Scandilicious buns…

Today I got to sample some of ace baker Scandilicious buns.

She’s been madly baking test batches of recipes for possible inclusion in her next cookbook (out next year and all about Scandi baking).

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Wow.

I’m not renowned for my sweet tooth and neither is my husband but these were just the ticket with our morning coffee (we shared one of each so there are some left for tomorrow).

The round one with custard is a Skolebolle and the other an almond twist.

We particularly loved that they were sweet enough but not crazily so whilst the dough had a lovely gentle spice to it.

I’m hoping they make the cut for the book.

(And big thanks to Sig for the bag of free buns)

Egg and cress

Egg and cress makes me think of summer.

I love it in sandwiches (I know lots of people don’t). Especially on a nice crispy white roll or baguette.

But recently I’ve been flipping through @Scandilicious new book The Secrets of Scandinavian Cooking and there’s quite a few open sandwiches with an eggy theme.

So I decided why not try egg and cress on lovely @PetersYard crispbreads for a quick lunch.

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Wow it was fab. Helped of course that I had home grown cress and bantam eggs gifted from a friend.

Perfect with some crunchy breakfast radish on the side.

For a filling lunch for 1 you need:

2-3 bantam or small hens eggs, hardboiled

your favourite mayonnaise, a good dollop

1 tub of cress

3 Peters Yard crispbread or some slices of sourdough or rye bread

Chop the hard boiled eggs in with the mayo , stir in pepper and cress. Pile on bread or crispbreads, garnish with more cress and serve with crispy radish or some tomatoes

Eating Norwegian for Eurovision, naturally

Its Eurovision time again. Tonight. In Oslo. Surely you are going to be watching? And you’ll need something to eat whilst the 25 contestants do their stuff followed by the age long voting process. So how to decide what Eurovision dish to have. Well you could rustle up a menu from the cuisine of the country you are supporting, you could just have something random and un-Eurovision related or you could try something from the cuisine of host country Norway.

Some of you might be saying ‘what Norwegian cuisine, isn’t it just herrings and meatballs?’ Apparently not according to Signe Johansen of the blog Scandilicious, and currently working on her first cook book. She’s already ranted on the very topic at the Real food Festival recently and she’s one a number of people championing Nordic cuisine as being seasonal, tasty and good for us too. Another champion of Scandinavian food is Trina Hahnemann, Denmark’s own Delia apparently (wonder how she feels about that!). Trina has had two books published in the UK in the last 18 months and both have plenty of recipes to whet the appetite for a fresh regional cusine that not Mediterranean. Even Jamie Oliver cooks Sweden in his latest book and series.

Regular readers will know that I’ve sampled various Norwegian dishes before, and that I have a particular penchant for the curious thing that is brown cheese (gjetost). But always keen to explore more, particularly if there is cheese on the menu, I jumped at the chance to attend a cooking demo and lunch with Trina being held at Madsen earlier this, especially because it was in association with Jarlsberg cheese.

Its not that Jarlsberg is new to me in fact I’ve been eating it from back in the days when it could only be bought in the food halls of smart department stores (all good department stores used to have rather nice food halls back then). My Dad used to buy it and rather lovely German style rye bread and it quickly became a staple on sandwiches. For whatever reason that’s kind of where it stayed. It never occurred to us to cook with it, and so it has remained in my mind a cheese for pairing with good bread and tomatoes but not one that is cooked with.

Until the lunch spent with Trina. To start off Trina explained a bit about how Jarlsberg is made (the exact recipe is a secret of course!), the process and ageing are like Gruyere and in fact the gentle nutty flavour and texture are very similar. Had I spotted this similarity myself I might have thought of cooking with it sooner. We then moved on to the demo where Trina made a cheese bread and a rye based pizza using Jarlsberg. I can hear the traditionalists howling at the very idea of the latter and Trina was mindful that it was a dish inspired by pizza but made with ingredients more traditional to Scandinavian food. I was a little sceptical, I love rye bread, I love pizza but I wasn’t sure how the two would fare together. Whilst Trina finished off the other elements of our lunch we all went back up to the restaurant where we sampled beers from AERØ. The food started to arrive and Trina came back to join us. We had a huge spread of citrus cured salmon with scrambled egg, Jarlsberg bread, rye pizza with bacon potatoes and Jarlsberg, a kale apple walnut and Jarlsberg salad, crispbreads, huge hunks of Jarlsberg, a variety of AERØ beers, tomato salad, plum compote and…..as you can imagine we were pretty full by the end. Trina was great company telling anecdotes about cooking in Denmark and also a font of useful information about Scandinavian cuisine.

After coffee we were packed off with giant goodie bags. And in my case a new set ideas for a cheese I’ve been a fan of for many years. For all you doubters the rye pizza was delicious, very hearty and full of flavour and just what you probably need for a long evening in front of the Eurovision.

You can find the recipe here on the Jarlsberg site.

With thanks to Jarlsberg, Trina Hahnemann and Madsen for hosting a great event.

My Scandinavain style new office

This week I’ve been trying out a new office. I really like it. Its central. Its good for meetings. Its got nice Scandinavian decor with clean lines. There’s a great catering facility and wifi. I love the quirky cups. The coffee is from Monmouth Street Coffee.

What more can a girl ask for?

Want a Scandi style office facility of your own? Then you need:

61 Great Titchfield Street
W1W 7PP

Oh and buy enough coffees and you get a hug from the staff (only if you want own of course) – sweet :)

And last but not least they stock BROWN cheese – oh yes.