The Scandinavian Year E-Book

Bronte Aurell

• Herausgeber: Ryland Peters & Small
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 303

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

A stunning collection of over 85 PAN-SCANDINAVIAN RECIPES, set across the year from January to December with beautiful LIFESTYLE IMAGES and cultural essays relating to FOOD TRADITIONS and seasonal celebrations. An accessible and engaging EXPLORATION of Scandinavian food featuring delicious recipes to try at home, developed by BRONTË AURELL, owner of the popular SCANDIKITCHEN CAFE in London's bustling West End. Scandinavian food is simple. Natives call it 'husmanskost' (farmer's fare). It's natural and honest. When you work with the very best produce, there's no need to overcomplicate it. Its appeal lies in the fact that it is healthy, wholesome, flavoursome, simple to make and beautiful to look at. Discover the best recipes Scandinavia has to offer and learn more about how the unique Nordic culture influences everyday life throughout the year. This beautifully photographed book takes the reader on a journey from January to December, sharing seasonal recipes plus exploring cultural events and traditions and offering entertaining (and often educational!) insights into the people, places, weather and language.

Leseprobe

The

Scandinavian

Year

Food and thoughts from Sweden, Denmark and Norway

Brontë Aurell

Photography by Peter Cassidy

Dedication

To my mother, Lena.

Senior Designer Megan Smith

Editor Gillian Haslam

Head of Production Patricia Harrington

Creative Director Leslie Harrington

Editorial Director Julia Charles

Food Stylist Kathy Kordalis

Prop Stylist Tony Hutchinson

Picture Researcher Jess Walton

Illustrator Maïté Franchi

Indexer Vanessa Bird

First published in 2025 by

Ryland Peters & Small

20–21 Jockey’s Fields

London WC1R 4BW

and

1452 Davis Bugg Road,

Warrenton, NC 27589

www.rylandpeters.com

email: [email protected]

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Text copyright © Brontë Aurell 2025

Design and commissioned photography copyright © Ryland Peters & Small 2025.

See right for full image credits.

ISBN: 978-1-78879-718-4

E-ISBN: 978-1-78879-739-9

Printed and bound in China.

The author’s moral rights have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library. US Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

The authorised representative in the EEA is Authorised Rep Compliance Ltd., Ground Floor, 71 Lower Baggot Street, Dublin, D02 P593, Ireland www.arccompliance.com

PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS

All photographs by Peter Cassidy apart from those on the following pages: 11 above left rolf_52/AdobeStock; above right Benjamin Edwards/RPS; below Oleksandr Dibrova/AdobeStock; 18 Nassima Rothacker/RPS; 19 below right living4media/Jonathan Birch; 31 above right Wirestock/AdobeStock; below left StockFood/Kati Neudert; below right mariannerjensen/AdobeStock; 47 hans_chr/AdobeStock; 55 below left Debi Treloar/RPS; above right Catherine Gratwicke/RPS; 67 above right House of Pictures/Tia Borgsmidt; below left Sofie K/AdobeStock; below right gadagj/AdobeStock; 74 below right Nassima Rothacker/RPS; 87 above left Nikolai Sorokin/AdobeStock; above right henjon/AdobeStock; below left Sergey Kamshylin/AdobeStock; below right Amaiquez/AdobeStock; 107 above left House of Pictures/Tia Borgsmidt; below left stefanholm/AdobeStock; 127 above left Mari Mur/AdobeStock; above right Polly Wreford/RPS; below Mirek/Adobe Stock; 161 above left House of Pictures/Ester Sorri; above right Alexander/AdobeStock; below left Igor Korobko/AdobeStock; below right House of Pictures/Matilda Lindeblad; 168 above left Olonkho/AdobeStock; 180 below right Debi Treloar/RPS; 181 above left Polly Wreford/RPS; 199 below right House of Pictures/Annabelle Antas; 215 above left House of Pictures/Sussie Bell; below left House of Pictures/Sussie Bell; below right living4media/Etsa.

NOTES

• Both British (Metric) and American (Imperial plus US cups) measurements are included in these recipes for your convenience; however work with only one set of measurements within a recipe.

• All spoon measurements are level unless otherwise specified.

• All eggs are medium (UK) or large (US), unless specified as large, in which case US extra-large should be used. Uncooked or partially cooked eggs should not be served to the frail, young or pregnant.

• When a recipe calls for the grated zest of citrus fruit, buy unwaxed fruit and wash well before using. If you can only find treated fruit, scrub well in warm soapy water before using.

• Always check that any flowers used for garnish are food-safe and pesticide-free.

Contents

Introduction

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Basic recipes

Index

Acknowledgements

Introduction

There is something magical that happens when we enter a kitchen that isn’t only about sustenance. We all recall dishes from our childhoods, and cooking is about creating memories. Perhaps it’s a sandwich on a picnic in the sun, maybe a bag of chips/fries in the rain on the way home from school, a homemade birthday cake, a special meal on a first date, a fun ice-cream flavour on a holiday. The connection between food and memory is so strong that just by eating a bite of a special something can transport us back home to just that memory and feeling, even if only for a brief moment.

During the last decades of writing and working with food from Scandinavia, I’ve raised my children (who are half Swedish, half Danish) here in London where I live. I’ve been fascinated by how we as parents instil our culture in our children not just via language or traditions, but also through the foods we eat. A different kind of mother tongue, developed through taste and all those special moments in childhood.

I’ve spent decades writing down recipes on paper napkins in my café for second- and third-generation Scandinavians, helping them search for long-lost tastes and recipes and evoking remote childhood memories, revisiting feelings, places and people deep in their memory bank. Food can be a temporary remedy for homesickness, soothing a longing for a place or a person we can’t be with in that moment of time. One bite, and you can be back in the arms of your parents, with your childhood sweetheart or on a night out with your best friends.

This book is part traditional, part evolved and most definitely a collection of recipes that I’ve built on and moved with in my life as a Scandinavian emigrant. It is not encyclopaedic (there are plenty of books for that), but it is how I cook at home with my family. As we go through the year in our own hybrid Scandinavian way, we eat, we live and we grow. This book is a love letter to my children, hoping that they take with them in life these bites of their heritage and pass it on to new, special people in their own lives. Mostly, however, this is a thank you to my mother, Lena. In writing this book, I’ve relived my own childhood and all the values and culture that shaped me when growing up in her kitchen back home in Denmark. The kitchen is where I feel her the most, but also where I miss her the most. It is grief, healing and rebirth, all in one year, recipe by recipe.

As life evolves and families grow up, so do the recipes we cook. We change ingredients, flavour notes and the methods we use to cook things. As we become globetrotters in our own right, like nomadic emigrants holding on to the traditions and culture of our grandparents, we substitute local ingredients and change recipes according to what is available around us, in turn, creating our own new recipes for our families and friends from which to make new memories. Food culture is about tradition, but it’s also a beautiful evolution: all our shared experiences thrown together in a big pot and cooked with love.

The start of the year brings darkness. It’s cold. It’s wet. So much snow. No more looking forward to the Yuletide celebrations. And everyone seems worried about their waistlines in a way that was all but forgotten before the turn of the year. No wonder bears prefer sleeping through it all.

On the flip side, January brings promise – to yourself or for the year ahead to be better than the last; to bring change and hope. There’s comfort and consistency – and very few surprises. The monotony of this all brings calm and time for reflection. We know that, eventually, it will end and our initial desire to only eat healthy salads will eventually balance out with foods that bring us a different kind of happiness. January is the month of patience and quiet comfort in the little things. To me, it’s family, friends and cosy nights in (yes, hygge indeed).

We enjoy the winter season’s stored harvest of dark kales and cabbages, and root vegetables of all shapes and sizes. As the frozen ground sleeps outside, we have our pickles and preserves to see us through.

JANUARY

WHO ARE WE?

Somewhere along the way, I changed from being Danish to Scandinavian. This only happens outside Scandinavia. I’ve been an emigrant for longer than I’ve lived at home, so the lines blurred somewhere while moving from place to place. I don’t think this is simply because I married a Swede, although it has made culture feel more fluid across the different places in which we have lived and loved. As we met people from outside Scandinavia, we realised that others see us as one, not the three countries of Denmark, Sweden and Norway. We became ‘the Scandinavians’, perceived as so similar in language, values and outlook. However, in Scandinavia we see ourselves as different to each other.

Scandinavia is a geographical definition (the peninsula of Norway and Sweden with the addition of Denmark). It does not include Finland or Iceland – when they are included, we refer to the ‘Nordics’. Scandinavia is geography, Nordic is a union of the five aforementioned countries, plus Greenland, the Faroe Islands and the Åland Islands.

It’s often a misconception that Scandinavia is not a big place. In fact, at almost 1.1 million square km/425,000 square miles, it’s three-and-a-half times the size of the UK, or Texas and California combined. While our values, cultures and languages have so many similar notes, the food we can grow on the lands varies immensely from north to south and west to east.

To drive a car from the top of mainland Norway to the southern part of Denmark would take you 32 hours in one stretch. There are polar bears on the Norwegian islands and plenty of moose on the mainland, while sometimes-sunny Denmark specialises in pig farming. Scandinavia is as Arctic as it is Germanic.

As the rugged mountain landscapes of the north give way to the bicycle-friendly flats of the south, we share our Viking heritage, Norse mythology and a love of pickled herring. United by food, language roots and a passion for an annual television musical song contest, we are sometimes as similar as we’d like to be seen as unique (when it suits us). Over the centuries, we’ve fought, made up, fought again and eventually ended up as peace-loving, hotdog-eating people who appreciate good design and very salty liquorice.

Danes regards themselves as the descendants of the Vikings and the old rulers of the peninsula. Swedes, the inventors (from flat-pack bookcases to food packaging and dynamite). Norwegians, the keepers of the most beautiful landscapes.

To a Norwegian and Dane, Swedes are often seen as a forward-thinking and tech-savvy bunch. Always very organised and a bit like a big brother, Sweden sets a good example for approaching things level-headedly and with self-control. Norway calls Sweden its söta bror – ‘sweet brother’ – but Sweden doesn’t reciprocate this term of endearment (it’s far too cool). Norwegians often envy Sweden and all its cheap(er) food.

To a Swede, the Norwegians are the summer house-loving people who wear sweaters and are generally quite jolly in their beautiful country. Norway is the only country to rival Sweden at skiing. An underlying attitude of ‘well, you got all your money from oil’ is occasionally sensed but, more than anything, Norwegians are seen as happy-go-lucky, confident, outdoorsy people who are easy to get on with (even if they maybe eat a little too much fish and have an odd fondness for caramelised goat’s cheese). Even when a Norwegian person is angry they can sound jolly, on account of the natural inflection that ends every sentence.

Danes are the often-dressed-in-black cool people, with many men sporting Viking-style beards. They’re seen as laid back and free, on account of there being no state-run alcohol shops in Denmark, so Danes can buy alcohol at any time we want (in other Nordic countries, alcohol sales are strictly regulated). Both Sweden and Norway have issues understanding Danes when they speak Danish because they sound as though they have hot potatoes in their mouths when they speak and the Danish system of naming numbers is extremely complicated. Denmark’s little brother syndrome is strong: it’s by far the smallest of the three countries, with only one hill of 147 m/482 feet to call a ‘mountain’.

As similar as we are, so different.

Jerusalem artichoke soup

Jordskokkesuppe

As winter takes hold across the northern countries, we huddle up and hibernate, desperately longing for daylight. There is something comforting about making a hearty soup and watching the snow fall outside, listening to the crackle of the fire in the background. Many wonder how we get through those dark and cold months – the answer is we surround ourselves with all kinds of comfort: warmth, candles, family and a good bowl of soup.

Jerusalem artichoke can be a little hard to digest for some people. If you have time, soak them in water with added lemon juice for 15 minutes before cooking, as this helps to break down the inulin (or dietary fibre).

butter, for frying

1 onion, peeled and chopped

450 g/1 lb. Jerusalem artichokes (peeled weight)

800 ml/3¼ cups vegetable stock

½ teaspoon grated nutmeg

oil, for frying

100 ml/⅓ cup plus 1 tablespoon cream

400 g/14 oz. haddock loin (optional)

25 g/1 oz. toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped, to serve

fresh thyme leaves, to garnish (optional)

salt and freshly ground black pepper

SERVES 4

Melt a knob/pat of butter in a saucepan. Add the onion and fry, without colouring, for around 15 minutes over a low heat.

Wash and peel the Jerusalem artichokes. Set aside two of the longer artichokes and cut the remainder into 1-cm/½-inch cubes.

Add the cubed artichokes to the pan with the onions and fry over a low heat for a few minutes, then add the stock and leave to simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes. Season with salt, pepper and the nutmeg.

Meanwhile, in a frying plan/skillet, add a glug of oil. Thinly slice the two reserved artichokes, then add to the pan and fry until super crisp. Remove from the pan and drain on paper towels.

If you are adding haddock to the soup, melt a little butter and oil in the pan used to fry the artichokes. Add the haddock and gently fry, flipping only once, until done – the cooking time depends on the thickness of the fish, but a total frying time of around 5 minutes is approximate.

When the cubed artichoke is super soft, blend the soup with a stick blender until smooth, then add the cream and check the seasoning.

Serve hot in bowls with the fish added at the last minute (if using), and the hazelnuts and artichoke crisps on top. If you wish, garnish with a few fresh thyme leaves.

VARIATIONS Add small, freshly chopped pieces of apple just before serving, if you want a hint of freshness. Small crispy fried pancetta pieces also work really well with this soup.

Waldorf salad with spelt grain

Waldorfsalat med spelt

As a 70s child, I am always going to have some fond memories of the exotic creamy salads that were popular back then. One of these is the Waldorf. It has always remained popular in Norway and, reading up on the reasons why, it seems that the link between Norway and the Waldorf Astoria Hotel – where this salad was invented – is a lady called Jørgine Boomer. Jørgine was born in Norway and emigrated to the US when she was 16. Her husband bought the Waldorf Astoria in 1918 and together they managed the hotel for many years. That she was an influence on this salad’s popularity back in Norway is purely speculation, but is not entirely unlikely.

This is a slightly non-traditional version of the classic salad with added grain and a lighter dressing.

60 g/generous ½ cup chopped walnuts

2 tablespoons date syrup or golden/corn syrup (optional)

4 sticks celery, peeled (see note) and chopped into 1-cm/½-inch pieces

2 green apples, cored and chopped into 1-cm/½-inch pieces

a small bunch of green grapes, halved if large

100 g/3½ oz. cooked spelt grain (I use the ready-cooked grain pouches)

2 Gem lettuce, leaves separated

2 tablespoons freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley

DRESSING

3 heaped tablespoons crème fraîche

3 heaped tablespoons Greek yogurt

1 teaspoon honey

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

½ teaspoon Dijon mustard

a good squeeze of fresh lemon juice

salt and freshly ground black pepper

SERVES 4 AS A GENEROUS SIDE

Lightly toast the chopped walnuts. At the last minute, just as you turn off the heat, coat the walnut pieces with the date or golden/corn syrup (or leave uncoated if you prefer).

To make the dressing, mix all the ingredients together.

In a bowl, mix the chopped celery, apples and grapes. Mix in the dressing and season to taste. Add the spelt grain.

Scatter the crispy lettuce leaves over a serving plate, add half the salad mixture across, then add half the walnuts. Top with the remaining salad mixture, then scatter over the parsley and remaining walnuts.

NOTE I peel the celery lightly with a peeler if eating it raw – this removes the stringy bits.

Haddock with beetroot and parsnips

Stegt kuller med rødbeder

This recipe can be made with your white fish of choice, but I do love haddock. However, if making this back in Scandinavia, I would most likely use cod, as haddock isn’t as popular there. The roasted beets combine well with a creamy parsnip mash and fresh tart apple bites.

If you want to cook your own beetroot rather than using pre-cooked, boil or roast until tender, then cool and peel, before proceeding with the recipe.

4 pieces of haddock loin, approx. 600–800 g/1 lb. 5 oz.–1 lb. 12 oz. total weight (cod also works well for this)

vegetable oil

salt and freshly ground black pepper

PARSNIP PURÉE

600 g/1 lb. 5 oz. parsnips

300 ml/1¼ cups whole milk

100 ml/⅓ cup plus 1 tablespoon cream

1 bay leaf

1 garlic clove

a pinch of grated nutmeg

a few drops of white wine vinegar

ROAST BEETROOT

400 g/14 oz. cooked beetroot/beets, cut into wedges

a glug of olive oil

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

2 sprigs of fresh thyme

TOPPING

30 g/2 tablespoons browned butter

1 tart apple, skin left on, cored and finely diced

sprigs of fresh dill

SERVES 4

To make the parsnip purée, set half a parsnip aside to make crisps, then peel and cut the remainder into even-sized chunks. Place in a saucepan with the milk, cream, bay leaf and garlic and boil until cooked through and soft, about 15 minutes. Transfer the parsnip (discard the bay leaf and garlic clove) to a blender and add as much of the liquid as is needed to blend to a smooth purée – you may not need it all. Season with nutmeg, salt, pepper and a few drops of vinegar.

To roast the beetroot/beets, preheat the oven to 195ºC/175ºC fan/375ºF/Gas 5. Add the cooked beetroot to a small roasting dish with the oil, vinegar and thyme and roast for around 15 minutes.

To make the parsnip crisps, thinly slice the reserved half parsnip with a peeler, then fry in a hot pan with vegetable oil until browned. Leave to drain and crisp up on paper towels.

In a frying pan/skillet heated with a bit of oil, fry the haddock until just cooked through – the length of time depends on the thickness of the fish. Turn once during cooking. Season well.

To make the browned butter, melt the butter in a pan until it froths and turns brown.

To serve, if necessary gently warm the parsnip purée. Divide the purée between serving plates, then place the fish to one side. Add the beetroot wedges and chopped apple on top, then decorate with dill sprigs and parsnip crisps. Finish with a few spoonfuls of the brown butter. Enjoy immediately.

NOTE The parsnip mash is delicious on its own served as a side dish to a roast dinner – simply top with the fresh apple and browned butter.

My mother’s Danish meatballs

Everyone’s mother makes the best meatballs. Except my kids also always preferred my mother’s meatballs to mine. To be fair, Mamma Lena’s meatballs were the best. When she passed away, we thought her special methods and tricks for making the meatballs in her own way were gone forever, but it turned out that my brother-in-law Benjamin – an excellent cook himself – had filmed her making these meatballs from start to finish. What was meant as a bit of a fun clip has become my most treasured thing: her voice, her laughter, her kitchen, her meatballs.

In a previous book I published a recipe of her meatballs where I added allspice. She wasn’t impressed because it was my thing to add allspice, not hers. I have removed it in this recipe and made sure that this is just as she made them.

300 g/10½ oz. minced/ground veal

200 g/7 oz. minced/ground pork (minimum 15% content – don’t buy low-fat pork)

1 teaspoon salt

1 onion, grated

1 whole egg

50 g/1 cup breadcrumbs or oats

3 tablespoons plain/all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon grated nutmeg

100 ml/⅓ cup warm whole milk, with ½ beef or chicken stock/bouillon cube dissolved into it

freshly ground black pepper

100 ml/⅓ cup plus 1 tablespoon sparkling water

75 g/5 tablespoons butter and a good glug of olive oil, for frying

SERVES 4

Place the minced/ground meat and salt in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Mix for about 1 minute on medium speed.

Squeeze the excess juice from the grated onion (to get rid of most of the liquid). Add to the meat and mix again, then add the egg, breadcrumbs, flour, nutmeg and milk with the dissolved stock/bouillon cube. Season with black pepper and mix until incorporated. Leave to rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 120°C/100ºC fan/250°F/Gas ½.

Take the meat out of the fridge, then add the sparkling water and stir in. (If the mixture feels too wet, you can add more flour here until you have a mixture that holds its shape.) Using a tablespoon, scoop out a quantity of meat mixture the size of a large egg. Wet your hands, then use the flat of your hand to help shape the meatballs. Danish meatballs are not round, but slightly oval.

In a frying pan/skillet, heat up the butter and leave it to brown and bubble, then add a glug of oil. The large quantity of butter is essential for these meatballs, or they just don’t get the right crust and flavour.

Test one small meatball first just to taste you have the right seasoning, then you can adjust as necessary and continue with the rest of the mixture. Fry the meatballs over a medium-high heat, in batches to allow plenty of room for turning, for 2–3 minutes on each side. Transfer to the warm oven for approx. 10 minutes to complete the cooking. Repeat until you have used all the meat.

Serve with sautéed or boiled potatoes and brown gravy made from good stock.

These meatballs freeze well but also keep for 3 days in the fridge. Also absolutely delicious served cold on an open sandwich.

NOTE If you do not wish to use veal, substitute with all pork – Mamma Lena often did so.

Swedish curd cake with raspberries

Ostkaka med hallon

If you are going to make this, the first thing you need to know is that it won’t taste like any cheesecake you’ve had before. It’s actually a curd cake – only called cheesecake because, well, cottage cheese is also a cheese. Originally, this was made using raw milk and rennet, but I use cottage cheese, as do many people nowadays. This version is sometimes also known as a falsk ostkaka (‘fake curd cake’), as it does change the texture slightly compared to the rennet version – but on the flip side, it takes 3 minutes to stir together and in my opinion it tastes just as good.

There are several regional varieties, but the one from the south of Sweden is the version I make at home. Always serve this lukewarm, never cold. It does not keep, so eat up as soon as you can.

50 g/¼ cup caster/granulated sugar

3 eggs

400 g/14 oz. natural cottage cheese (not too cold or the curds won’t break when mixing)

100 ml/⅓ cup plus 1 tablespoon double/heavy cream

50 g/½ cup finely chopped blanched almonds

25 g/3 tablespoons plain/all-purpose flour (or 1½ tablespoons cornflour/cornstarch, if you prefer no gluten)

1 teaspoon vanilla sugar or vanilla extract

a pinch of salt

1 teaspoon almond extract

dusting of ground cinnamon or cardamom

TOPPING

125 g/4½ oz. raspberries

2 tablespoons sugar

ovenproof serving dish, approx. 20 x 25 cm/8 x 10 inches, greased with butter

SERVES 4–6

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/160ºC fan/350ºF/Gas 4.

In a stand mixer, whisk the sugar and eggs until light and airy. Add all the remaining ingredients apart from the cinnamon or cardamom. Give it a stir to break up the cheese curds a little and pour into your prepared dish.

Dust the top with a tiny bit of ground cinnamon or cardamom (less than ½ teaspoon – it’s just for a bit of flavour).

Place in the preheated oven and bake until set and slightly golden on top. This depends on your oven but around 30 minutes is a good guideline. Keep an eye on it – it needs to be set but not overcooked.

Meanwhile, make the topping. Place 100 g/3½ oz. of the raspberries in a saucepan, add the sugar and a dash of water and boil until the raspberries have broken down and it looks like a runny jam. Leave to cool.

To serve, dollop the jam on top of the cake and decorate with the remaining berries. Always serve this lukewarm, never cold.

NOTE Instead of making a topping, you can also just use jam/preserves of your choice. I often serve this with cloudberry jam as it pairs so well with the almond and vanilla. I also sometimes serve it with cherry sauce (see page 226). I’ve even been known to eat this with salted caramel (see page 38), although admitting to this might get me into trouble with the Swedish food police.

Easy rye bread

Nemt rugbrød

Most authentic Danish rye bread recipes use a sourdough starter as a base, which gives depth, flavour and structure to the bread. However, if you do not have an active sourdough starter (maybe, like me, you keep killing, them), then this recipe is for you: rye bread ready in a few hours, rather than several days. Pictured on page 19.

200 g/7 oz. cracked rye kernels (see note below)

200 ml/¾ cup hot water

1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice or neutral vinegar (such as white wine vinegar)

200 ml/¾ cup room-temperature milk

15 g/½ oz. fresh yeast

150 ml/⅔ cup lukewarm water

1 tablespoon dark molasses or treacle

200 ml/¾ cup Guinness or other stout

150 g/1 cup plus 1 tablespoon wholegrain rye flour

300 g/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons white bread flour

100 g/¾ cup sunflower seeds

50 g/⅓ cup pumpkin seeds/pepitas

75 g/⅔ cup linseeds/flax seeds

1 tablespoon fine salt

approx. 50 g/⅓ cup pumpkin seeds/pepitas or sunflower seeds, to decorate

1.5-litre/3-lb. loaf pan (or use 2 smaller loaf pans), lined with baking parchment

MAKES 1 LOAF

Add the cracked rye to a bowl and top with the hot water. Leave until the rye has absorbed the water and the mixture is lukewarm (around 30 minutes).

Add the lemon juice (or vinegar) to the milk – this will curdle the milk in around 15 minutes.

Add the yeast to a stand mixer, then add the lukewarm water and allow to dissolve. Add all remaining ingredients (adding the salt last) and mix well for about 4–5 minutes. Cover the mixer bowl with a damp kitchen towel and leave to rise for about an hour. It will look gloopy and porridge like.

Using a spoon, beat the air out of the mixture. Pour into the prepared loaf pan and leave to rise again for another hour (you can also leave to rise in the fridge overnight – if so, you can reduce the amount of yeast by half). The loaf will not rise a lot, maybe only by a quarter.

Preheat the oven to 240ºC/220ºC fan/475ºF/Gas 8.

Just before baking, brush the top gently with water and prick the top of the bread all over with a fork, to a depth of 2.5 cm/1 inch below the surface – this allows the bread to stay level when baking and avoid air pockets forming. Scatter the seeds for decorating all across the top.

Pop the bread in the hot oven and immediately turn it down to 200ºC/180ºC fan/400ºF/Gas 6. Bake for approximately 1 hour, depending on your oven. When the internal temperature of the loaf reaches around 98ºC/208ºF, the bread is ready.

Rye bread is always sticky when just baked. For the best result, allow the bread to cool, then wrap in clingfilm/plastic wrap and wait 24 hours before eating, or at least until it has cooled down completely. It will slice perfectly the next day (in my opinion, the perfect slice of rye bread for an open sandwich is 7 mm/¼ inch thick). You can freeze this bread, but it does last 3–5 days after baking.

If you don’t have a 1.5-litre/3-lb. loaf pan, use two smaller ones and adjust the baking time (using a thermometer to check the internal temperature).

NOTE If you cannot find cracked rye, a reasonable substitute is whole rye pulsed a few times in a food processor before using. Never use whole rye as the seed needs to be cut or the liquid will not be absorbed as well.

That 80s chocolate cake

Kärleksmums

As a child growing up in Denmark in the 1980s, this hugely popular cake was always just known as ‘you know, that cake’, and recipes for the best version were traded among neighbours and friends. All the while over in Sweden, this cake had a real name – Kärleksmums – which literally translates to ‘love yummy’. It was the cake you always hoped someone would bring into school for their birthday, baked in a big rectangular pan so there was more than enough for everyone. I have no idea where it originated but for me, it is everything about our carefree childhood.

75 g/¾ cup good-quality cacao powder

150 ml/⅔ cup just-boiled water

150 ml/⅔ cup whole milk

300 g/2¾ sticks butter, softened

300 g/1½ cups caster/granulated sugar

4 large/US extra-large eggs

275 g/2 cups plain/all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla sugar

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda/baking soda

TOPPING

150 g/1 cup icing/confectioner’s sugar

50 g/3½ tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon cacao powder

½ teaspoon vanilla sugar

4 tablespoons strong black coffee

50 g/⅔ cup desiccated/dried shredded coconut, plus extra to decorate

sea salt flakes (optional)

sheet pan, approx. 35 x 25 cm/14 x 10 inches, lined with baking parchment

SERVES 8–10

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/160ºC fan/350ºF/Gas 4.

Mix together the cacao powder and hot water and leave to cool a little. Add the milk to the cacao mixture.

Cream the butter and sugar in a stand mixer until pale. Add the eggs one by one, taking care they are completely incorporated. Sift the flour, salt, vanilla sugar and bicarbonate of soda/baking soda into another bowl.

Add the flour mixture and the cacao mixture to the egg mixture whilst whisking continuously on a slow speed, taking care to ensure everything is just incorporated. Do not over-beat or you will end up with a heavy cake.

Pour the batter into the prepared sheet pan. Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out just clean (take care not to over-bake). Cool slightly in the pan, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the topping, combine all the ingredients in a saucepan over a low heat and leave to melt. Spread over the cooled cake and top with extra coconut and a few sea salt flakes (optional). Leave to set before serving.

Choux buns with salted caramel

Kartoffelkager med saltkaramel

That the Danish name for these cakes is ‘potato cakes’ (kartoffelkager) is slightly misleading – they have nothing to do with potatoes, other than that they look a bit like them once the marzipan topping is added at the end (and hence this is how they got the name). Some places make these with a layered cake base, others as a choux pastry (which is what I prefer). I add a bit of salted caramel sauce to cut against the sweetness of the whipped cream and pastry cream.

1 quantity Choux Pastry Basic Batter (see page 235)

250 ml/1 cup whipping cream

¼ quantity Pastry Cream (see page 237) or 150 g/5½ oz. store-bought custard

150 g/5½ oz. Salted Caramel (see page 38 or store-bought)

200 g/7 oz. Marzipan, ideally 50% almond content (see page 237 or store-bought)

cocoa powder, for dusting

2 baking sheets, greased and lined with baking parchment

2 large piping/pastry bags fitted with large plain nozzle/tip (optional)

5–6-cm (2–2½-inch) round cookie cutter

MAKES 20

Preheat the oven to 200°C/180ºC fan/400°F/Gas 6.

Prepare the choux pastry following the instructions on page 235. Spoon or pipe out around 20 buns of equal, generous size onto the prepared baking sheets. They will rise and puff up slightly, so space them apart.

Pop in the preheated oven and bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the oven to 160°C/140ºC fan/320°F/Gas 3 and bake for a further 20 minutes. Do not open the door for the first 20 minutes of baking time. The buns take around 30 minutes in total.

Remove from the oven and pierce the buns immediately to allow steam to escape from the pastry. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

No more than 2 hours before serving, whip the cream to stiff peaks, then fold in the pastry cream or custard. Cut each bun open. First pipe in a dollop of salted caramel, then pipe in a generous amount of cream.

Roll out the marzipan on a surface lightly dusted with icing/confectioner’s sugar. Stamp out 20 shapes to fit over the top of the choux pastry buns using the cookie cutter. Dust the marzipan shapes generously with cocoa powder and add to the top of the buns.

The coldest month of them all, no matter if you’re in the south of Denmark or the northernmost islands of Norway. February brings a bitter, fierce chill that bites you right to the bone. This is deep winter with only a little light. It’s also known as the month of cream buns (which probably keep us going).

In Denmark we might, by mid-February, be lucky to see the little snowdrop and winter aconite flowers peek up from the semi-frozen ground and we’re reminded that, at some point, hopefully soon, the snow will melt and things will feel brighter and lighter. Mostly, though, those first green shoots come and go, quickly followed by both the first and second false springs, teasing us into submission for a bit longer.

Further north, though, there’s much less chance of peeping shoots; February in the fjälls of Sweden and Norway still means heavy blankets of snow and having to dress in several layers of weather-appropriate clothing just to leave the house to pick up a carton of milk. However, February is perfect for winter sports in these mountainous regions, even if the days outside are very short and sweet, lit up by snowflakes that reflect the light as the sun hurries to set almost as soon as it rose.

FEBRUARY

THE TRADITIONS OF LENT

Many are surprised to learn how big a part the lead-up to Lent plays in the Scandinavian calendar, even if nowadays very few people ever actually give up anything. The season is called Fastelavn in Denmark and Norway, from the old Danish word fastelaghen and the old German word fastelabend, meaning ‘the night before the fast’. It spans several days, with different ones having importance in various parts of our countries.

On the Sunday and Monday before Lent (seven weeks before Easter), Danish and Norwegian kids don fancy dress and gather at schools, nurseries and town halls. In Denmark, kids slå katten af tønden