Scandilicious Baking - Signe Johansen

The Jam pan emerges

I've been at home all day waiting on plumbers, I had offered to hold keys for some of my neighbours so had the whole day around the flat which has been a real treat. The plumbers were polite, timely, tidy, and generally charming - so much for stereotypes - all that remains is to see how good a job they did... 

Not ripe, but cheap, fruit

It had briefly occurred to me that I could spend the time at home cleaning and doing paperwork, but I opted instead for experimenting with 'Scandilicious Baking' and chose to make greengage and vanilla jam, there are also Santa Lucia buns hopefully proving in the now reclaimed airing cupboard. 

Still looking pretty

It really has been a case of experimenting because I've been using what I had to hand rather than strictly following the recipe. The jam recipe is an interesting one and sometime I'll try Signe's version. For 2 kilos of fruit it calls for 350g of fructose which I just didn't have so I used ordinary sugar - and in ordinary quantities which meant 1.5 kilos of sugar. I'm curious about how a jam with so little sugar would set - does fructose do different things I wonder? Annoyingly someone turned up at just the wrong moment (not the perfect plumbers, but a friend of a neighbour looking for keys) and the greengages started to catch on the bottom of the pan, and though I thought I'd got setting point I'm not so sure now so will probably have to reboil the lot tomorrow. Also I have jam in my hair. Taste wise though the vanilla is wonderful with the greengages and it might be quite nice to have it runny enough to go well in yoghurt.

Not so pretty but almost ready

I've wanted to make Lucia buns for about 25 years now, and you may well ask why it's taken me so long. They are traditionally eaten on the 13th December, which just happens to be my birthday, and ever since an aunt with a Swedish boyfriend told me about them I've wanted to try them, now I have a recipe I'm not waiting till December. I must admit to being a bit nervous about these buns, they should be 'S' shaped with currant - or in this case sour cherry - eyes and I've always struggled with shaping dough. I want them to look pretty, know practice is the answer, but lack technique. 

Almost good enough for a nice buns pun

'Scandilicious Baking' is a lovely book with plenty to inspire in it. The recipes are a good mix of the  traditional from all over Scandinavia - though generally with a Signe twist, things which reflect contemporary trends in baking, though again with a Signe/Scandinavian twist, and things like Brownies that no baking book seems to be complete without. What I really enjoy about it though is the view North; there's nothing new about a seasonal approach to ingredients but the flavour combinations are just a little different, and so is the presentation. It's no surprise that Scandinavian food is finally having it's moment, just a wonder it's taken so long. 

Scandilicious Sunday

Any serious plans I had for today got off to a bad start after getting plastered with my mother in a car park this morning. We had a bottle of chilled champagne and it was raining so it seemed logical to drink it, of course once it was open we realised we had to finish it because wouldn't it have been a shame to waste it? So we did finish it. In twenty minutes. Neither of us are used to doing that for breakfast so when the rain stopped and we got out of the car we were - well we were very giggly. The rest of the morning passed in a happy haze.

Back home, and after a restorative nap, I really wanted to bake another cake - after last weeks below par effort my pride needed rescuing, also I have a copy of 'Scandilicious Baking' to play with, and my poor kitchen aid hasn't had the exercise it deserves recently. Because I haven't been baking much recently my cupboard and fridge both have a collection of things that need using up which was yet another reason to make cake (it's amazing how many half full bags of different sugars one woman can collect). The recipes which really attract me in 'Scandilicious Baking' are the bread based ones, both sweet and savoury, I really look forward to trying them at some stage, but the things I had to hand suggested the Flourless hazelnut and whisky chocolate cake - except with almonds because that's what I had. 

The flourless chocolate cakes I've made before have all involved melted chocolate and whisked egg whites, this one doesn't which makes it much less trouble to throw together and significantly reduces the washing up. The whisky gives the batter a real kick, and as I type smells pretty good, the cake also looks to be behaving and better yet flourless batters are meant to sink a bit in the middle. I have high hopes.