Signe Johansen - Scandilicious Baking

First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Saltyard Books
An imprint of Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company

Copyright Signe Skaimsgard Johansen, 2012
Photography Tara Fisher, 2012

The right of Signe Johansen to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. 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 without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 444 73467 6

Epub ISBN 978 1 444 73469 0

Design by www.cabinlondon.co.uk
Food and props stylist Annie Rigg
Copy-editor Bryony Nowell
Proofreader Margaret Gilby
Indexer Caroline Wilding

Colour reproduction by FMG

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C O N T E N T S

In loving memory of my grandmothers Juliet and Oddny, great bakers both.

Introduction

The smell of freshly baked bread or the rich scent of spice cake wafting from the kitchen how enticing is that? Just the thought of it makes me happy. Of all the cooking Ive done over the years, baking was the first kitchen skill I learned and is still my favourite. Home-made fruity muffins and sticky cinnamon bun-cake, flaky buttery pastries fresh from the oven, delicious chocolate cardamom biscuits to pop in pretty packaging and give to friends Youll find all these in here and more.

Scandinavian baking covers a fantastically varied spectrum from cakes, pastries and indulgent sweet treats to crusty breads, more-ish nibbles and mouthwatering savoury dishes, plus plenty of warming winter comfort food besides and youll find four key players making an appearance time and again throughout this book: grains, almonds, spices and seasonal fruit.

Grains the Scandinavian baker tends to use not only wheat but also rye, barley, spelt and oats in sweet and savoury dishes. Rye features in dark chewy pumpernickel bread, crunchy granola and the pastry for classic dishes like Finnish Karelian pies. Barley grains make a fabulously creamy baked pudding and barley flakes are a great addition to your daily bread or flapjack bar. Spelt has a heritage dating back thousands of years as the forefather of modern wheat and you can use refined spelt flour instead of plain flour in many recipes. It makes great cakes and pastry, and many people find it more digestible too. Finally the humble oat which features in so much more than just porridge, including breads, puddings and even my version of Danish romkugler truffles, where it adds a lovely little crunch.

Almonds along with most other Scandis, my family and I love almonds, whether whole, flaked, ground, toasted or in the form of marzipan and buttery almond pastes. These take starring roles in many cakes, buns and Danish pastries, and in mazarin (Scandi frangipane). Almonds are also the essential ingredient in kransekake, a chewy macaroon that is traditionally used to build decorated edible conical towers and horns of plenty to celebrate festive occasions.

Spices Ive said it before and Ill say it again: spices are for life, not just for Christmas! Cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, caraway, clove, allspice, star anise, ginger they all play their parts in Scandinavian baking. Crisp oat bran flatbread tastes fantastic sprinkled with cardamom sugar, aniseed and fennel add an extra dimension to sweet Swedish sirapslimpa bread, melt-in-the-mouth cheese sabl biscuits are given a twist with caraway seeds and zesty lemon madeleines are enhanced by warming nutmeg.

Seasonal fruit local fruit, picked and eaten in season, features heavily in Scandinavian cuisine, not least due to the well-established culture of foraging. Berries and summer fruit have a special place in my affections too, as my grandparents, farmor and farfar Johansen, owned a fruit farm on the west coast of Norway. I cherish my childhood memories of seemingly endless summer days in Norway picking ripe berries to eat, bake in cakes and puddings or preserve as jam. Inspired by these, youll find dishes in here using crimson sour cherries, juicy strawberries, plump blueberries and redcurrants, crunchy apples, honey-sweet greengages and prickly gooseberries, as well as fragrant elderflowers and lemon verbena. But dont think that the Scandi love of local seasonal fruit has to limit you. Theres fun to be had combining traditional and modern, seasonal and exotic, like the marriage of blueberries and raspberries with heavenly home-made passion-fruit-lime curd in my take on classic Danish layercake, or the combination of spiced pepperkaker biscuits with juicy limes in my decadent Scandilicious key lime pie

On a practical note, I always bake with fresh yeast for precision and consistency, but know that there may be times when you cant get hold of any, so I have given fast action dried yeast measurements as an alternative. Do be aware that different brands of fast action dried yeast can be of differing strengths, so if you find that your chosen brand is too active or has too prominent a yeast flavour, feel free to reduce the yeast quantities to the level that is right for you. Similarly, I have included a range of rising and proving times for the yeasted doughs, as yeast grows at different rates depending on the warmth of the day and your kitchen the warmer the air, the faster the dough will rise, so baking in summer will generally be a speedier process than in winter unless you keep your kitchen toasty warm! This applies to all yeasted doughs, although those containing rye or wholemeal flour, spices or milk and butter will be slower to rise (fibre, spices and fat tend to slow the process). Finally, unless I specify otherwise, I use whole milk and slightly salted butter in my baking as I enjoy their flavour; however, if you need to use different products for health or taste reasons, please do substitute as necessary.

Hopefully you are now inspired to pop on your apron, roll up your sleeves and bake up a storm, whether its to try your hand at some traditional Scandi baking from crusty breads and Danish pastries to spiced buns and marzipan delicacies or to rustle up one of my modern takes on Nordic favourites, whichever takes your fancy.

Happy Scandi baking!

Whenever people ask me what I miss most about living in Scandinavia, good bread generally tops the list (followed by great seafood, summer berries, open sandwiches and beautiful design!) So it is no surprise to see plenty of tasty bread recipes here, along with suggestions of what to eat with your freshly baked loaf sweet and savoury butters,