Food is the best medicine

An apple a day they say, keeps the doctor away. Be it the common cold or a nebulous norovirus, everyone seems to be down with some debilitating ailment at the moment. As far as I'm concerned, winter can end now. Much as I love Nordic skiing and the winter Olympics snow does not belong in London, and I would quite like to pack away my thermals, ear muffs and wool scarves thank you very much!

If you're finding yourself beset by recurring sniffles here are a few tips on eating your way to good health. Inspired by helpful responses I received after asking on twitter what foods help boost the immune system, I've incorporated the tweets with tips in each section, along with a few basic recipe suggestions too. Sipping endless cups of Lemsip and taking antibiotics when you need to might seem the easiest route to recovery but trust me after having been on antibiotics twice this winter I definitely recommend pre-empting future illness with healthy eating. The best strategy I've learned is eat a balanced variety of the following foods for optimal health and you'll feel - and look - better in no time :-)

1) Spices



foodieguide
@scandilicious you can boost immune system with teaspoon or 2 of good quality honey (manuka) & teaspoon of cinnamon with it, twice a day.
9:02 PM Jan 14th from Tweetie in reply to scandilicious

This was a brilliant suggestion, cinnamon and honey tea not only tastes delicious but cinnamon is a potent weapon against pretty much everything from colds to diabetes. I sprinkle it on my daily porridge and try to bake with it as much as possible.

XXorcist
@scandilicious Ginger Increases the body temperature to help fight off infections ...Gingerale contains some ginger or add ginger to food.
12:17 PM Jan 14th from web in reply to scandilicious

Ginger is another top immune boosting agent, and one I've been incorporating into my raspberry & ginger smoothie, recipe of which you can find here



Niamh of Eat Like A Girl also posted a gingery note today on the healing powers of Lemon, Ginger and Honey Tea here a drink I'm trying to have every day to strike back at all dastardly bugs!

2) Vitamins (and the sun)

XXorcist
@scandilicious Get Fresh Air and some Sun every day. Eat foods with Vitamin ..( A / C / D ) every day.
12:12 PM Jan 14th from web in reply to scandilicious

Sensible advice from the somewhat fiersome sounding XXorcist. We tend to hibernate in winter, and I don't know about you but a few rays of sunshine on a cold, crisp winter's day make all the difference to my mood and outlook on life. Interestingly enough, food writer Fiona Beckett also came across research here that correlates vitamin D deficiency with a compromised immune system, so up your fruit, veg and dairy intake to increase the level of vitamin D in your body. And get outside as much as you can on sunny winter days!

3) Probiotics

Tamarizzo
@scandilicious Probiotics :-)
12:09 PM Jan 14th from Gravity in reply to scandilicious

LucianaBianchi
@scandilicious yoghurt(with live bacteria!!) And royal jelly!
12:06 PM Jan 14th from UberTwitter in reply to scandilicious

Kate_Q
@scandilicious Eat live yoghurt (doesn't have to say pro biotic, it's all the same). Try not to take painkillers.
11:38 AM Jan 14th from Gravity in reply to scandilicious

brockhallfarm
@scandilicious probiotic yoghurt, smoothies with real fresh fruit. I add Innocent to the smoothie mix. Get well soon!
11:36 AM Jan 14th from Tweetie in reply to scandilicious

All great tips from the probiotic crowd! We hear much about the healing powers of probiotics, but steer clear of gimmicky probiotic drinks that are packed full of sugar, and probiotic supplements in health food shops. A Scot in London gave excellent advice on buying probiotics that have to be chilled, they are the only ones potent enough ('live' enough if you will) to survive the acidic environment of our stomachs. I picked up some at my local health food shop Alara and am amazed at how much better I felt within a week of taking them. Ask for refrigerated probiotics in your local health food shop and eat plain bio yoghurt from brands such as Yeo Valley and Rachel's Organic on a daily basis. Royal Jelly and bee pollen are also meant to be excellent for perking up the immune system.

4) Citrus



Citrus fruits are famously good for upping your vitamin C intake, try blood oranges which are currently in season and taste delicious drizzled with a bit of honey, a sprinkle of cinnamon and some scattered walnuts on top.

theimpishscribe
@scandilicious 'Orange' juice- satsumas, oranges, clem, mango: ginger, peach, dried apricots, oats, echinacea. 1 tsp of PB - Blend, drink xx
11:58 AM Jan 14th from web in reply to scandilicious

goodshoeday
@scandilicious vit C, zinc, echinecia (or however its spelt) and don't forget to eat some protein with all the veg and fruit & carbs pls ;)
11:43 AM Jan 14th from TweetDeck in reply to scandilicious

5) Echinacea

RosieFoodie
@scandilicious echinacea?
11:35 AM Jan 14th from Echofon in reply to scandilicious

R_McCormack
@scandilicious Echinacea
11:34 AM Jan 14th from web in reply to scandilicious

Another well-known cold and flu fighter, the easiest way to take this is in supplement form...

6) Spelt


Easy spelt bread with fennel seed, recipe here

aforkful
@scandilicious spelt contains immune-system boosting properties
11:31 AM Jan 14th from TweetDeck in reply to scandilicious

DiscoveryDay
@scandilicious @aforkful I'm working on a spelt-ish (in fact it is the old Roman grain - Farro) risotto mix. More bite than rice, love it.
11:39 AM Jan 14th from web in reply to scandilicious

This intrigued me, being an avid spelt fan! I knew spelt was more digestible and I've been using it in bread baking for ten years now as diabetes runs in our family and spelt is better for maintaining steady blood sugar levels than plain wheat. It's also chockfull of flavour and I've taken to using refined spelt for cinnamon buns, cakes and pancakes recently. Try it, you won't be disappointed.

7) Garlic and chilli


Moroccan spiced chickpeas with spinach (photo courtesy of Andrew Crawley and the Daily Telegraph) recipe hereThis recipe is from the Ultimate Student Cookbook and one I never tire of. It's quick to make, frugal and extremely tasty. You've got all the wonders of aromatic spices such as cumin, coriander, turmeric and chilli, the latter of which has brilliant antiseptic properties. Garlic is well-known for its immune boosting properties, so you could up the quantity from this recipe if you're in dire straits and if you're feeling extra brave, try crushing a clove and eating it raw. I'm not a huge fan of raw garlic, but love it with seafood such as prawns:

or just gently sauteed with some anchovies, chilli flakes and tossed with broccoli in pasta...

8) Soup

Or more accurately, chicken soup. Known as Jewish penicillin chicken soup is the apotheosis of immune boosting soups. Nourishing and delicious in equal measure, a simple chicken soup requires little embellishment and is worth making in large batches and sipping (slurping?) throughout the day. Anthony Silverbrow's post on chicken soup is brilliant - as a South American proverb goes "good broth resurrects the dead" and chicken soup will do exactly that!

9) Protein

This wasn't tweeted so much as just an instinctive reaction I had to feeling unwell. I craved eggs, salmon and basically anything out of the sea. Protein is needed for strength, simple as that. Try an open sandwich of soft-boiled egg, Swedish kaviar from a tube and dill on sourdough crispbread such as Peter's Yard



For more boiled egg recipe suggestions check out Foodista:
Or indeed a few slivers of smoked salmon with black pepper on the same crispbread (you can tell I'm addicted to crispbread!):


Mackerel is not only cheap but endlessly versatile and full of essential omega fatty acids. My favourite way to eat mackerel is with either a gooseberry compote or rhubarb, such as this recipe from Nigel Slater. Aim to eat oily fish at least two or three times a week.

10) Miscellaneous

Well, these are tips I picked up from an excellent book on nutrition Nourishing Traditions lent to me by the good people at Rude Health :

* Coconut oil contains lauric acid, an essential saturated fatty acid that boosts the immune system and protects against viruses, funghi and other pathogens

* Tea is full of antioxidants that help the cells in our body fight off damaging free radicals, thus keeping the cells in robust health

* Pickles such as kimchi, sauerkraut and umeboshi (Japanese pickled plums) are amazing immune enhancers. The fermentation process allows probiotic lactobacilli to develop in the pickles and these act as natural pathogen fighters. Kimchi, the Korean spicy cabbage has been linked to fighting off SARS in Korea, which you can read more about here. Whether or not you believe kimchi will protect you from dastardly viruses, it certainly tastes good.

Finally, it goes without saying that aside from eating well a few behavioural habits really help fight off lurgies:

* Wash your hands with soap after you've been on public transport, in the shops, out and about in town. My Norwegian grandmother was a nurse and she always complained that people's hygiene changed dramatically after antibiotics and medical care improved in the second half of last century. Hand hygiene is the first line of defense in combating germs!

* Have a lymphatic drainage massage. This was suggested by A Forkful of Spaghetti and it makes perfect sense. Our lymphatic system fights off pathogens and if it becomes congested then one of the most effective ways to reboot the lymph nodes is to massage away toxins trapped in the lymph nodes.

* Learn to say no. This might seem banal, but I learned to my cost towards the end of last year that saying yes to everything depleted my energy and enthusiasm for going out. Be selective, ruthless even, in how often you say yes to a favour, to going out or to events.

* Calm down! Adrenal fatigue is now recognised as a significant factor in the weakening of our immune systems. It seems we're all too stressed, all the time and the constant surge of adrenaline through our bodies - be it from working in stressful jobs, not sleeping enough, taking too many drugs, or in personal relationships - is seriously detrimental to our health. Relax as often as you can, try yoga, pilates or meditation. Chamomile, lemon verbena and valerian teas are all fantastic alternatives to boring old water to keep you hydrated and calm throughout the day. Hot baths, good novels, cooking a delicious meal - whatever it is that helps you unwind, do it. Ignore the maddening crowd and you'll feel so much the better for it. Exercise, curiously enough, can be calming as you vent all your frustrations through a game of footie, or on a run. My resolution is to dance more as I'm easily bored with gyms and running!

* Incidentally painkillers are also thought to weaken the immune system, but of course use them if you're feeling rotten and can't function. See your doctor if you're feeling utterly miserable and showing symptoms beyond just a cough or temporary food poisoning. Antibiotics are essential when you're seriously ill.

What are your top tips for eating your way to good health? Feel free to comment below, and dispute any of my suggestions of course.

Scandi Christmas stall at Covent Garden: Part II

Niamh aka Eat Like A Girl and I larking around at Covent Garden on Thursday - photo courtesy of Lucy Pope






Re-arranging cinnamon buns with Lucy Pope - photo courtesy of A Forkful of Spaghetti



The Scandi Christmas baking spread...photo courtesy of A Forkful of Spaghetti

So market day at Covent Garden came and went, and what fun it was. The gods provided with sunshine and a balmy 10 degrees celsius throughout the afternoon, and I was lucky to share a stall with the lovely Niamh - also known affectionately as the "pork mistress" for her mighty pork sandwiches with lashings of the BEST crunchy crackling in all of WC1! Niamh's a dab hand at this market melarkee as she's been manning a stall twice a week since the summer and her pork sandwiches fast became a staple lunchtime treat for those who work nearby Covent Garden this autumn and I can see why - having sampled her fare I'm now a pork sandwich addict

We had lots of visitors throughout the day, both punters looking around the market on a Thursday afternoon and friends and food bloggers who came down to support us by saying hello, and of course to sample the food! Niamh very kindly proffered a glass of prosecco mid-afternoon and we chatted throughout the afternoon, marvelling at the friendly visitors and the occasional cheeky passesrby - you see the extremes of human nature at a market Niamh said and I completely agree, fascinating stuff to an anthropologist. Believe it or not, someone asked Niamh if she did 2 for 1 on her sandwiches, and when I put out samples of cakes mid-afternoon two modellesque girls came round not once or twice but five times to nibble on samples. The cheek! Having two crazy aunts in Norway who used to model let me repeat my maxim in life here:

"Never trust a model as beauty corrupts the brain"

Anyway, it was a brilliant day and I wish I could do it again next week as Niamh was such fun to pal around with. From Tuesday though I'm off to Lanzarote for yuletide holiday frolics with my Ma and Pa so any reprises down at Covent Garden will have to wait til 2010

Below are recipes from the most popular cakes and biscuits of the day, if you have any specific queries about them drop me an email or leave a comment

Happy holidays to you all :-)



Let's start with the three chocolatey cakes:

tropisk aroma or spiced chocolate marble cake with nutmeg and cinnamon. The nutmeg dominates and with a coffee-chocolate icing I this is a firm family favourite which keeps up to a week and can be frozen if need be for future cake scoffing

Recipe:

Cake:

250g refined spelt flour
250g golden caster sugar
150g butter, softened
2 medium eggs
120 ml whole milk with 2 tbsp plain yoghurt
2 tsp grated nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp strong coffee or espresso
pinch salt

Filling and icing:

200g icing sugar
200g butter, softened
4 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tsp coffee powder (depends how much coffee you like)
pinch salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C. Lightly oil 23cm round cake tin and fit the bottom with baking parchment

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar til pale and fluffy (circa 5-8 minutes). Add the eggs one at a time along with a spoonful of flour to stop the mixture splitting, whisking after each egg to incorporate it into the mixture. Add the spices, remainder of flour and alternate this with the milk and coffee to create a thick cake batter

Take 1/3 of the cake mixture and place in a smaller bowl, add the cocoa powder and stir through until the mixture looks even

Place half the plain mixture at the bottom of the cake tin, then layer the chocolate mixture on top. Cover with the remaining half of plain mixture and using a fork, swirl through the two mixtures to create a marbled effect. Bake on the middle shelf for 35-40 minutes. The cake is done when a skewer is inserted and no wet mixture remains on the skewer

While the cake cools on a wire rack, make the filling: cream the butter whilst adding the icing sugar, coffee and cocoa powders, and vanilla extract, taste as you go along as icing is subjective - some like it very buttery, others intensely sweet. I like a balance of butter, sugar and chocolate/coffee myself

When the cake is completely cool, spread the icing all over. Sprinkle extra cocoa powder on top if you like a cocoa hit or simply leave it plain. Savour with a cup of tea or coffee

Cardamom-Chocolate Cake

There was a run on this cake, definitely a hit with both punters on the day and food bloggers who came down to visit Niamh and I. Cardamom and chocolate is a match made in heaven - grind the cardamom pods yourself if you have the time and inclination, I like to coarsely grind them so you get a few small seeds of cardamom rather than fine powder. The occasional cardamom crunch when eating this cake is an unexpected treat I find. This recipe is an adaptation of Nigella's dense chocolate loaf in 'How to be a domestic goddess' but I've substituted plain flour for spelt and reduced the sugar and syrup quantities and upped the chocolate

Ingredients:

250g softened butter
350g dark muscovado sugar (light will do fine)
250g refined spelt flour
150g dark chocolate, melted
2 heaping tbsp cocoa powder
2 medium eggs
200ml boiling water
1 shot espresso or strong coffee
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1-2 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 190 C. Lightly oil a 23 x 13 x 7 cm loaf tin

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time along with a spoonful of flour to stop the mixture splitting. Add the melted chocolate and incorporate fully before adding coffee, cocoa powder, flour, the boiling water, cardamom, bicarb and salt. It should be a thick liquid batter

Pour this into the prepared loaf tin and bake on the middle oven shelf at 190 C for the first 1/2 hour, then reduce the oven temp to 170 C and bake the cake for a further 15 minutes. The cake will rise, but once you remove it from the oven it will shrink slightly and look like it collapses. This is normal.

Cool on a wire rack. Needless to say this is great on its own but also good with a dollop of creme fraiche on the side. As Nigella says, this is like gingerbread in that it improves as it ages so worth making up in double batches if you can


Gingerbread with lemon icing

another Nigella classic. What can I say, the woman can bake

It's worth making this in double batches, it's VERY popular!

Ingredients:

300g spelt flour
150g butter
125g dark muscovado sugar
200g golden syrup
200g black treacle
2 teaspoons fresh ginger
1 tsp cinnamon (and I add 1/2 tsp clove, 1/2 nutmeg)
250ml milk
2 eggs
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda mixed with 2 tbsp warm water
1/2 tsp salt

Icing:

200g icing sugar
zest of 1 lemon
2-3 tbsp lemon juice

Method:

Preheat oven to 170 C. Lightly oil a 30 x 20 x 5 cm rectangular cake tin

In a large saucepan melt the butter, sugar, syrup, treacle, spices, ginger. Add the milk, eggs, bicarb off the heat.

Add the liquid to the flour in a large bowl and beat well until the mixture looks even.

Pour into cake tin and bake 45 minutes to 1 hour

As the cake is cooling, make the icing:

sift icing sugar in a bowl, whisking in the lemon juice and zest. The icing should be thick not runny so don't add too much liquid...

spread over cooled gingerbread with a palette knife and leave to set before cutting slices. Keeps for a good couple of weeks if you can resist eating it in one go

Kokosmakroner or coconut macaroons

these mallowy macaroons are dead-easy to make and the coconut acts as a humectant so they stay soft for ages. Dip in melted dark chocolate for that 'bounty' effect or eat plain as they're moreish on their own

Ingredients:

4 egg whites
180g caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
250g shredded coconut

Method:

Meringue the egg whites and sugar til stiff peak, then fold in the coconut. Bake at 170 degrees celsius for 10-15 minutes and allow to dry on a wire rack before eating

Almond Raisin Cake with Manzanilla Sherry

Manzanilla may seem an odd choice for cake as it's bone dry, but I love that ozone savouryness to Manzanilla and had half a bottle languishing in the fridge so I thought I'd bake a sherry-fied cake with it. Thanks to A Forkful of Spaghetti for tweeting me a recipe! This is my version:

Ingredients:

200g raisins
200g manzanilla sherry
150ml plain yoghurt
150ml melted butter
150g light muscovado sugar
3 medium eggs
150g spelt flour
100g ground almonds
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp salt

Method:

preheat oven to 180 C. Lightly oil a 20cm round cake tin. Whisk the eggs and sugar til pale and fluffy. Add the melted butter, the yoghurt, flour, almonds, salt and raising agents to the mixture and combine til evenly incorporated. Fold in the raisins, adding some of the sherry too if you fancy :-)

Spoon the cake mixture into the cake tin and bake on the middle oven shelf for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Drizzle with icing sugar, or skewer the cake a few times and use up the remaining sherry liquid to pickle the cake...

Needless to say, great with a glass of sherry



lefse or potato pancake - cheat's version available at Scandinavian Kitchen

This is usually served with a cup of coffee in Norway and a childhood favourite of mine. I love lefse, which is a soft potato-wheat pancake filled with cinnamon buttercream and folded like a book.

For 10 lefse you'll need 5 sheets of the pre-fab stuff you get at the Scandinavian Kitchen plus:

150g butter
100g creme fraiche
150g icing sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

Cream the butter til pale then add the creme fraiche, whisking til its incorporated and add cinnamon, sugar, salt. Taste to see if it's right for you - remember the potato-wheat lefse is quite bland. Place a dollop of mixture on a sheet of lefse, spread evenly and then fold in the sides. Keep in an airtight container

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 ;-)

Spiced Sour Cream Cake with Apple & Cinnamon

This apple cake was a case of "arghh! what do I make with bramley apples festering in my fridge?" actually, the apples were fine, but I really had a hankering for apple cake and decided to use up some odds and ends from the cupboard and fridge to make this German-style coffee cake. Bramley apples have a mouth-puckering tartness to them so I just sliced them up and added a drizzle of fructose and cinnamon to take the edge off their crisp acidity.

The wholemeal flour gives a lovely nutty flavour, though the cake dried out a bit the following day, so I'd probably modify the recipe slightly next time and leave out the bran after sifting. Otherwise it's a straightforward recipe and the cake's rather delicious if I do say so myself :-)

Ingredients:

• 100g self-raising plain flour
• 100g plain wholemeal flour (will decrease this to 75g next time and leave out the bran)
• 40g ground almonds
• 175g light brown sugar
• 180ml half-fat sour cream
• 70g butter, melted
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp baking bowder
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cardamom
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 large Bramley apple, peeled and sliced into moon-shaped slivers (see photo) I made an apple compote out of the other apple. Next time would probably use 1 1/2 apples in the cake

Method: 

Preheat oven to 180 C

Lightly grease a 22cm cake tin (you could use a 20cm which would make the cake taller)

In a large bowl, whick the eggs with the brown sugar un

til fluffy (5-8 minutes should do it)

Add the sour cream, whisk a bit, then sift in all the dry ingredients. Swirl the melted butter through the mixture, then using a large metal spoon make figure-of-eights in the mixture until all the dry ingredients are incorporated into the liquids (see below)

Pour this gently into the cake tin, and scatter the apple pieces on top - you can make a pattern if you want I just placed them randomly (depends how much of an aesthete you are). Sprinkle a bit more cinnamon over the apples and then place the tin on the middle shelf of the oven.

Bake 40 minutes, or until a skewer comes out dry.

God Jul...

Or for those not fluent in Norwegian:  Merry Christmas!

Santa's arrived, we've had some delicious panettone for breakfast and all is right with the world. It occurred to me that nary a day's gone by this December when I haven't cooked or baked a dish using the following spices:

• cinnamon
• cardamom
• nutmeg
• cloves

And I hope to continue doing so into the new year...It's been wonderful re-discovering cloves, a pungent, rather medicinal spice integral to all Scandinavian and Germanic Christmas baking. But why shouldn't one use it throughout the year - in marinades when roasting pork, in cakes and cookies, or - as winter seems to be particularly fierce this year - in hot drinks? By mid-January I'll invariably grow bored of cloves but for the time being it's high on my list of ingredients.

Anyway, this family's been feasting, thankfully not just on cloves, in fact today the beloved waffle iron made an appearance - I've posted about Norwegian waffles before, and I'll probably do so again. Suffice to say we're fans of the humble waffle, and the recipe I posted in July was today given a yuletide boost by adding the aforementioned spices to the batter. Despite waxing lyrical about cloves, I erred on the side of caution and used only a pinch whilst adding double the cardamom, but you choose which you prefer. 

Waffles eaten warm with a dollop of brandy cream and some plum compote really is Christmas bliss...God Jul, as we say in Scandiland!

Spiced Christmas cake...with a flourless twist

Christmas can be quite unforgiving for those with a wheat intolerance, or Coeliacs. But given the array of fruit, nuts and spices on offer this time of year, it's actually the ideal occasion to bake gluten-free cakes - they can be wonderfully rich and moist, and usually keep better than their wheaten siblings.  I'm not coeliac myself, but a few enquiries about gluten free baking got me thinking it was high time I experimented with some alternatives to wheat flour.

So I thought I'd concoct this festive recipe using ground almonds and a very fine corn "flour" which resembles corn starch. You could also use gluten-free flour if you have it, or potato starch, but I happened to have the first two ingredients in the larder. 

The result? A light, yet moist yuletide cake, replete with all the good things in life - brown sugar, fragrant Christmas spices and a hint of whisky. Fabulous eaten on its own, or with a dollop of greek yogurt. Excellent, of course, with a steaming cup of tea or coffee...

Good tidings everyone!

Ingredients:

• 180g ground almonds
• 120g corn Flour
  
• 180g brown sugar
• 1 pot (125g) greek yogurt
• 100g melted butter
• 3 eggs, separated
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 small shot espresso or 2 tablespoons strong coffee
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp cardamom
• 1 tsp vanilla 
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1/4 tsp clove
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 2 tbsp whisky or brandy (not essential, but this really deepens the flavour)
• pinch salt
  
  
  mmm...whisky!
  
  

Preheat oven to 190C. Lightly grease a 22cm diameter cake tin, or a heart-shaped tin like you see in the photos (am spending Christmas with my parents, this is all I could find...)

You'll need a couple of mixing bowls: in the largest, sift all your dry ingredients: almonds, corn flour, sugar, spices, baking soda and salt

In the medium one, place your egg whites

In a small one lightly break up the egg yolks, and add the yogurt 

Start whisking the egg whites and bring them to stiff peak - see photo below. Add a teaspoon of sugar and whisk again to stiff peak

 

In the dry ingredients bowl, make a well and add the melted butter, coffee, whisky and egg/yogurt mix. Stir through so everything is evenly incorporated

Then take a spoonful of the beaten egg whites and add to the mixture to loosen it. Once you've done this, fold in the remaining egg whites, carefully circulating your spoon (like a figure 8 I was once told) until the egg white is mixed in and the mixture resembles a mousse consistency. This adds a bit of levity to your cake, so try not to over-fold at this point. If a few egg white splodges here and there pop up then panic not...

Finally pour this into your prepared cake tin and place on the central shelf of your oven. Turn down the heat to 180C after the first 10 minutes and continue to bake for 35-40 minutes. The photo here is of the mixture before it went in the oven:

and voila! here's the finished result:

* NB Ground almonds can be quite expensive, what I did with this cake was simply grind whole almonds in one of those Braun handblenders that has a chopping/magimix function. Works a treat! Also allows you to grind the almonds to a coarse consistency, rather than a fine, floury one...