with gusto

If you came down to the stall let us know what you thought, feedback is most welcome

For the sweet-toothed buccaneer...

It's July 4th, and I don't know about you but I LOVE Independence Day. Normally sceptical about the hullabaloo and fanfare of nation states celebrating their independence, or in England's case some dude named George, I suspend all critical faculties and embrace the swashbuckling, tea-dumping, free-wheeling spirit of America's most eagerly anticipated holiday. All that red, white and blue decoration, the earnestness with which Americans celebrate their independence and freedom, the singing, the food, the flags!

If you love the 'West Wing', 'Seinfeld' or 'M*A*S*H' as much as I do, you are mandated to love July 4th, there is just no point denying it. You can't consume the cultural exports of America, then turn around and sneer at its so-called lack of cultural sophistication, or complain about loud Americans who point at Big Ben and ask "Is that Oxford or Cambridge?" I love America because of its idiosyncracies, not in spite of them, and will disown friends who possess anti-American sentiments as quickly as I dispatch people who don't eat fish or who claim to be vegetablists - as Jeremy Clarkson so aptly calls them

If you get excited by Americana in all its kitsch glory - as by now you will have gathered I most certainly do - then you make cakes like the one below. Yes, that is blue icing, and with all it's E-numbered, diabetes-inducing filthiness it tasted mighty good. This cake, for the record, was made last November for election day and I am sure our commander-in-chief would appreciate its total brilliance. I simply revisit it today to remind myself what a queen of schmaltz I am :D

Anyway you get my point. I dig the States

July 4th for me is replete with memories of summers spent in New England. It was the perfect escape from the dourness of Norway, not to mention my looney relatives - Wodehouse was right in stating "aunts aren't gentlemen" and my Norwegian ones certainly fit that description to a T. My American grandfather, Jack, lived on the coast of New Hampshire and so the parents and I absconded to a town called Rye Beach every summer for most of the '90s. It was, for want of a better word, sweet. Swimming in the freezing Atlantic; eating burgers, hot dogs, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chipwiches; learning to love lobster; daily swim team practices with the beach club swim team my parents insisted I join (I still thank them for doing so, or I would've been the size of a baby hippo); comedy tennis lessons (racquets and I will never be bosom buddies); flashlight tag during sultry evenings; summer camps at MIT; birthday parties and all the usual carefree japes and frolics of teenage summers...I couldn't have asked for better holidays and never got sick of returning to the same place every July

Be that as it may, my knowledge of the rest of the United States is patchy at best. D.C., New Orleans and Chicago have thus far eluded me, and although a wine tour of California beckons, I'd love to travel around the deep south and midwest - often neglected in travel plans that always focus on seductive New York or foodie San Fran

So in a fit of nostalgia, I told "she who must be obeyed", otherwise known as Mama Johansen, that we would make burgers and key lime pie to honour the Great American Holiday. We feasted on quarterpounders with gherkins, onions and cheese last night to kick off the star-spangled celebrations, and subsequently felt rather queasy. That's a lot of meat for someone who recently went on a two-month seafood binge as a symbolic denouncement of useless men (it was a bad break-up...) and recently severe iron-deficiency crept up on me, so the occasion for jumping back on the meat wagon once more couldn't be more apposite. The gustatory meat wagon that is. Shame that I went at it with quite that much gusto

But I digress. Key Lime Pie, to the uninitiated, is an All-American dessert. It's tangy and fresh and sweet all at once, and I have a penchant for mouth-puckeringly sour things so it's top of my list for summertime sweet treats. Except it's been so hot and humid the past week that the idea of baking made me feel even more faint than the prospect of eating another quarterpounder with cheese. So on Thursday I tweeted a query to see if anyone had a no-bake key lime pie recipe. Responses came courtesy of Oliver Thring author of the excellent blog Thring for your Supper, and the folks at Market Kitchen. Oliver suggested adding coconut to the base, which I did, and making a syrup to lace the pie with, which I intended to do and forgot. Next time Oliver, I shall try the lime syrup idea ;) Market Kitchen helpfully directed me to a Momma Cheri recipe which looked quite similar to the one I already had (and a tasty recipe that is too) but it required 10 minutes' baking in the oven

This obsession with a no-bake key lime pie may seem absurd to you, but I was adamant it could be done.

So after the helpful tweets from Oliver and Market Kitchen, a quick scour of the web comparing four recipes, and a collating of ingredients and proportions I came up with the recipe you see below. The secret is mascarpone. Do not use double cream, it just won't have the right consistency - mascarpone is silky and smooth, thus adding the perfect amount of creaminess to the pie filling without making it insipid (I have a thing about double cream, preferring the tarter creme fraiche) and also means eggs are redundant. In fact Mama Johansen and I concurred that eggs, as Heston would say, block flavour-release. In other words, adding eggs to the filling renders the lime flavour less noticeable, and that is problematic when it comes to key lime pie.

You want custard with a citrus twist, go eat tarte au citron. This is tart, refreshing and clean-tasting. Save the eggs for Sunday brunch.

And there you have it: a sublime key lime pie. Happy Independence Day! And yes that is a pool thermometer shaped like a frog in the photo below. We Johansens like our kitsch....

No-bake Key Lime Pie base:

• 200g ginger nut biscuits (I used some Dutch 'spekulaas' or spice biscuits)
• 125g melted butter
• 30g desiccated coconut

Filling (easy as pie):

• 1 can (370ml) condensed milk
• 200g mascarpone cheese
• zest of 4 limes (see photo above, it's a lot. Use a microplane)
• Juice of 5 limes (up to 6 if the limes aren't v.juicy)

Method:

Make the pie base first: place the biscuits in a large plastic bag and crush until they resemble breadcrumbs. If you have a magimix you can of course blitz them in the mixer, but bashing them is quite cathartic. Add the coconut and melted butter, mix thoroughly and then press down quite firmly into a pie tin or cake tin. I only had a big cake tin (23cm diameter) and could have pressed a bit more firmly to get the pie base up on the sides, but it's not the end of the world. If you have ramekins you could make individual pies for a dinner party. Place the pie base in the freezer to chill it quickly

Next, prepare the lime filling: place the mascarpone in a medium-large bowl, grate in the lime zest and whisk this for a minute before adding the condensed milk and lime juice. As soon as you add the lime juice the mixture will thicken, which has to do with the acidity of limes coiling up the proteins in condensed milk, thus thickening it (and the mascarpone I imagine) which is a nifty trick when leaving eggs out of a recipe like this

Finally, taste the mixture. This is not difficult, it should be tangy but sweet enough that the lime juice isn't sucking in your cheeks and making you wince. Add a bit more juice if it's too sweet, a but more condensed milk if too sour

Then pour the filling mixture on top of your chilled pie base, cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for a few hours to set, or even better, overnight. When you're ready to serve the pie, run the blunt end of a knife along the perimeter of your cake (this isn't strictly necessary when using a pie tin) and release the tin. Slice with a sharp knife and serve with some lime zest as garnish, or a sprig of mint. Most recipes call for a dollop of double cream or creme fraiche to go along with key lime pie but IMHO that's redundant. The pie's creamy enough as it is, at a stretch you could do creme fraiche but double cream does nothing for the beauty of this glorious, tangy pie

Keeps a few days in the fridge, if you don't scoff the whole thing in one sitting. Believe me, it's tempting. Thankfully the summer battle with one's bikini is a good prophylactic to such indulgence

Claire Clark's Carrot Cake

This cake can't really be described as bona fide Scandinavian, but then what really is? We now get carrot cake all over the globe and everyone adapts this beloved American tradition to their own tastes and locally available ingredients. I decided to test a recipe from Claire Clark's book 'Indulge: 100 Perfect Desserts' (Absolute Press, 2007) Claire's the head of pastry at celebrated California restaurant The French Laundry and the book is a feast for confection-hungry eyes. Even if you don't care much for cake, have a look at her book, great recipes can be found therein for all manner of sweet things.

Anyway, Easter's come and gone. While most of Britain is seemingly defying the credit crunch by shopping like there's no tomorrow, my Dad and I spent the weekend with simpler, more frugal pursuits in mind. Long walks in the country, endless episodes of 'Seinfeld,' reading a few good books - couldn't have asked for a more relaxed weekend. Having had my 89-year old uncle over for the requisite Easter Sunday luncheon we're still feasting on leftovers of roast leg of lamb, roast potatoes, caramelised parsnips and broccoli. Leftover lamb on fresh spelt bread (yes I baked another one) for lunch yesterday was a treat - delicious with some mango chutney, beetroot and German gherkin. Easter pudding consisted of gently poached rhubarb, simmered in fresh blood orange juice and zest, a splash of vanilla and grand marnier, though we managed to demolish this with aplomb on Sunday so no leftover rhubarb pud.

Who said I don't take care of the men in my life ;-)

Anyway, back to the cake. I love the fact that Claire uses wholemeal flour in her recipe, something I'm converting to (as well as gluten-free flour for variation) - the taste of wholemeal is so good anyway, and combined with all that carrot, coconut, vanilla and sugar you won't know the difference. If you're looking for a slightly lighter texture sift the wholemeal to remove some of the bran...the brown sugar gives a hint of sweetness without making the cake cloying, and also keeps it moist for a few days. Will definitely be making this one again.

Ingredients:

• 250g wholemeal flour
• 25g baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 125g desiccated coconut
• 5 medium eggs
• 250g muscovado brown sugar (I used light brown as that's what I had...)
• 185g vegetable oil
• 500g carrots
• 125g raisins (soaked for 10 minutes)
• 1/2 tsp salt (recipe doesn't call for it, but have added it anyway)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C

Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and spices in a medium bowl. Stir in the coconut. 

Using an electric mixer, whisk the eggs, sugar and oil together til the mixture becomes pale and doubles in volume (a large bowl will be needed for this)

Gently fold the dry ingredients into the egg mixture, and then finally fold in the carrots and raisins.

Bake 35-40 minutes. Allow to cool before icing with cream cheese frosting (see the other carrot cake recipe on this blog for recipe) and sprinkle with coconut and crushed pistachios.

Roses are red...

Actually, in this case they're yellow and orange. Much better.

In a fit of anti-Valentine-romance-is over-rated-not-to-mention-over-commercialised-pique I toyed with the idea of ignoring Feb 14th altogether and staying in to watch old Marilyn Monroe movies. Having decreed to my other half that we are not going out for dinner, nor anything remotely schmaltzy, we decided to spend a day together doing the following:

• roller-skiing in Hyde Park
• buying a wheelie bin at Homebase (it's on sale, or so I'm told by Casanova, otherwise known as the boyf)
• raiding the pastries at Ottolenghi (as retribution for said wheelie bin purchase)
• going to an exhibition at the V&A 
• cooking spaghetti alle vongole

Aside from no.2 the rest of our activities are perfect. No schmaltz in sight.

Seriously though, why do we make such a fuss about Valentine's Day? Having grumbled at length about it to anyone within earshot (and pity them listening) I relented and baked a few Valentine's-themed muffins today: almond and vanilla flavoured with chunks of white chocolate, then soused in a tart passionfruit and lime syrup, topped off with a generous sprinkling of tropical coconut (see my earlier post about coconut. I love coconut, I put it in my porridge, and even added some to a prawn and coriander noodle dish I made the other night)

I also have a penchant for passionfruit, but that's another story.

Anyway, here's the recipe. Happy Valentine's!

Ingredients

• 100g butter, softened
• 100g light brown sugar
• 110g self-raising flour
• 40g ground almonds
• 75g white chocolate, chopped into chunks
• 2 medium eggs
• 2 tbsp plain yogurt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• pinch salt

* if you want to make these plain without the passionfruit & lime syrup, try adding other flavours to the muffins, such as cardamom, cinnamon, orange zest, coffee, cocoa...all go well with white chocolate

Method:

Preheat oven to 190C, line a 12x muffin-hole tray with paper cases.

In a medium bowl sift the almonds, flour, salt and bicarb and stir through to distribute the raising agents. In a medium bowl, cream the butter and sugar til light and fluffy. Add one egg at a time to the butter mixture, beating each time to incorporate the egg. Then add the vanilla and yogurt, followed by the dry ingredients. Fold through with a large spoon til the mixture is even and no major lumps remain. 

Scoop the mixture into each muffin case is 3/4 full (if you don't want them to rise above the case then just fill halfway) and place on an upper-middle shelf of the oven. Bake 15-20 minutes til they're golden brown and feel firm to the touch.

For the syrup:

Take the pulp of 1 passionfruit and stir through some lime zest, along with a bit of lime juice, then add a couple of sieved tablespoon-fuls of icing sugar and stir through. If you have the time and inclination, make a sugar syrup by heating equal parts sugar and water and then boiling until it's a syrup consistency, I just went for a sloppy syrup this time...