cake

fyriskaka

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fyriskaka3

There’s a very narrow window here in northern Norway when the grocery stores have Norwegian apples available, rather than the (pretty sad) imported ones we find throughout the rest of the year. My husband and I were delighted to find that we could find domestic Gravensteins at the store when this window opened last year, so when it came around this time, I thought it’d be the perfect opportunity to bake an apple cake.

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I wanted to try another recipe from Fika, so as I thumbed through the pages I decided on the fyriskaka, which they describe as a “classic apple cake.” The recipe itself is quite simple, and they key components (aside from your typical cake ingredients) are apples, of course, along with cinnamon, brown sugar, and cardamom. Oh, the cardamom! The recipe calls for freshly crushed cardamom seeds, and I think that little detail really takes this cake to the next level. I also always love to bake anything that requires mixing up your sliced apples with brown sugar and cinnamon…

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The recipe calls for a springform cake pan, but my Norwegian kitchen is actually still lacking a lot of baking equipment and a springform pan is not part of the equation. My regular cake pan did just fine, however – I greased and floured it well and the cooled cake popped right out in one piece.

I probably don’t need to tell you that the cake itself was delicious – it’s hard to go wrong with this mix of ingredients, after all. Despite the amount of brown sugar and plain sugar that went into it, it wasn’t overly sweet. It’s kind of the perfect fika cake, to be honest. I might have to make this one again before the domestic apple window closes.

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You can find the recipe for this cake in Fika by Anna Brones and Johanna Kindvall.

fika: kardemummakaka

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Here’s a book I’m excited about:

Fika, by Anna Brones and Johanna Kindvall. My friend Daytona told me about this book earlier this year and I ordered a copy shortly before we packed up our container in May for the Norway move. I was so excited to get it, but I opted to put it in one of the moving boxes so that it’d be here in Norway once we flew over in August. So I had a few months to wait before I really got to sit down with it! Fortunately, it was worth the wait.

As you might assume, this recipe book is all about fika, the beloved Swedish custom of the daily coffee break (with treats). I love the size of this book and I love the aesthetic, too – instead of photos, the book features adorable illustrations. It also features a lot of great background info, like exactly what fika’s all about, a history of Swedish coffee, pantry staples you’ll want to have on hand for the recipes, and so on. It’s straight up my alley.

I had a hard time trying to decide what I wanted to make first, but in the end I settled on a cardamom cake. I love cardamom (don’t we all?) and I guess I was craving a cake. This one ended up being a lovely breakfast treat for a few days (it goes well with coffee, after all). It’s simple to make, and the end result isn’t too fancy, but it’s delicious and elegant enough to make for a special occasion, as well.

The recipe called for a bundt pan, which I didn’t have, so I just used a normal cake pan. I quite like the result. Inside, the cake was spongy and fragrant, sweet but not too sweet. Just right. To keep it unfussy I topped it off with a dusting of powdered sugar. A bundt pan would definitely dress this simple cake up, but it’s nice to know it works well as a simple shape, particularly as a fika treat.

I’m very much looking forward to baking more things from Fika and with the weather cooling off in Tromsø, I’m sure there will be lots more baking in the near future.

Here’s to kitchen number seven!

hasselnotskaka

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If you like hazelnuts, this one’s a good way to go. This Swedish filbert cake was simple and delicious, and not too sweet. I baked it for my partner’s birthday in November and we liked it so much that I baked it for Thanksgiving, too. It works nicely as an after-dinner dessert but I think it works well as a coffee cake, too. I recommend pairing it with a cup of good black coffee and a healthy dose of Scandinavian travel planning.

chokladkaka

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This post is a bit belated! But as I’m baking a new cake this weekend, it seemed the perfect opportunity to finally write this post and turn it into A Weekend of Cake.

I’ve made this recipe twice, both times in the spring. Chokladkaka is a Swedish chocolate pound cake – a really fantastic chocolate cake when you want something that’s light and not too rich. I made my first with my friend Alex when she was visiting – we lined the pan with butter but forgot to line it with crumbs, so the outside ended up a bit burnt (though the inside was still delicious). The second time, I made it for a dinner with some friends, and remembered not to skip this step! Vanilla wafers aren’t terribly easy to find in Hungary, though, so I wound up lining it with flour (which worked passably well).

I served it up with whipped cream and strawberries the first time, and the second time went for vanilla ice cream and strawberries – both worked very well. I love chocolate cake, and I love that this is a chocolate cake I can eat without feeling like I’ll get a stomachache.

toscakake

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Norwegian caramel-almond Tosca cake. Sound good? It should, because it was delicious.

First, a note of clarification: Ojakangas spells this recipe Toscakage in her book, but as this would actually be the Danish spelling and she calls it a Norwegian cake, I’ll use the more Norwegian Toscakake instead. I am sure this recipe exists in Denmark and Sweden as well, but each country spells it differently (the Swedes would use Toscakaka). Minor differences, but they do exist. With that aside, on to the cake!

I was invited to a friend’s for dinner yesterday and I found myself searching The Great Scandinavian Baking Book for something relatively quick and easy to prepare for a dessert. I normally wouldn’t go to the cake section for this, but I was flipping through and happened to spot the Toscakake. Relatively short list of ingredients, not a lot of prep time, simple to make. It was a winner.

There are essentially two parts to making this cake: baking the cake and putting together the topping. The cake part itself came out fairly light and spongy, a little bit like angel food cake. The second part was pretty straightforward, too: browing some sliced almonds and then adding sugar and cream to make an almondy, caramel-ly topping to slather over the cake. I popped the whole thing in the oven for a few more minutes so that the topping could harden a little bit and turn a nice golden-brown color.

The end result is perhaps not the prettiest cake in the world, but a fairly simple and quick cake to make from scratch. I’d say it’s appropriate for special occasions just as much as it makes a nice coffee cake. And on Sunday mornings, like this morning was, it makes a pretty delicious breakfast.

chokladtarta

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Baking for friends is truly one of my favorite things about baking recipes from this book, and this one was no exception. My friend Damien had a birthday earlier this month and I promised to bake him a proper birthday cake when he got home from tour. He picked out the chokladtarta, a nutty chocolate layer cake with layers of cream filling and a chocolate glaze over top. This is easily the most involved (and decadent) recipe I’ve baked from the book so far.

The recipe gives you a list of choices of nuts for your cake layers; I had walnuts and almonds on hand but in the end decided to go for the walnuts. The cake layers are prepared first, then the cream “filling” (which goes between your cake layers) and lastly the dark chocolate glaze is made and drizzled over the top of the cake. My wonderful friend Brad helped out with the glaze and a few supplies (I’ve just moved house and my new kitchen isn’t quite set up yet).

The resulting cake was extremely rich but super delicious, and enjoyed by Damien + friends at a local open mic night last night. After an amazing Thanksgiving weekend, it was a night I was very grateful to be with friends. Happy belated, D.

eplepai

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A few weeks ago my Norwegian class had a potluck and watched two episodes of the popular and hilarious Norwegian reality show Alt for Norge. There was both non-Norwegian and Norwegian fare to eat (I had my first fiskeboller) but everything was delicious. It seemed like a great excuse to try out another Norwegian recipe, and since we’ve entered apple season I picked the Norwegian eplepai. It means apple pie, but it’s more of a cake, really. Whatever you call it, I was really happy with how it turned out!

Since I was bringing one to class, I decided to bake two (so that my roommates and I had some at home as well!). This was a ridiculously simply recipe – the instructions after the ingredients list fit in a five-line paragraph. You dice up your apples, chop some almonds, mix everything up in a bowl and then bake. There are also instructions to make a whipped topping/side, but as I was short on time I opted to serve it with vanilla ice cream instead. My friend Melodie helped crush the almonds while I chopped up the apples.


(photo by Sarah Jurado)

Next I mixed all the ingredients, spooned them out into the greased pie pans, and then they baked! Like I said, it was a really simple recipe and it made a great last-minute dessert.

The pie was a hit at the potluck and at home, where we ate it still warm from the oven with ice cream!