Sticky Cinnamon Buns: Daring Bakers strike again!

Ah, time for another Daring Baker's challenge! As someone who more or less grew up on cinnamon buns, I won't say that this month felt particularly daring - but fun nonetheless.

Swedish cinnamon buns differ from American ones - mostly in that they're usually smaller and individually baked in paper cups rather than in one pan, and that they never have icing. Instead, they're often topped with pearl sugar, and/or flaked almonds. The dough often contains cardamom (and I've never come across one with lemon peel, as this one had) and there's always, always lots of butter smothered on the dough rectangle before it's sprinkled with sugar and spices, and rolled up.



I learned to appriciate the American variety while living in Long Beach, CA. There's this little place called Sweet Jill's on Second Street, with the very best cinnamon buns ever. In fact, I drool a little just thinking about them. They're just huge - I bet one of those is probably enough calories to last an entire day. But what a wonderful treat to have once in a while! To have breakfast there at least once is an absolute must when I visit California. (Which really isn't often enough!)



Marce who chose the recipe from Peter Reinhart´s The Bread Baker´s Apprentice told us to use whatever spices we wanted. I went the easy route and used a ready-made spice sugar with white and brown sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, vanilla and nutmeg.

You can find the recipe on Marce's blog, here. I opted for sticky buns, and I admit that I only made half the recipe - I was much too afraid that I'd eat them all! (Per is not a caramel fan.) And as I don't have anything called instant yeast, I just used normal fresh yeast - about 10 g for half a batch turned out to be right. I added a bit more flour than stated in the recipe to get the right consistency for the dough.



I got nine buns out of it, and it fitted quite nicely into my 8-inch square pan. I also made half a batch of the caramel topping - but oh my god, that was some seriously good stuff. I had to forcibly keep myself from eating it with a spoon! I also added some roughly chopped up almonds, but I skipped the dried fruit.



And the results? Well, while certainly very tasty, I have to admit that I found the dough itself a bit plain - and I missed not having cardamom in it. I also didn't like that the top of the buns - which became the bottoms, as the sticky buns are baked wrong side up - became a bit too dark and crispy. I prefer my buns pale and soft, so if I made this again, I'd probably cover them with something. The caramel glaze was delicious though - and I think it photographed beautifully!



Will I make them again? No, probably not. But I should make regular Swedish cinnamon buns soon - after all, October 4th is the official Cinnamon Bun Day in Sweden! That's how much we love them!

Don't forget to see what all the other Daring Bakers thought of this!

Black Currant Chicken

For some reason, I'm always hesitant when it comes to cooking chicken whole. I don't know why - it's not that it hasn't been successful in the past, it's just that I somehow think it's harder than it really is. And that goes for dividing a whole chicken as well - I usually opt for buying ready-cut pieces. Which is really quite stupid. But I do need to practise - because I just don't know the proper way to divide a bird, I just don't. Luckily, it doesn't matter all that much - after all, I'm a home cook, not a chef. (Although if I was a chef, I bet I'd know how to do it properly!)

Anyway. This is a really beautiful chicken dish I made a few weeks ago, for dinner with my sister and Peter the Sushi chef. It was hugely successful - we ate every last piece of it. Do use fresh or frozen currants if you have them - but if you don't, I think this will be fine just using cordial, too. That's what I'll be doing this winter!

Black Currant Chicken
Serves 4

1 fresh chicken
butter
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
5 small carrots, halved
5 small yellow onions
200 ml fresh or frozen black currants
10 sage leaves, large
100 ml blackcurrant cordial, undiluted
400 ml water
1 tbsp concentrated chicken stock
1 tbsp runny honey
black pepper

For the sauce:
500 ml stock from the chicken
2 tbsp soy sauce
2-3 tbsp corn starch
water - if it's too thick
salt, pepper

Divide the chicken into suitable portions. Melt the butter in a large, heavy-bottomed pot, and brown the chicken on all sides. Crush the garlic, clean the onions, and cut the carrots into smaller pieces. Add this to the pot, as well as black currants and sage.

Add cordial, concentrated stock, honey and water, and some black pepper.

Cover with a lid and cook on low heat for at least 30 minutes, but the chicken will be more tender if you cook it for an hour.

You need about 500 ml of the cooking fluid for the sauce, so pass that through a sieve into a small saucepan. Whisk in the corn starch and the soy, and bring to a boil. Let it simmer until it thickens, and add some water if it becomes to thick. Season with salt and pepper.

Put the chicken pieces, the onions and the carrots in a bowl (discard the rest of the stuff in the pot) and pour over some of the sauce. Serve with boiled potatoes, and more sauce.

Recipe in Swedish:
Svartvinbärskyckling

Cookbook Watch: Adventures of an Italian Food Lover

I know that a lot of bloggers have already raved about Faith Heller Willinger's lovely book; Adventures of an Italian Food Lover. This is really a gem of a book - if you like Italy, and Italian food. It has a different layout than most other books, and it focuses on the people rather than on the food. In a way - the food is still very much the focus, of course. After all, that's what this is about.

The book is divided by regions, and then further divided into starters, mains, desserts and so on (or rather, antipasto, primi, secondi, dolci) and with a nice section of text to each recipe, presenting the person behind it. I like Willinger's style of writing, and this is a great read for any foodie. It might not be a definitive Italian cookbook, but it feels more like a treasure chest of cherished recipe favorites - and I much prefer that.

The only thing I miss is photographs. The book is illustrated, and very nicely so, but I still really do enjoy photos of food in my cookbooks. Then again, this is not really a cookbook, in the classical sense. What this really makes me want to do is not so much cook, but travel. Oh, travel. For a long time. In Italy, obviously. She writes about all the places she visits, and the friends she has, in such a loving and heartfelt way that you immediately feel welcome in her life. Although I'm sure she won't want to have ten thousand readers show up on her doorstep in real life - but it sure feels like she'd be happy about it.

Caramelized Carrots

I had an absolutely lovely time in Tallinn! It was great to finally meet Pille, and it was a lot of fun to spend time with Kristina and Dagmar. We walked a lot, ate a lot and shopped a little bit. (Dagmar took a lot of photos, I just snapped a few - will show them later.)

Now, more about carrots. The post yesterday was a bit short, I know - I really meant to tell you how wonderful that easy preparation was. Cooking the carrots like that, with no water, turns them so juicy and flavorful. Really highly recommended!

For something entirely different, I served a carrot cake at a job function recently. A bought carrot cake, actually. However, I made some caramelized carrots for decoration, and I dare say that this turned something good-but-not-great into at least something pretty-great. And when I make my own carrot cake (I have to admit - I never have! Not for any particular reason really, I just haven't.) I will definitely make this again. I like the neon orange, and it's much easier than, say, sculpting tiny carrots from marzipan. (But if that's what you like, don't let me stop you!)

Caramelized Carrots

3 small or two large carrots
250 ml water (1 cup)
250 ml sugar (1 cup)

Peel the carrots and shred finely. I used a zester, to get fine, long strips. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan, and bring to a boil. Add the carrots, and boil for 4-5 minutes, until they turn a bit translucent.

Fish out the carrot strips with a slotted spoon, and set aside for now. Bring the sugar syrup to a boil again, and reduce until it thickens slightly. Add the carrots back in, put a lid on it, and remove from heat. Let it cool completely, then drain the carrots on some paper before using.

Recipe in Swedish:
Karamelliserad morot

Microwaved carrots

You need carrots, some salt, a little bit of butter, a bowl, and plastic wrap.

Slice the carrots thinly, and put them in a bowl with a little bit of salt. Cover with plastic foil - twice if your foil is thin. This has to be tight!

Microwave for 3-4 minutes (that's for about 2 carrots which is what I used), remove the plastic wrap (but be careful, it will steam!) and add a tiny bit of butter. Delicious!

Tasty marinades for pork

The grilling season is pretty much over, I know. However, there might be some sunny days left before we pack up the Weber, and I hope we can have at least one more barbecue party. We'll see! At least we sure ate a lot of grilled meat this summer. Here are two simple and good recipes for making pork really, really tasty. The first is a classic marinade, the second is really more of a brine. Pork really needs some spices or infusions to taste great - unless you're lucky enough to have a very good source of meat. The stuff I get at the supermarket definitely improves after some marinating. I'm contemplating get an instant vaccum marinater for next year - has anyone tried one of those?

I'm off to Tallinn with Dagmar and Kristina - to see Pille! A real food blogging trip - I'll be back to tell you all about it on Wednesday! (But I'll make sure something magically appears here tomorrow, so you won't notice I'm gone.)

Ginger Marinade for Pork
Makes enough for 1 kg

juice of 1/2 lemon
5-6 cm fresh ginger, thinly sliced
1/2 tbsp dried ground chilli, or about 2 small whole dried chillies, crumbled
2 tbsp runny honey
3 tbsp soy sauce

Mix everything in a large plastic bag or in your preferred container of choice. Add the meat, turn to cover well, and leave it for at least a few hours before frying or grilling the meat.



Tarragon Lemon Marinade
Makes enough for 1 kg

200 ml water
2 tbsp sugar
1,5 tbsp coarse salt
100 ml fresh tarragon (loosely packed)
3-4 fresh sage leaves
1 lemon - zest and juice
black pepper

Chop tarragon and sage. Mix the water with sugar and salt, and stir until it's dissolved. Add the herbs, the lemon zest and the lemon juice. Add the meat, and leave to infuse for about two hours. Remove, add plently of black pepper, and grill or fry the meat.

Recipe in Swedish:
Två bra marinader till fläskkött

HotPan

I love finding new, cool kitchen gadgets. One that I've encountered recently is the HotPan, produced by Kuhn Rikon in Switzerland, and in Sweden, sold by Roswi. In effect, this is a two-part pot. Innermost, a normal pot with a tight fitting lid, in stainless steel. It has a very thick and heavy bottom to ensure good heat distribution throughout. Outermost, a melamine bowl. The cool thing about that is that it works like a thermos.

So - what you do is put everything you're going to eat in the pot. Bring it to a boil, but only boil it for about a third of the time you normally would. Then place it in the bowl, and voila - it'll cook on its own, until finished. It will also keep warm for up to two hours, so you can cook something until it's finished, and then it'll wait until you're ready to serve it. Nice for dinner parties!

The main attraction here is definitely energy saving, but it's also convenient in general as you need to spend less time actively working in the kitchen, and the same time waiting for the food to be ready. An added bonus? I'd say the bright colors, they're really quite pretty.

I got to borrow an orange one from Roswi to try out, and I've been really pleased with it. Granted, I haven't tried a ton of things, but what I have tried has turned out very nicely. I've had great success with a lentil soup, and I did some long-cooked broccoli that was just excellent.

The drawbacks? It's not perfect for everything, of course. I'd say it's best for things where you can put all in at once, and just let it meld together. Like stews, or soups. It'd also be good for things that steam, like rice or cous-cous, and probably bulgur or wheat berries too. And I *think* it'll work really well for poaching things like salmon or chicken, but I haven't tried that yet.

So, do I want one of these? Yeah, kinda, sorta, I think so. I'll certainly miss the one I'm trying out! However, the biggest drawback is the price. These are expensive. Really. I'm not completely sure of the cost, but it's about the same as Le Creuset, if that tells you anything. They're also sold in fairly few places in Sweden so far, but I think you'll see them in more places soon. After all, energy saving is very popular, and I think that's the main feature these pans really have.

The HotPan comes in orange, black, blue, green and red, and with matching utensils and a special cookbook. There are five sizes - 1, 2, 3, 4.5 and 5 litres.

For exact information on price and where to buy, contact Roswi or if you're not in Sweden, Kuhn Rikon for information.