80th Birthday Cake

 This year has several round birthdays in our family, one of which was Lundulph's mum turning 80, so we threw a huge party and I had the pleasure of making a cake large enough for about 50 people. Lundulph suggested I make it in the shape of "80" and I wanted to make it a bit more festive when cutting it up, so I settled on the Funfetti cake from Preppy Kitchen.

 Having had a few mishaps when converting an American recipe to metric, I decided to do a trial run first with half of the recipe. As with others of Mr Kanell's recipes, this one worked very nicely too. Lundulph certainly didn't complain about the trial run, which gave 24 very tasty muffins.

Cake 

Ingredients

makes one round cake of 20 cm diameter

 

203 g plain flour

22 g glutinous rice flour

1 ¼ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

1 tbsp vanilla sugar 

114 g kefir (100 ml)

68 g semi-skimmed milk (60 ml) 

233 g granulated sugar

114 g unsalted butter at room temperature

38 g vegetable oil (40 ml)

140 g egg whites 

50 g colourful sprinkles

 

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190 ℃, not fan. 
2. Sift together the flours, baking powder, salt and vanilla sugar and set aside.
3. Stir together the kefir and milk in a jug.
4. Beat together sugar, butter and vegetable oil until well combined and creamy.
5. Whisk in the egg whites in three parts, combining well between each addition.
6. Add one third of the flour mixture and keep whisking.
7. Add half the kefir-milk mixture and whisk in.
8. Add the second third of the flour mixture and incorporate.
9. Add the remaining kefir-milk.
10. Add the final third of the flour mixture.
11. Once all is well mixed, gently fold in the sprinkles just enough to get them distributed throughout the batter.
12. Pour the batter into a greased and floured cake tin and bake for 38 minutes.
13. Take out of the oven and let cool in the cake tin for 10 minutes, then remove the cake and put on a wire rack to cool down completely.
14. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before slicing layers. 
15. Freeze if not making the cake straight away. 

Because this cake uses only egg whites, the crumb is paler than if using whole eggs and I think it makes the sprinkles stand out a bit more. But it also results in a lot of yolks. I was lucky in that I had 8 leftover egg whites frozen from a previous bake, and I used them for two of the cakes. So I only needed 8 more eggs for the remaining two cakes. It still left 8 yolks to deal with and I used them for the vanilla cream (crème pâtissière) that I used as filling. I used the recipe that I should have used for the vanilla hearts all those years ago. This is a really nice one.

Filling

Ingredients

 

500 g semi-skimmed milk

1 tbsp vanilla sugar

120 g egg yolks

125 g granulated sugar

40 g corn starch

25 g unsalted butter

 

Method

1. Warm up the milk to room temperature in a large saucepan.
2. Whip up the vanilla sugar, yolks, sugar and corn starch in a bowl until pale and fluffy.
3. Add the milk and stir through to incorporate, then pour the mixture back into the saucepan and place on medium heat.
4. Bring to the boil while whisking constantly.
5. Add the butter and stir it in, then remove the saucepan from the stove.
6. Push through a sieve to remove any lumps and into a wide shallow dish.
7. Cover the surface with cling film to prevent a skin from forming, then place the dish in cold water to cool down the cream as quickly as possible and refrigerate.
8. Use within two days, otherwise freeze.
9. If using from frozen, thaw in the fridge, then bring to the boil in a microwave in short 20 s bursts with stirring through inbetween to bring it back together again. 

 This made enough vanilla cream to use as filling between the two layers of both cakes, as well as left a little bit over to use between the cutout pieces and help keep them together.

Once I'd settled on the recipe, the next thing to figure out was how to get the shapes of an "8" and a "0". The "8" was easy, two round cakes need to overlap a bit, so the overlap needs to be cut out from one of the cakes. I used the cake tin as a guide and cut carefully with a knife. Note that I swapped the overlaps between the two layers to make sure the cake wouldn't split during transport.

The "0" however was a bigger challenge. I originally planned to make a rectangular cake and cut out an oval, but this would have been wasteful in the extreme. I also couldn't find anything helpful when I searched on the internet, but it occurred to me that I could probably manage with two round cakes here as well. Just cut them out like the "8", then use all the cutoffs to fill in the "waist" and turn it into a "0". I'm very pleased that I managed to work this out and it saved me making a large rectangular sponge which would definitely have been different to the two round ones. There were still some leftovers afterwards, I've frozen them to use for cake pops.

 

An annoying thing was that although I used the same cake tin for all four sponges, there were some visible differences in size between them and I'm not entirely sure why this happened. I did my best to repeat everything exactly the same. But I made the sponges over a couple of days, so clearly something was different.

I should also mention that I had some frozen light syrup from canned peaches, about 2 dl, which I thawed and drizzled on the bottom layer of each cake as I was putting it together. I didn't have enough for the upper layer and since I covered the cakes with marzipan directly without a crumb layer, I thought the marzipan might soak up some of the syrup and go runny. In hindsight, I should have made a crumb layer to level out between the edges. This would need to be buttercream, again to protect the marzipan. 

Lundulph's mum had done some serious marzipan shopping by mistake, so I used most of it to cover the cake. I spent an evening after work colouring it green and discovered interesting differences between brands. The Dr. Oetker one was ground much more finely and was much easier to work with. Sainsbury's and Tesco's were fairly similar to each other, but a bit coarser. I should perhaps mention that I am not sponsored by any of these brands, this was just an unexpected opportunity to compare. I'm very pleased that I managed to get the same tone on all, because I did the colouring in batches. 

I then found this video on YouTube, which was very helpful in how to roll out the marzipan thinly and I blended and heated up some of my runny rhubarb jam to use as glue. I followed the steps in the video and managed to roll the marzipan to about 3 mm, maybe even a little thinner.

Earlier in the year, I'd spent a few evenings making the golden cake lace. This time I found ready mixed paste and the instructions helpfully said the lace could be set much faster in the oven, so I ended up doing about a metre and a half too much. It was fun and easy. Hopefully, I'll find use for that at some point. I used edible glue to fix it to the marzipan.

All in all, the cake was a success, but with all the other food, the guests didn't eat as much of it as anticipated, so we had a lot of cake on the following day.

Klappgröt

 Last year one of my colleagues told me about a funny book on the "brown food" people used to make in the 1970s and even sent me a link to it. The book is sadly no longer available, but the link allowed for looking at some of the pages and recipes. Severl of them were from a clear plastic box of recipe cards, which looked very familiar to me. Indeed my mum has one of these boxes, half-filled with recipe cards. I got it out and worked through all of them with the vague hope that I'd find one of the recipes from the book. I didn't, clearly there were different makes of these recipe card boxes available back in the early 80s when we first moved to Sweden.

However, of all the 100+ cards, there were two that really stood out for me and I decided to take them home and try them out. I can't remember my mum ever using these cards, so I'm quite pleased that she'd saved them.

The first card was from category #22 "delicious desserts" and is card #48. The dessert is called Klappgröt and it was the name that attracted me to it. "Gröt" means porrige and from what I've been able to find out, "klapp" is an older culinary term for beating or whipping. The second thing that attracted me was that it is made with lingonberries and semolina. Of all the different types of porrige, semolina porrige is the one I like best and thanks to my mum's foraging, I have a steady supply of premium quality lingonberries.

Ingredients

4 dl berries, e. g. lingonberries, cranberries, gooseberries or  red currants

1 litre water

85 – 125 g granulated sugar

75 g semolina

1 tbsp potato flour

4 tbsp water

Method

1. Clean and wash the berries. Place them in a large saucepan and mash with a fork.
2. Add the water and bring to the boil. Let simmer for a few minutes.
3. Strain the juice and put back into the saucepan.
4. Stir in the sugar, then the semolina and bring to the boil again.
5. Leave to simmer until the semolina is cooked, about 20 minutes.
6. In a small bowl, stir the potato flour together with the additional water, then add to the porrige and stir well to combine.
7. Allow to just come to the boil and then take off the heat and allow to cool down a little.
8. Transfer to a large bowl and whip the porrige with an electric whisk until it goes pale and very fluffy and has cooled down completely.
9. Pour into portions and either serve straight away or refrigerate and serve chilled.
   

 I used my trusty Assistent machine for the whipping, since it took at least 10 minutes (I forgot to time it). Some of the other recipes I found suggest using a hand-held electric whisk and placing the bowl into a water bath of cold water to speed up the cooling down. Either way, the magic will happen and the porrige will reach a mousse-like consistency which turned out to be very yummy both at room temperature and chilled. I think I liked the chilled version better.

Lingonberries, like cranberries are quite tart and the 125 g sugar just about reduced that tartness, but the dessert didn't feel very sweet at all.

I'm keen to try this with bilberries, that should work too and would also work in combination with the lingonberry to get a two-coloured klappgröt. I also think a sprinkling of chopped hazelnuts, desiccated coconut or biscuit crumbs and a little whipped cream would make it into quite a fancy dessert too.

The recipe says the above is 4 portions. I'd say it's more like 8 portions, unless you eat it as a main meal. Once it's whipped up it doubles in volume.

Finally the card also mentions as an extra tip that klappgröt can also be made with rhubarb. In which case 5 dl diced rhubarb is required, the method is the same, but there would be no need to strain. Having made rhubarb curd a few years ago, I would say that straining is required here too, at least for my rhubarb, as it goes a bit fibrous. But another flavour to try out once the rhubarb gets going in a few weeks.

I poured some of the porrige into a jelly mould to see if it would set enough to be demoulded like a jelly. As it turned out - no. Unfortunately I had a busy evening when I made this, so I didn't get a chance to take photos, but hopefully will do that next time.

Update on 2025-04-12: I had a litre of ready-made blåbärssoppa, that is Swedish bilberry soup, and decided to try using it for this fabulous dessert. Use one litre instead of the lingonberry juice, otherwise, the ingredients and the method are the same. Bilberries have a milder flavour to begin with and once whipped up, the flavour becomes milder still. I have also frozen some of it, with a prospect of making a vegan ice cream that is also easy to scoop. Once again, I was very busy, so didn't make any photos, but I promise, it is well worth making. Yum!

Stamped cookies revival

 

As I was rummaging around the cupboards I spotted my cookie press and realised it's been forever since I used it. And since Lundulph went to visit his parents for the day, I decide it would be a great time to make a batch, especially since I'd just watched this video, where the cookie dough appeared to have just the right consistency. 

Ingredients

makes about 130

 

480 g plain flour

60 g potato flour

¾ tsp salt

2 tbsp vanilla sugar

226 g unsalted butter at room temperature

200 g granulated sugar

2 large eggs at room temperature

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 ℃, no fan.
   
2. Sift together the dry ingredients and stir to distribute evenly.
3. Whisk the butter in a food processor, then add the sugar and beat until it goes pale and fluffy.
4. Add one egg at a time while the mashine is still beating, allowing them to get fully incorporated.
5. Slowly add the flour and mix until it just combines to a dough. 
6. Load up a cookie press and stamp directly onto baking sheets.
7. Bake one sheet at a time for 10 - 11 minutes to keep them from colouring.
8. Remove to a wire rack and allow to cool, then store in an airtight jar.
   

 Looking quickly through my old stamped cookie recipes, the ingredients are mostly the same but in fairly different proportions. However, this dough turned out very well and worked splendidly with the cookie press. Some ended up a bit wonky, but that is entirely my fault. I wanted to stamp as many cookies as possible with one fill of the cookie press, so I filled it to the brim. This resulted in small air pockets which meant less dough came out from some of the cookie holes here and there. I ended up discarding a lot of cookies and ended up having to refill a more times than I was hoping to get away with. A better approach is to fill and leave about a centimetre or two of space left, then the pressing pad will pushes the dough down and even things out somewhat and result in nicer and more symmetrical cookies. 

Also very interesting was the potato flour. According to the video, it is the special ingredient that prevents the cookies from spreading in the oven and thus keeping their definition. I will need to double-check with Dr Cutie about that, but I do know that German sponge cake recipes tend to include some potato starch to make the crumb more delicate.

I tasted the cookies as soon as they'd cooled down enough to handle and thought they weren't nice at all, but tasted a bit of flour and not sweet at all. I thought I could ice them, but I got distracted by other things and by the time Lundulph came home late in the evening, they were still just like when I baked them. So we had a couple and it turned out the flavour had improved! I'm not sure what happened and eating them now a couple of days later, I think they are still very good. So clearly they do need to rest and not be gobbled up straight away. Or our tongues adjusted. Either way, I do like this recipe.

Butter bean curry

Recipe number five also turned out very nice and got me to buy and try a new product - coconut aminos, which seems to be an alternative to soy sauce. 

Ingredients

1 large onion

4 cloves of garlic

5 cm piece of ginger

1 small green finger chilli

75 g cherry tomatoes

6 sundried tomatoes in olive oil

2 tbsp olive oil

½ tsp ground black pepper

¼ tsp ground turmeric

1½ tsp ground cumin

1½ tsp ground coriander

½ tsp garam masala

½ tsp red chilli powder

a pinch of ground cardamom

1 tsp salt

1 tsp soy sauce or coconut aminos

270 ml coconut milk

50 ml vegetable stock

2 x 400 g cans of butter beans

2 handfuls of spinach

2 tbsp fresh coriander

basmati rice or naan bread

Method

1. Peel and dice the onion. Peel the garlic and press. Peel the ginge and grate. Wash and finely dice the green chilli.
2. Wash and dice the cherry tomatoes, drain and dice the sundried tomatoes.
   
3. Heat up the olive oil on medium and add the onion, garlic, ginger and chilli and sauté for 5–7 minutes.
4. Add all the spices and stir through for a minute.
5. Add the tomatoes, salt and soy sauce and cook for 5 minutes until the cherry tomatoes go soft.
6. Add the coconut milk and stock, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes.
7. Add the butter beans along with their liquid and the spinach. Stir through for a couple of minutes until the beans are heated through and the spinach has wilted.
8. Serve with rice or naan and sprinkle some coriander leaves over.

 This turned out very nice and we ate a bit more thant we should have. I didn't have basmati rise, so I used shortgrain brown rice, which worked equally well.

 

I was surprised about including the liquid from the butter beans. Actually, there was no mention in the recipe to drain them, so I assumed the liquid was to be used as well. I think it contributed well to the overall consistency of this dish.

 

I wasn't impressed with the coconut aminos. It looked like thin, light soy sauce, but it didn't taste nice at all and wasn't as salty as soy sauce, so I won't bother with it next time and just use soy sauce.

 

This concludes our streak of vegetarian dishes. Lundulph was very pleased and I need to try to incorporate these into my everyday repertoire. 
 
 

 

Warm salad

Recipe number four is this one, a warm vegetable salad. It looked very pretty on the photo and I had great hopes for it, as it seemed to include a very good balance of healthy things.

Ingredients

3 red onions

60 g cavalo nero

zest and juice of a lemon

6 garlic cloves

a handful of fresh tarragon leaves

4½ tbsp olive oil

chilli flakes (optional)

4 large eggs

500 g courgettes

2 x 400 g butter beans

salt and pepper 

4 soft wholemeal lavash breads

Method

1. Peel and wash the onions. Dice one of the onions finely and slice the other two and keep separate.
2. Remove the thick stems from the cavalo nero and save for soups. Wash the leafy parts, shake off well and shred.
3. Wash and zest the lemon, then squeeze out the juice. Peel the garlic and wash and cut the tarragon leaves finely.
   
4. Put the diced onion, the shredded cavalo nero, the lemon zest and juice along with 1½ tbsp of olive oil, chilli flakes and a pinch of salt in a large bowl. Mix and massage well, then cover and set aside to marinate.
5. Trim, wash and slice the courgettes thinly, 2 – 3 mm, and drain the beans.
   
6. Boil the eggs to get the yolk to a waxy consistence. Rinse under cold water, peel and set aside.
7. Meanwhile, heat up 1 tbsp of the olive oil on medium-low and fry the sliced onions for 5 minutes until they go soft and transluscent. Transfer to the bowl with cavalo nero and stir in.
8. Heat up the remaining oil to medium-high and fry the courgettes for 10 minutes, while stirring, until they go soft.
9. Press in the garlic and add the beans and stir-fry for a couple of more minutes to get the beans warmed through.
10. Transfer the courgettes and beans to the cavalo nero, add the tarragon and stir to combine everything.
11. Warm up the lavash breads and pile the warm salad on top of them, finishing with two egg halves, then wrap and serve.
    

When it was freshly made, it was OK, but the lemon dominated everything else and it just felt like something was missing. So for our lunch the following day, I decided to put the salad on top of a lavash bread and make a wrap. This turned out to be a good idea as the bread seemed to be that missing something. It is possible that overnight the butter beans might have soaked up some of the lemon and created a more balanced salad.

Lundulph wasn't too extatic about this, and suggsted a reduction of the lemon juice. I suspect that it wouldn't work, as that is the active ingredient in the marinade and cavalo nero would be way too hard to eat uncooked otherwise. So overall, I think this one is a work in progress and I'll run it by my Mum to see if she can help pin down what might be missing.