Julekake

julekake means "christmas cake" in Norwegian - but really this is a yeast bread with dried fruit bits in it. it's so good.







Julekake - Norwegian Christmas bread: makes two loaves

Mix dry ingredients together in a very large bowl:
1.5 liters of flour
250 grams of sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons of cardamom

Prepare your yeast:
mix two packets of dry yeast with 1 deciliter of lukewarm water and 2 teaspoons of sugar
let sit for two minutes

Mix wet ingredients together in a bowl:
400 grams of melted butter (about 3 and a half sticks)
5 deciliters of milk
yeast mixture

Pour the wet mixture into the bowl of dry ingredients.
knead with your hands for about ten minutes or using the dough hook on your standmixer
keep extra flour and milk nearby if you need to adjust the texture of your dough
it's ready when it comes together in a ball without leaving bits of itself behind in the bowl.

cover the ball of dough in the ball and let it rise in a warm place for about 45 minutes

put 2 deciliters of raisins and 1 deciliter of candied citrus peel (lemon and/or orange) chopped to about the same size as raisins aside.

When the dough ball has risen by at least 50%, knead the raisins and candied citrus peel into the dough until it is thoroughly incorporated. Then cut the dough in half and shape it into two round balls. Set the balls on a buttered baking sheet in a warm place (on top of your preheating oven, perhaps?) and cover with a kitchen towel. Let rise for 45 more minutes.

Brush each loaf with egg white or milk.

Leave the loaves on the cookie sheet and put into preheated 350 degree oven. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour, until quite brown. if they are big they can be raw inside - and it's hard to overcook this guy, it's ok if it gets a little dry, you're going to eat it with butter on it anyways.

Remove from oven and immediately set loaves on to cooling racks. Don't cut into them until they are completely cooled!

The bread will last for quite awhile. It is best eaten toasted with butter. so good.

A story here - this recipe is adapted from the scanned in copies of a norwegian cookbook that's missing a critical page that I got from my mom. So let's just say it has taken some trial and error to get these right! still working on it.




Also, fair warning, this takes about 5 hours to make. And that's if you're on your game.

cod in packets!

So I was heading off to babysit the other day (lie, I was watching kids by the dozen on my couch, waiting for the kid to call me) the mom calls, and says: "max isn't coming home till later, but you can come make dinner now. I have some cod fillets for Jesse, and some steak for max."

I was like, "sure!" and then immediately sped to the internet. what would I do with cod? Cook's illustrated to the rescue! cod in foil packets with zucchini and tomatoes! I was lucky - this recipe is from the March issue! http://cooksillustrated.com/recipes/detail.asp?docid=18757

I am not one for quantities, but here's roughly what I did, in pictures and some words.

I sliced one zucchini into half rounds, put it in a salad spinner with salt, and let it sweat.

then I chopped about 12 cherry tomatoes in half, and diced two large cloved of garlic. I tossed those together in a bowl with someolice oil, salt, pepper, dried oregano, and just a few chili pepper flakes. You're supposed to de-seed the tomatoes, and they're supposed to be plum tomatoes, but, who's counting?

I am just making two fish fillets, so, I tear off four approx 12"x12" pieces of tin foil and lay them out.

next I take my "sweaty" zucchini out of the salad spinner and put them flat on a layer of 3 paper towels, and press down on them with a layer of three more paper towels. I probably should have let them sweat longer, because there was definitely still some moisture left in them.

I mounded half the now sorta dry zucchini in the middle of one piece of tin foil (dull side up) and half in the other. then I poured about a tablespoon of white wine on top of each of the zucchini mounds.

Next I cut the fish into two slightly rectangular pieces, (about 4 inches long?) and patted them down with a paper towel, although they weren't that wet to start with, and then put a little salt and pepper on each side. I laid each piece of fish on top of a mound of zucchini.

then I put half of the tomato mixture on top of each piece of fish.

Finally - packet time! I put the second piece of foil on top of the fish, and folded the edges over 3 times on each side.

Jesse wasn't ready to eat yet, so I put the packets in the refrigerator. when she was ready, I preheated the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit, and I put the fish packets on a baking sheet. When the oven was hot, I popped them in the oven for 17 minutes. (I added two minutes because of the fridge time - usually it's 15 minutes.)

when they came out, I used a knife to open the packets *away from me* and slid everythign inside onto a plate. ta dah! (not so) instant meal!

Jesse ate the whole thing! success! There are several other packet fillet recipes, you could put most veggies in, I think, you just want to make sure there's not too much liquid in there.

carrot muffins. with frosting. cream cheese frosting.

we have a whole lot of carrots from the farm share.  a whole lot.  like 8 poundsish right now.  We would have more carrots, but last night I made lentil soup with quadruple the normal amount of carrots.  and today I made carrot muffins.  the frosting makes them like dessert.

the recipe was an all-recipes situation.  Check out the original here.  

first I preheated the oven  to 350 degrees and I buttered the bottoms, only, of the muffin tins.

next time I would use muffin cup liners because it was a little hard (but not too hard) to get the muffins out of the tins.

then I mixed together:

1 1/3 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp salt

then I whisked briskly 3 eggs and 1 cup of sugar, then I added 3/4 cup of vegetable oil and 1 tsp vanilla extract.

then I added in the 2 cups of finely grated carrots that I had grated earlier.  I washed the carrots and then grated them.  I thought that maybe I should have peeled the carrots and I was worried that the muffins would be bitter - but they were not!

finally, I folded in the dry ingredients, then I ladled the mix into the muffin tins and baked it for 18 minutes.

while they were baking I put two tablespoons of butter and two ounces of cream cheese in the microwave for about 20 seconds.  then I popped them into a bowl with 1 1/2 cups of confectioners sugar and 1 tsp of vanilla extract.  then I beat it with a wooden spoon - and it was frosting!

when the muffins came out, I used a knife to help them out and once they had cooled on the rack for a bit, I used a knife to spread frosting on them.  and then I got to eat them, and share them!

vegan blueberry grunts

As I threatened, I made the blueberry grunt featured in a recent post on VeganYumYum. I followed Lolo's recipe basically to a T, so I am not going to reproduce it here except for changes, suggestions, etc.



I made the one-big-grunt-steamed-in-a-pan version. Not as cute as the individual grunts, but I think less work. They came out pretty well - well enough that gina marie, roommate emily and I all cleaned our plates. I think that next time i will make smaller "pieces" of grunt though, not cook the blueberries down so much, and maybe have a higher berry to dough ratio.

the wet stuff... I had two plastic boxes of blueberries, and gina marie had a handful of leftover raspberries and strawberries and I popped those in too.


berries simmered for about 20 minutes - probably a little too long. I guess I thought they needed to be really thick to hold up the biscuit. Not actually true!


My attempt to "cut" in the earth balance. I mushed it as best I could with a fork and then put it in the fridge.


added the soymilk - I only had unsweetened vanilla, so that's what I used. I should have taken my rings off first.


really should have taken off the rings. I maybe shouldn't have used my hands because hands are warm, but I wasn't sure how else to manage it without overmixing.


this was tricky, I had no idea what I was doing - I should have followed instructions and made *bite-sized* biscuit pieces, but they were so sticky!








it was weird looking, but pretty.


lid on! no peeking - except I have a clear lid!


and done


done


done!

august blog number two - veganyumyum and lolo

I was at a fantastic birthday party for Ms. Chloe the other night, and I met a famous vegan foodblogger. Lolo's blog, VeganYumYum, is pretty right on. She has lots of beautiful pictures of vegan baked goods and other animal-free food including special cupcakes for knitting night (she was totes on Martha Stewart) and something called blueberry grunts - which I am dying to make, both because they look awesome, and because I am committed to making all kinds of cobbler-family desserts in a vegan way.... (see my blueberry buckle of 2007...)

Since VeganYumYum doesn't have a logo, I am including the latest post's gorgeous picture... Lolo says that she wants to do something with red currants and peppercorns! I am waiting excitedly to see what she comes up with next....

pumpkin biscotti

I've wanted to make biscotti since I saw a friend do it and realized that the fancy Italian name does not actually mean this is complex and agonizing. it's no soufflé, folks. last night I mentioned to gina marie that I had found a pumpkin biscotti recipe and kind of wanted to make it. once she gave me permission (I was using her kitchen, after all), I set off to work with help from the folks at simplyrecipes.com.

what you need:

• 2.5 cups of white flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 0.5 teaspoon nutmeg
• pinch of ginger
• pinch of salt
• pinch of cloves (which I left out)
• 2 eggs
• 0.5 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

what you do:
preheat oven to 350.

sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and spices. cool? cool. then, in a separate bowl, combine the beat the eggs, then add the pumpkin puree and vanilla. mix it the wet ingredients together. it will look really gross.



combine the wet and dry ingredients. I, of course, used more pumpkin than recommended. if you do this, pay attention during the combination stage. you may need to add more flour to add balance, as you're making dough and not pumpkin puree served on a bed of flour.

knead the dough. you'll probably need more flour on your hands than you would think, so either keep it nearby and ready to go or just double up before you begin. despite the intense flouring, you don't need to go nuts with kneading. just do a quick knead, adding more flour if the dough is too loose.
lightly grease a baking sheet and form the dough into a flat rectangle - 20"x7" or thereabouts. if you're like I am, you'll have no idea what those measurements mean. in that case, think about the size of your biscotti: do you want long biscotti or something more manageable? call upon your baking ideals and pop the dough into the oven for 22-30 minutes.

I pulled this guy out of the oven and thought to myself, "I've made ugly bread." let it cool for 15 minutes. then take a serrated knife and cut into 1"-wide pieces.
turn the oven down to 300 degrees and cook for an additional 15 minutes or 20 minutes. I think I could have left mine in for 20-25 minutes, but that's post hoc suspicion. let biscotti cool completely. they may still be a bit chewy, so just leave uncovered and let the magic happen. yum! so much pumpkin goodness! give to your friends! pretend you're Italian! get excited for autumn!

still to come: arty shots of biscotti that I took last night while dinner was cooking.

blogging blogs. omg. black metal baking.

When sarah emily and I (sarah elisabeth) went to Norway once, we met a blackmetal fanatic, who was very nice and spoke a lot of English. He was disturbed that sarah emily didn't know who motorhead was, and he also was a computer programmer and at the very end of our visit to this particular bar, sarah emily and I were leaving to go to the awesome lesbo-bar in Oslo that is now sadly closed. I think it was called sin pecado. Anyways, we were leaving and his friend suddenly pulled down his pants and we were made to bear witness to his rather small penis. The not-at-all chagrined black metal fan said: "It's not magic." And we left, but we loved it. It was amazing.

Black metal is a peculiarly Norwegian/Scandinavian genre of metal related to satanism and the occult and sometimes to ancient nordic religions. (wikipedia it if you want to know all the sordid details... they are actually awesome.) There is a certain awesome stupid nihilism to black metal.

In other news, stephen (of threefrog.blogspot.com) just alerted me to the most amazing site ever. it is blackmetal inspired baking. I can't wait to try everything. check out: The Black Oven.

This is the latest post...
The Black Oven: Where the Chocolate Beats Incessant