Tuva

A "Tuva" is made from choux pastry, and filled with whipped cream and lingonberries, but it also has some "pate sucre" on top, to provide a bit of crispiness.

I saw these made on "Hela Sverige bakar", and decided to try it.

Tuvas

Ingredients

Choux pastry
200g Milk
200g Water
160g Butter
8g Salt
250g Flour
400g Eggs

Pate sucre
250g Flour
100g Powdered sugar
100g Butter
1 Egg yolk
A pinch of salt
(Water)

Filling
~5 dl Whipping cream
~200g Lingonberries
~4-5 tbsp sugar

Powdered sugar (for dusting)


Start with the pate sucre, since that needs to rest.
Mix all the ingredients (except the water) together. Mine was extremely dry at this point, I think it may have something to do with the humidity. If needed add just enough cold water to make a dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and rest in the fridge for an hour or so.

Next for the choux pastry, you get quite a workout from all the stirring.
Measure out the flour and eggs into bowls/beakers. Place milk, water, butter and salt in a pot, and bring to the boil while stirring. As soon as it starts to boil, add the flour and stir to mix. While still on the stove, continues stirring the dough, and cooking it, for 3-4 minutes.
Place the dough into a bowl, and add the eggs, one at a time, making sure each one is incorporated completely before adding the next, while stirring.
Allow the mixture to cool before piping.
Pipe onto an oven tray covered with parchment paper. Each one should be about 50g (see picture below for an idea of how much that is). They rise quite a bit, so leave some room.

Take the pate sucre out of the fridge (you won't need even close to all of it). Roll it out to a thickness of about 2 mm, and cut out circles about 5 cm in diameter.
Place a circle on top of each choux bun, and dust with a little powdered sugar.

Bake in the oven, at 200°C, for about 30 minutes.

Once they have cooled completely, it's time to fill them.
The exact amount of sugar and lingonberries depends an taste.
Whip the cream, with the sugar and stir in the lingonberries. Make a small cross cut in the bottom of each tuva, and pipe the whipped cream mixture into each of them (and don't be stingy with it).

Strawberry Pie

This is probably my favorite thing to eat in the world. It's my grandmothers recipe, and it is the taste of summer to me.

Strawberry pie

Ingredients - Pastry
100g Butter
1,5 dl Sugar
1 Egg
3 dl Flour

Ingredients - Filling
1 dl Sugar
2 tsp Vanilla sugar
1 Egg
3 dl Creame fraiche
300-350g Strawberries


Start with the pastry. Whisk room temperature butter and sugar until fully incorporated. Whisk in the egg. Add the flour and mix with your hands to an even dough. Wrap in plastic foil and place in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Butter and flour a pie mold (Smear the inside with butter, then shake some flour around inside it so that it covers everything). If you have one, you can use a "proper" one, here I'm using the disposable aluminium kind (23cm).

Place the pastry dough in the mold, and use your hand to press it into and even sheet, covering both the bottom and the sides. Make sure that the dough goes up over the edges a little, since it tends to slip down during the blind baking.

Bake in the middle of the oven, at 200°C, for 10 minutes. If the sides do sag a bit, don't panic, it's not the end of the world, it'll still taste nice.

For the filling, mix the sugar and vanilla sugar, then whisk in the egg, and finally the creame fraiche. Pour the filling into the mold, then add the strawberries. If the strawberries are small, you can use them whole, otherwise cut them in half. Dot them throughout the pie, basically as many as you can fit without placing them on top of each other.

Bake in the middle of the oven, at 200°C, for 20-25 minutes, until the edges of the filling just starts to color. It'll still be rather liquid in the middle, don't worry, it'll firm up as it cools.

Let the pie cool a little, then place in the fridge to cool completely. This pie should be enjoyed cold.

Butter and sugar, a good start

Add an egg

Finished pastry dough

Buttered and floured

Dough in mold

After blind baking

Filling

Added filling

Added strawberries

Just needs to cool

Danish Pastries

Danish pastries  or "wienerbröd" as they're called in Swedish, are made with a kind of puff-pastry, and can be filled with a variety of fillings. You can use, for example, a thickened vanilla custard, raspberry jam or almond paste. It can then be topped with some frosting or chocolate. They also come in many different forms. This is my first time making Danish pastries, so I've gone with a very simple folding of the pastry, and my favorite "additions", a thickened vanilla custard filling, and drizzled with chocolate.

Now, in most of my recipes I say how easy it is to make, and how quick it is. In this case though, that simply isn't true. This pastry is quite difficult to make, or at least, to make it well. It's also quite time consuming, and laborious. To be honest, mine did not turn out perfect. That said, imperfect as they were, they still looked and tasted very nice, so don't despair too much.

Tip#1 These pastries are very much best when freshly made, a night in the fridge will severely diminish (though not completely destroy) their deliciousness.

Danish Pastries

Ingredients
50g Yeast (fresh)
2,5 dl Milk
1 Egg
0,5 tsp Salt
2 tbsp Sugar
7-8 dl Flour
300g Butter

1 Egg for brushing
Thickened vanilla custard (shop-bought, or make your own)
Chocolate for garnish

Ingredients

Tip#2 For starters, make sure that your ingredients are cold, you don't want it to get to hot or rolling will become more difficult than it already is (also, the dough might start to rise early). 

Tip#3 Be very gently when rolling out this dough, you want to avoid having any holes in the dough. It is (it seems to me) virtually impossible not to have this happen at any point in the process, but try to avoid it as much as possible.

Crumble the yeast into the milk, and use your fingers to make it dissolve. Add the egg, salt, sugar and flour (start with about 7 dl, and see if you need more), and mix into a dough. Try not to kneed the dough more than necessary at this stage, we don't want the gluten to develop. The finished dough should be slightly sticky, but workable, ie not too much. Wrap in cling film and leave in the fridge for about 15 minutes.

Get the butter out of the fridge, and slice it into 9 slices, about equal. Put the slices on some grease proof paper and let it come to room temperature.

Lightly flour the table and get the dough from the fridge. Now, we want the dough to be rectangular in shape, and here is were a learned a neat little trick while doing research for this bake. Form the dough into a ball on the table, cut a cross, about halfway down into it, now fold the "flaps" out. Presto, a square piece of dough!

Roll out the dough to about 30x40 cm. Place the butter slices on one half of the dough, leaving 2-3 cm on each side free. Fold the edges of the dough over the butter, then fold the other half of the dough over that. Pinch the edges together so that they are sealed.

Turn the dough 1/4 turn, so that the folded edge is towards you. Gently roll it out to about 1 cm thickness, trying to retain the rectangle shape. Fold the dough in 3, ie 1 third folds in to the middle of the remaining 2 thirds, and the other third folds over that. turn the dough 1/4 turn again, and repeat the rolling out and folding. Wrap in cling film and put it back in the fridge again for about 15 minutes.

Take the dough out of the fridge, repeat the rolling out and folding once more, and then finally roll it out for the last time. Cut the dough in half, wrap each part in cling film and place in the fridge for about 15 minutes.

Take one part of the dough out of the fridge, roll it out to a square (or the nearest approximation) 36 by 36 cm in size. Cut the dough into 9 by 9 cm squares, place on a baking tray, covered with baking paper. Put a dollop of thickened vanilla custard in the center of each, then fold the corners over the center, and press down in the center so that they stick. Cover with a kitchen towel, and let rise for about 1 hour. Repeat for the second sheet of dough.

Whisk the egg, and brush the pastries with it. Bake, in the middle of the oven, at 250°C, for about 9 minutes. Let them cool, at least to the point where they are not to hot to handle anymore.

Melt some chocolate in a bain-marie (in a bowl over boiling water), and drizzle it over the cooled pastries.

The whole ball of... dough?

Cut a cross to make a square

Fold the flaps out

Rolled out

Add butter

Fold the edges over

And seal

Rolled out again

9x9 squares

Add custard and fold

Baked

Mazarin Cake

It's been a little while since my latest post, a combination of Christmas and work... But now I can finally give you a new recipe.

A Mazarin is a common Swedish cake, usually served in portion-sized aluminium molds. This is the same cake, only baked in a pie-mold, and cut into wedges to serve. The first time I was going to make this, I had decided to make the portion-sized ones, but I couldn't find the molds in the supermarket. I still remember the shop assistant telling me that they didn't sell them because they were bad for the environment. They did have the pie-sizes molds though, so I guess the smaller ones are worse for the environment than the big ones?

Anyway, this is a Delicious cake, made up of a shortcrust pastry filled with an almond filling. The secret ingredient is potatoes! I know it sounds weird, but trust me on this, it makes a difference.

Mazarin Cake

Pastry
100g Butter
2 1/2 tbsp Sugar
2 1/4 dl Flour
1/2 Small egg

Filling
75g Butter
2 dl Sugar
2 Eggs
2 Boiled, mashed, medium sized potatoes (Can be replaced by 1 dl instant potato mash powder + 1 dl water, in case you don't have any leftover potatoes and don't want to cook some just to make this cake)
50g Almonds
2 Bitter almonds
3/4 dl Flour
1 1/2 dl Baking powder

Pastry
Since this recipe only uses half of the original recipe for the pastry, there is 1/2 egg in there... Break 1 egg into a glass, whisk with a fork or similar, and use half of it.

Mix all the ingredients in bowl, using your hands, until it comes together. Wrap the pastry in plastic foil and place in the fridge while you make the filling.

Tip: If you want, it is fine to make the pastry up to a day in advance, just keep it wrapped up in the fridge, and it will actually be easier to work with.

Filling
Whisk the butter and sugar together. Whisk in the eggs, 1 at a time, then the potatoes. Grate the almonds, and mix with the flour and baking powder, then whisk that in as well.

Cake
Butter and flour a pie-mold (I use a disposable aluminium one). Line the mold with the pastry, pour in the filling, and even it out.

Bake at 175°C, in the middle of the oven, for 35-40 minutes. Check if it is ready by inserting a toothpick into the center of the cake, it should come out clean.

Once the cake has cooled, spread some icing (powdered sugar, whisked into a little water) on it and let it set in the fridge.

Tosca Cake

This isn't really the "traditional" tosca cake, but I prefer this version. It's a basic sponge cake, with an almond toffee on top. The toffee provides a nice bit of extra flavor and crunch.

Tosca Cake

Ingredients - Cake
150g Butter
2 dl Sugar
2 Eggs
2 tsp Vanilla powder
½ dl Water
3 dl Flour
1 tsp Baking powder

Ingredients - Cake

Ingredients - Toffee
1 dl Almonds
1 dl Sugar
50g Butter
2 tbsp Flour
2 tbsp Milk

Ingredients - Toffee

Start by making the cake. Whisk the butter and sugar until completely incorporated. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time. Add the vanilla powder and water and whisk. Mix the flour and baking powder together, and stir it into the batter.
Butter and breadcrumb a mold, the one I use has a diameter of 24cm. Put the batter into the mold and spread it out somewhat evenly.
Bake in the lower part of the oven, at 175°C, for 30 minutes.
In the mean time, prepare the almond toffee. Chop the almonds, then put all the ingredients into a pot, and bring to the boil while whisking. Try to time it so that it's done not too long before the cake is done.
Once the cake is done, take it out of the oven, and spread the toffee over it. Bake for a further 10 minutes, in the top part of the oven.

Batter

Toffee, pre-boil

Toffee, post-boil

Spread across the top

Lemon Squares

It's my turn to bring, what we call "fika", or cookies/cakes to be had with coffee or tea, to work this week. We all takes turns bringing it on Fridays, and it's quite a nice tradition.

I've made raspberry macarons, but since they are the same as I made recently, I won't bother writing up the same thing again. Just follow the link, or scroll down, if you're interested. Macarons are quite small and delicate though, so I wanted to bring something else as well. The choice fell on lemon squares, which I've never made before, but they sounded delicious, and as it turns out, they are.

Lemon Squares

Ingredients (16 pieces)
100g Butter
3/4 dl Powdered sugar
2 dl + ½ dl Flour
3 Eggs
2 1/4 dl Caster sugar
1 lemon
White chocolate (optional)

Ingredients

Butter and crumb a square baking dish (I used one that was about 21x21 cm, but slightly larger or smaller should not make a huge difference).

Put the room temperature butter, powdered sugar, and 2 dl of the flour into a large bowl. Beat with an electric whisk until it comes together. Make sure that the bowl is large, and preferable put a towel over the top, since this is a very dry dough before it starts to stick and you will just end up covered in flour otherwise. Don't worry, while it will seem very dry at first, when it's done it will be light, soft and malleable.

Press the dough out evenly in the oven dish, and bake for about 15 minutes at 175°C. When it's done it will have a very, very light golden tinge to it.

Grate the rind of of the lemon, and squeeze out the juice. Whisk the eggs, lemon rind, lemon juice, caster sugar, and the last ½ dl of flour together.

Once the dough is done baking, pour the filling into the dish and bake for a further 20 minutes.

When it's done baking, take it out and allow to cool. Once cool, cut into pieces and sprinkle with grated white chocolate.

Buttered & breaded

Dough

Lined

Filling

A tinge of gold

Done

Cognac flavored swiss roll

I was flipping through a cookbook the other day, and came across a swiss roll flavored with punsh. It occurred to me that despite its status as a "classic" (at least in Sweden), I've never actually made a swiss roll.

A swiss roll is basically a thin sponge cake, covered with jam, buttercream or similar, rolled and cut into slices.

Now, I don't really like punsh, so that was out. For some reason the idea of a swiss roll with cognac (which I do like) butter cream popped into my head, so I thought I'd try to adapt the recipe. Aside from using cognac instead of punsh, I also decided to flavor the sponge part of the cake with orange.

With regards to the type of cognac, I would say to use the same rule that I always hear with regards to cooking with wine. That is, don't use anything in cooking that you wouldn't drink. Actually, it's probably even more important here, since most of the flavor comes from the cognac, and you aren't cooking it. I went with Braastad XO, and I really like the flavor.

I use quite a bit of cognac, because I like it to taste of cognac quite a lot. But I would say to start with a little less than the full amount in the butter cream, then taste and decide if you want to add more.

Please don't let the picture fool you, it's a lot more flavorsome and a lot juicier than they look here.

Cognac flavored swiss roll

Ingredients - sponge

3 eggs
1½ dl sugar
2 dl flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp cognac
1½ tbsp milk
Peel of 3/4 of an orange

Ingredients for the sponge

Ingredients - buttercream
125g butter
2 dl powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla powder
1 egg yolk
½ dl cognac

Ingredients for the buttercream

Chocolate Brownies

This is, pretty much, a recipe that Gary Mehigan demonstrated in season 2 of Masterchef Australia, in one of the "Masterclass" segments.

I'm not really much of a fan of brownies and such, but I thought this looked good, so I gave it a shot. Brownies will never be my favorite, but as brownies go, this is a really nice one. It's soft and gooey, and the peanuts add a really nice texture and flavor.

Chocolate brownie with peanuts

Ingredients
250g Butter
5,5 dl Sugar
90g Cocoa powder
2,35 dl Flour
½ tsp Baking powder
5 Eggs
2½ dl Roasted and salted peanuts
2½ dl Dark chocolate (70%)

Ingredients

Orange cake

This is a new recipe for me, but I just love citrus in cakes, so I figured I give it a whirl. The batter for this cake is quite soft, so treat it with care.

Please excuse the frosting spilling around the cake, I went a little too heavy on it.

Orange cake

Ingredients:
2 oranges
4 eggs
3 dl sugar
2 dl melted butter (a little less than 200g)
3 dl flour
1 tsp baking powder
powdered sugar

Ingredients