New Gluten-Free cookbook

I have to tell you about a marvelous baking book called Nytt Fikabr�d! (Fikabr�d means.. well, cakes and cookies and anything you'd have with a cup of coffee, basically. Nytt means new.) The authors, Jessica Frej and Maria Blohm, have already written about bread but have now made this new book as well. It's not out yet, but I've seen a review copy  - and what can I say? It's good news for all gluten-intolerant people out there. It'll be released on August 8.

I've tried one recipe from it so far, and it was a huge success. I won't give away the recipe - but perhaps I can publish a version of it later on.

Happy Fourth of July!

As usual, we celebrated 4th of July with dear friends and lots of food. Highlights included Dagmars awesome Double-Cheese hamburger dip, homemade cherry soda, a double chocolate cheesecake and the lovely flag cake.

Brown butter chocolate balls

Browned butter makes everything better - even the eternal Swedish favorite chocolate balls. Browning the butter makes the flavors much more intense and caramelized. Yummy!

Brown butter chocolate balls

110 g butter

50 g dark chocolate

400 ml oats

110 g sugar

1/2 tbsp vanilla powder

3 tbsp cocoa

3 tbsp espresso

salt

To decorate:
Pearl sugar or coconut

Place the butter in a small saucepan, ideally one with a light inside color. Heat until it's caramel-colored, or maybe a little bit deeper. It will smell heavenly.

Chop the dark chocolate and place in a bowl. Pour over the hot butter, and wait for a minute. Stir until smooth. Next, stir in the oats, sugar, vanilla, cocoa powder and espresso, and a little pinch of salt.

Place in the fridge to firm up, then shape very small balls and roll in pearl sugar. Some prefer shredded coconut, I'll leave that up to you.

Orange Sauce

I wanted a zesty, fruity sauce with high acidity to go with a duck breast. I'm not a sauce cook, really, but this one turned out great! As you can see, with ate this with noodles and veggies, but it's also great with rice.

Makes enough for four people, with perhaps a little leftovers.

Orange Sauce
2 tbsp sugar

4 tbsp white wine vinegar

2 oranges - juice and zest

1 tbsp concentrated veal stock 

250 ml white wine

Salt

1 tbsp corn starch
1 tbsp water

1 tbsp butter

Start by mixing sugar and vinegar in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and keep cooking until the mixture turns a light caramel. Remove from heat, and add in orange juice (but reserve the zest for later!), veal stock, wine and salt. Cook on high heat until it reduces quite a bit - perhaps for 5 minutes. Lower the heat and cook for an additional 5, maybe 10 minutes.

Stir the corn starch with the water and add to the pan. Bring to a boil and cook for a few minutes, until it thickens. If it's too thick, add more water. If it's perfect, add the orange zest, whisk in the butter, and serve. 

Vanilla (Cherry) Frozen Yogurt

I wanted to try out my Chef'n Sweet Spot ice cream maker, but I didn't have that much cream at home, and I was too lazy to go shop. I looked around for a frozen yogurt recipe, couldn't find any that I liked, and decided it was easy enough to improvise. Was it? Yes, it was.


Here's what it looks like "in progress"

Vanilla Frozen Yogurt
4 small servings

400 g Turkish (or greek) yogurt - about 10% fat
50 g cream (full-fat)
100 g sugar (I used a nice organic raw sugar)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Stir together. Chill, and then churn - in an ordinary ice cream machine, or if you're lucky enough to have one of the Sweet Spots, in that. It'll turn out lovely and creamy and perfect as a base for whatever mix-ins you want. Titus chose gummy bears, and I had some already-cooked cherries (that I used for homemade cherry soda!) in the fridge that were perfect to fold in.



Yummy! And not horribly bad for you, either. Now I'll have to buy some cream so I can make a proper ice cream base - the kids weren't crazy about the yogurt-ness of this, they're pretty picky...

Strawberry Jam

I had leftover strawberries after Midsummer, turning a little soft and mushy. What to do? Jam. Obviously. 

So. I used 500 g of strawberries, zest and juice from one lemon, and seeds from one vanilla bean. I blitzed this quickly with a stick blender, then added 400 g of jam sugar (with pectin). I let it sit for about an hour, then boiled it vigorously for five minutes. And that was that. Done. 

Made three small jars. (And a half, actually.) 

Exciting mail day!

As I was going out to get my mail, a delivery van pulled up and brought me a huge packet from Lakeland! They're a UK company, but delivers to Sweden for a very reasonable fee, and I've placed an order or two in the past. This time, it was something that caught my eye on a blog a little while ago... a Chef'n Sweet Spot Ice cream maker! Basically it's just a big freezeable pie plate, that you pour a little ice cream base into and churn into your own customized ice cream serving. (Something like Cold Stone creamery, I'm thinking.) I'm picturing all sorts of exciting mix-ins, and especially the ability to make different kinds for the kids. We'll see how it works out - I'll put it to the test soon, and I can't wait to report back to you!



I also had a look at their sale section, and had to pick up a pretty cool collapsible pan, perfect for marshmallows and stuff like that. And a cutter. And, umm, bowls for coating them in different things.. I need to have a marshmallows party soon, apparently. (The pan  is reviewed here.)



And finally, I absolutely could not resist Star Wars ice cube trays. Who could, really?

Disclaimer - this post is not sponsored in any way. I'm just excited.