Category: food

I am one-quarter Swedish, but since it is too much of a strain to be one-quarter Swedish all year long, I solved that problem by being all Swedish during the month of December. And since someone was nice enough to tell me they made the last receipt I posted, I thought I would give you another one. This one is for the lovely buns in the photo, called bullar. They may look complicated, but are very easy and all people seem to love them — children, in-laws, boyfriends, ex-husbands, step-siblings, everyone.

• 3/4 cup milk, scalded
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter plus a few tablespoons
• 2 small tablespoons (2 packages) yeast
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 4 1/4 – 4 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 1/2 – 1 tbs. ground cardamom
• 2 eggs
• cinnamon and sugar

I scald the milk in the microwave in a large measuring cup and then add 1/2 cup butter cut in cubes and the sugar, to melt the butter and dissolve the sugar in the warm milk. Sprinkle the yeast on th warm water and stir. Put the milk mixture in a large bowl and add 1 1/2 cups of flour. beat with an electric mixer for a minute at low speed to develop the gluten. Beat in the eggs and the yeast. Now would be as good a time as any to add the salt and the cardamom. I always use a full tablespoon of the latter, but you can use less. Make sure it is fresh. Add as much of the rest of the flour as you need to make a nice dough. Knead for five to eight minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic. This receipt makes a dough that is very easy to work with. Don’t add too much flour and let it get too dry, but the dough should not be sticky either.
Let it rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until it has doubled in bulk. Punch it down. Divide it in two, and keep the half you are not working with under a cloth while you shape the first half. Roll one half into a long rectangle about 10″ wide and as long as it gets with the dough fairly thin, maybe 2 and a half feet long. Spread your rectangle of dough with two or three tablespoons of melted butter and sprinkle it with cinnamon sugar. How much cinnamon sugar? Well, let’s say you were making a nice piece of cinnamon toast for yourself. That much. Fold the longest end down 1/3 from the top and up 1/3 from the bottom, like you were folding a letter for a business envelope. You will end up with a piece of folded dough about 3″ wide and still two and a half feet long or whatever, sandwiching the butter and cinnamon sugar. Cut this long piece of dough into short strips that are about 3/4″ wide. Hold an end of each strip in each of your hands and twist it as many times as you can, four or so good twists. Then tie it in a knot. Yes, it will work. The first strip is the hardest, but you’ll soon get the knack. Do this for each strip and put them on a cookie sheet spaced about an inch apart on all sides.
Now you can preheat your oven to 375 degrees because you need to let each batch of dough knots rise for half an hour before you cook them. Roll, fill, fold, twist, and knot the second slab of dough while you’re waiting. Then cook each sheet for 12 to 15 minutes, until they are lightly browned on the top and bottom. And then eat them with a mug of coffee, tea, or cocoa. Dipping is encouraged. Yum.
If you are very enthusiastic, you could brush beaten egg on them and sprinkle on pearl sugar before you put them in the oven, but my family always says to heck with it. We do freeze them in bags in batches, so we can always have them fresh. I find that reheating them for 20 seconds in a microwave warms them perfectly.

When Cecily and I were in Spain this summer, we took a break now and then from our quest to see every single ninth- and tenth-century church in the Asturias to have a spectacular meal. I can’t bring you any of the artisanal cheeses we tried, or the besugo the waiter brought from the fish shop across the way on the coast in Cudillero, but I can offer this transcendentally wonderful dessert we had in Arenas de Cabrales after a dinner that started with half a side of cow covered in the eponymous cabrales cheese, and sidra natural all over the floor. It is sort of a cross between regular flan and cheesecake, neither of which I like very much but somehow the alchemical reaction that occurs when you mix them is greater than either alone.

Flan de Queso

For the custard:

• 1 12 oz. can of evaporated milk
• 1 14 oz. can of sweetened condensed milk
• 5 large eggs
• 8 oz softened cream cheese
• 1 teaspoon very good vanilla
• 1 tablespoon brandy

For the caramel:

• 1 cup sugar
• 5 tablespoons water

Put a bain marie in your oven (I use a rectangular cake pan filled with enough water to go about half way up the side of the dish I cook the flan in). Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

The caramel is the fiddly bit, so let’s begin there. Put the sugar and water into a saucepan and stir to dissolve. Now turn the pan onto medium heat and let the sugar cook without touching it until it turns golden brown. Sounds easy, eh? Problem is, when the sugar is cooking it bubbles and foams so much, you can’t tell what colour it is until it is too late and you have a nasty, burning mass of blackened sugar on your hands. I mostly use smell to tell it is done. When it starts to smell like caramel, I stick the end of a wooden spoon nto it and see what I have. You might also try cooking it in a pyrex saucepan if you have one.

When the caramel is perfect, working quickly, pour it into your flan mold. I use a souffle dish. Tip the mold around to coat the bottom and sides. It will harden quickly. Then relax. The hard part is done.

Mix all the other ingredients together until smooth. If you do it in your food processor, you’ll get runny goo overflowing through the holes (I learned this the hard way). If you don’t mix it well enough, its components may separate in the oven. I suggest a blender or a hand mixer. Pour it all into your prepared flan mold and cook it in the bain marie for about an hour. It is done when it has set but is still a tiny bit wobbly. A skewer will come out clean.

After it has cooled, you can unmold it. Run your skewer all the way around the rim and put a large serving dish over your flan dish (I use a pie plate since I am greedy and don’t want to lose a drop of caramel). Flip it over until the flan falls down onto the serving dish. You can cool it a bit more before serving.