sharing real Scandinavian recipes
It’s that time of year again when all of Norway is covered in blueberries. The other day I ran out of berries for my breakfast oatmeal, so I rerouted Alfie’s morning walk to the hillside behind our cabin in Vesterålen and sure enough there were plenty of blueberry bushes for me to pick from. This is also peak hiking season in Norway, so I decided to make some sweet blueberry buns to enjoy on my…
I love baking with seasonal ingredients, and probably the one season I look forward to the most is rhubarb season! I love simply stewing rhubarb with some sugar and eating it over yoghurt or ice cream – in fact I’ve been having this little dessert each night since the first day I spotted rhubarb in the shops here again. But I had a bit of extra time over the weekend so I decided to make a…
The 17th of May, Norway’s Constitution Day, is just around the corner, which has me thinking about all my favorite Norwegian cakes. I was tempted to make Kvæfjordkake, also called verdens beste (world’s best), which really is one of the best cakes in the world. But right now I’m staying in a cottage in Lofoten with a tiny kitchen, so I decided to make something a bit more simple, but equally…
For the past 10 days I’ve been staying at an Airbnb outside of Sandnessjøen on the Helgeland coast in Northern Norway. When I arrived here my car struggled up the driveway that was covered in thick snow and ice, but now all of the snow has melted and I just spotted a few flowers! I guess spring is on its way. So I decided to bake some spring colored buns, and I thought these Norwegian…
I’ve been in Sweden for the past week, and when I saw how lovely the kitchen was at the cabin I stayed at in Harads I knew I should bake something special. It was -30C (-22F) outside, so I definitely wanted something with warm winter spices. I decided to bake some Swedish gifflar, which are mini cinnamon rolls baked on their sides like crescents. If you’ve been in a Scandinavian supermarket you’ve…
Some of the cutest Swedish Christmas cookies are schackrutor, or chessboard cookies. These are simple but tasty little cookies made with chocolate and vanilla flavored dough, layered to look like a chess or checkerboard. But more recently I’ve been seeing Swedes add two half circles to their checkerboard cookies to make heart shapes! They’re so sweet and look like the classic Swedish paper heart…
I recently shared a list of my favorite Christmas cookies with a friend and of course many on the list were Danish, because Denmark has the best treats. And I guess that makes sense, considering how much wealthier Denmark was than Norway before we found our oil. Denmark is a little bit fancy, and fancy people eat cake cookies! Denmark is also the home of hygge, and what is cosier than cracking…
I was telling a friend about my favorite Scandinavian recipes and I realized that so many of them are Danish! Even my favorite Norwegian Christmas cookies are originally from Denmark. And so I was inspired to bake some more Danish Christmas cookies – this time finskbrød. Finskbrød means Finnish bread, though it seems that this recipe does originally come from Denmark. And they continue to be…
Yes, I’m here with another brown cheese dessert recipe! I’ve always wanted to make a recipe with Norwegian brown cheese and peanut butter, because American visitors often remark that our brown cheese tastes like peanut butter cheese. So when I found Reese’s Pieces peanut butter candies at my local Normal shop, I knew I had to try adding them to brown cheese cookies. And wow were these cookies…
Some family friends were in Bergen last week, which was of course a great excuse to bake a cake. But I was also leaving for Portugal in a few days, so I didn’t want leftovers. So I decided to make my favorite Norwegian apple cake, which is small enough to finish (almost) in a sitting with a few cups of coffee. Plus now that it’s August I’m already getting in the autumn spirit (well, aside from…