Best sauce for Swedish meatballs

Never mind this not-super-pretty-photo. This sauce is perfect. It's just the right thing to accompany a plate of Swedish meatballs, served with boiled potatoes, lingonberries and pickled cucumbers. This is, as it happens, the traditional serving for this meal. In the US, Swedish meatballs often seem to be served with a cream sauce and pasta - that would never happen here. Cream sauce goes on potatoes. Meatballs and pasta, well, then you add ketchup.

So, here we go:

Best sauce for Swedish meatballs

100 ml water
1 tbsp concentrated veal stock
300 ml cream
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp lingonberry jam
salt, pepper

Take the pan you fried your meatballs in. (And ideally, you didn't scorch any!) Pour in a good splash of water, perhaps 100 ml, and whisk very well. Cook on medium-high heat. Add the concentrated veal stock and cream. Cook for a few minutes. Add the soy sauce, jam and salt and pepper. Cook for a few more minutes, while whisking.

Serve with meatballs, boiled potatoes, lingonberry jam and quick-pickled cucmbers.

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Sweden is having very summery weather, still, despite the calendar showing a fall month. Mornings are misty, but afternoons are almost always sunny and warm. Quite lovely!

I made these apple cinnamon muffins the other day, to cheer myself up after a few weeks of very hard work. I found a recipe at Add a Pinch and adapted it to fit my needs. I baked mine in cups rather than in a lined muffin tin, and only dipped the very top of the muffin in the lovely topping - they turned out very delicious and I'm happy that I stashed a few in the freezer for another day.

Apple Cinnamon Muffins
makes 18

110 g butter, softened
200 g sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
120 ml milk
300 g all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
2 large apples, peeled and diced
1 tbsp flour

topping:
50 g butter, melted
100 g sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs carefully, one at a time. Add vanilla. Mix together the dry ingredients - flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt, and add this to the batter alternating with the milk. Finally toss together the apples with a tablespoon of flour, and add to the batter.

Fill muffin cups, fairly full - you want them to rise above the top of the cup as they bake.

Bake at 175� C for about 15 minutes - check with a toothpick to make sure they're not sticky inside.

Meanwhile, melt the butter for the topping and let it brown a little. Mix together sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Dip the warm muffins in the butter and then into the cinnamon sugar, and place on a rack to cool down.

Chewy Rhubarb Cardamom Cake

I still have some rhubarb in my garden - a few straggly stalks. I don't want to let them go to waste, so I use them in a delicious, chewy cake. Perfect for afternoon fika sessions. You can also freeze this cake, pre-sliced, and just re-heat for a few seconds in the microwave. Surely that will liven up the gloomiest of fall days to come, don't you think?

Chewy Rhubarb Cardamom Cake

2 eggs
240 g sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar (or extract)
1 tsp cardamom seeds, bashed in a pestle and mortar
1 tsp baking powder
150 g all-purpose flour
75 g butter, melted

Topping:
rhubarb - about 8 small stalks, probably about 2-300 ml (no need to be exact)
1/2 tsp cardamom seeds, bashed in a pestle and mortar
1 tbsp pearl sugar

Beat the eggs and sugar until very white and fluffy. Stir in vanilla sugar, cardamom, baking powder, flour and the melted butter. Fold carefully until there are no streaks.

Pour into a buttered and floured springform pan. Top with the rhubarb, cardamom and sugar. Bake at 200�C for about 25 minutes.

Serve with vanilla ice cream or vanilla sauce.