Vørterbrød (Wort bread)

Vørterbrød is the Norwegian name for wort bread, apparently. I really didn’t know how to translate this, or what to call this bread, until now, that I found a definition of what vørter beer, one of the main ingredients, is.

Vørter beer (wort beer) is a non-alcoholic, unfermented drink produced through the carbonation and sterilisation of wort made from malt, hops and water. It is thus, per definition, not a beer and should not be labelled beer, but was given a dispensation to this in the Norwegian Beer Act of 1912 regarding production and taxation of beer. The reason for this is found in the history of Vørter beer.

Vørterbrød is a type of the traditional Christmas bread with raisins like panettone, stollen and other variations that seems to be part of many different Christmas cuisines around the world. Here in Norway there are two kinds: Christmas bread and wort bread (or cake, as some call it) The Christmas bread is made of wheat, raisins and sometimes succades.

Wort bread, one the other hand, is made of part wheat, part rhye, raisins and spices like anise, ground cloves, cinnamon and pepper. All good Christmas things into one. It has a much richer taste, and maybe it takes some getting used to, because it tastes a lot more than the ordinary Christmas bread. More spices, more syrup, more dense, more of everything and a lot better in my opinion! I love it. And the smell…..Oh, the smell. Lovely licorice-like and a dark brown colour from the rhye and the syrup.

You have to try it. Warm thick slices straight from the oven with a thick layer of good quality butter. Or a slice of Norwegian brown cheese – gjetost, if you’re into that. I’m not, but a hear this is the perfect combo. Well, what do you know. I’m back from my divine lunch, and I have a confession to make. I’m a brown cheese convert. That wasn’t bad at all. It was delicious. I, a non-brown cheese eater, can recommend brown cheese on wort bread. It’s delish. The bread is quite spicy, well not spicy, but filled with spices and flavour. And the cheese is very sweet, so together: A match made in Christmas heaven.

I found a recipe on the net that I was going to use. For some reason, I started to flip through the pages of one of my breadbaking-cookbooks from the bakery Åpent Bakeri, and found a recipe there. To simplify, meaning not having to write down the recipe from the net or dragging the computer into the kitchen, I decided on this recipe instead. And when the dough was done and I was done kneading, it hit me: The wort beer! I forgot it! I read through the recipe to check, and to my surprise, no wort beer in the wort bread recipe… That is strange. Well, at least I didn’t do nothing wrong. So I guess I’ll have to use it next Christmas. Or sooner. Or else: One more year in the fridge. (yes, I had some left from last year.)

Vørterbrød
250 g raisins
5 dl water
600 g wheat
400 g rhye
10 g (2 ts) sea salt
100 sugar
50 g yeast
100 g syrup
0.5 ts ground pepper
0.5 ts cinnamon
0.5 ts ginger
0.5 ts ground cloves
0.5 ts ground anise
50 g butter

(You’re supposed to soak the raisins for one day, but I didn’t and it tasted fine, so you can leave that part. I also left out ginger and pepper. Didn’t have any and it was too snowy outside…)

Directions
Add sugar, egg, butter, salt, cardamom and 2 cups flour; mix well. Stir in raisins and enough remaining flour to form a soft dough.

Turn onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Use as little flour as you can, the dough should be a little sticky. Place in a big bowl covered with clingfilm. Let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Punch dough down and divide in half. Shape each portion into breads. (I made one bread and the rest buns. Of course you can make only buns too, if you prefer) Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour. Brush the breads with one whisked egg.

Bake at 200 degrees C or 395 degrees F for 40-50 minutes or until dark golden brown. Cool on wire racks. Serve while still warm with butter, cheese or jam. Have yourself a merry little Christmas moment.

Chocolate pistachio fudge

Christmas is here and I’m all wrapped up in gingerbread, presents and ornaments. To me, as to so many others, Christmas and advent is so much about the food. Gingerbread, cookies, breads, sweets and other things that will fill the house with that lovely Christmas smell. Somethings are already baked: The gingerbread house me and my boyfriend constructed, still stands (hurray!), looks good, but smells even better. That’s my number one reason to make gingerbread – instant Christmas smell! I also like to give away edible presents, so I preserved some plums when they were in season and some pears as well. And last week, I had my girlfriends over for a little workshop, and we made different kinds of sweets. Homemade sweets for Christmas is both fun to give and receive. I had seen this recipe on Nigella Express, and it looked so good, I had to try it. And quite easy to, which we all like in this busy time of the year.

Chocolate Pistachio Fudge
350g chocolate, at least 70 per cent cocoa solids, chopped
1 can condensed milk (397 g)
30g butter
pinch salt
150g unsalted pistachios, shells removed

Place everything apart from the nuts in a heavy-based pan over a low heat and stir until melted and well combined. Place the nuts into a freezer bag and bash them with a rolling pin, until broken up into some large and some small pieces. Add the nuts to the melted chocolate mixture and stir well.

Pour the mixture into a 23cm square tray, smoothing the top with a wet palette knife.
Let the fudge cool, then refrigerate until set. Cut into small pieces.
Once cut, the fudge can be kept in the freezer – there’s no need to thaw, just eat straight away. Or give some away!

Persimmon couscous salad

A few years ago I discovered the persimmon. I absolutely loved the sweet taste and the juicy texture. And it’s quite a pretty fruit too! I didn’t really know how to proceed the first time I ate it, so I cut of a slice to taste. It was all good, so I cut the entire fruit in slices and ate it with a fork. Feels so much satisfying eating it that way. And the next time I bought persimmons, I did the same thing, and now this has been standard procedure every time they appear in the shops this time of year. I started to think there must be other ways to use this fruit, but I didn’t want to incorporate it completely into something to the point where you really can’t taste it. The persimmon season is just too short. But, then I came across this salad at Tastespotting, and it was just what I was looking for. A way to use the fruit without cooking it. I guess I should have been able to think of something like this myself, but my mind is occupied with physics. That’s my excuse. It was every bit as delicious as it looked. I replaced the parsley with coriander and whole wheat couscous with regular. Just because that’s what I had. The recipe is adapted from kalynskitchen .

3/4 cup couscous (could use quinoa for a gluten-free version)
1 cup chicken stock (or vegetarian stock)
2 tsp. olive oil + 1 T olive oil for dressing
2 Fuyu persimmons, peeled and diced into pieces about 1/2 inch square
1 cup purple seedless grapes, washed and sliced into round pieces
1/3 cup sliced green onion, mostly green parts
1/3 cup finely chopped mint (or use parsley or cilantro)
1 tsp. lemon zest (optional, but recommended)
1 T fresh lemon juice
pinch of ground cumin
salt to taste for seasoning couscous
1/3 cup toasted pine nuts (or use chopped pecans or slivered almonds)

Bring chicken stock and olive oil to the boil, add the couscous and cover with a lid. Let sit for 5-10 minutes, or until all the water is absorbed. Remove lid, stir the couscous and allow to cool.

Slice the persimmons in half, and chop into smaller pieces. If using big grapes like I did, wash them and cut in halves. Normally I wouldn’t bother, but I had giant grapes. Thinly slice the spring onions and finely chop the coriander. (Parsley/mint)

Combine all the greens in a big bowl. Whisk together olive oil, lemon zest and juice and cumin. Pour over the couscous, stir to distribute and taste to see if it needs salt.

Add the couscous to the persimmon-grape mixture and gently combine. Heat up a pan and toast the pine nuts until they start turning golden. Remove from heat, and sprinkle the pine nuts over the salad.

Custard filled cinnamon rolls

Well, first of all, I can’t take credit for this one. Did not make it myself. But I sure helped eating! My boyfriend suddenly decided to make cinnamon rolls late last night, and I was not to stop him. And I figured, I don’t really have time to bake nowadays, reading for my exams pretty much takes all my time. Little baking means few posts, means my poor blog is suffering, so I might as well let him take over the show for a while.

He’s actually not a bad cook at all, but usually he leaves all flour-and-sugar-related activity to me. He cooks, I bake. He makes dinner, I make dessert. At least on weekends. It’s a nice deal. But yesterday he sat his minds to these rolls, which is probably his all time favourite, and mine to that matter, and I let him. (Ain’t I nice?)

And they turned out great. I guess I wouldn’t have rolled out the dough quite as thin, but then again, that means more filling. And I think he agreed, because he managed to get twice as many as he was supposed to! So, quite small, but I’m not complaining! They were absolutely delicious. I had myself a little platter of rolls watching True Blood last night, and today I had some more for breakfast as we conveniently were out of bread. Yummy in my tummy. Higly recommendable! If you haven’t tasted this version of cinnamon rolls before, you should definetely give it a try! What I lova about it is that it contains all the good stuff: cinnamon-filling, custard and lovely icing melting onto the hot rolls. You have to try it, seriously. I have one recipe that I use for all kinds of rolls, including this one. It’s easy to do and easy to succeed with. This should give about 12 larger rolls, or many many smaller ones…

Dough
50 gram fresh yeast (or 25 g dry if you prefer)
500 g flour
100 gram sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
100 gram butter
3 dl milk

Filling
200 g brown sugar, packed
15 g ground cinnamon
75 g butter, softened

Icing
icing sugar
water

Feels like something’s missing? Like the custard? Well – I buy it… So don’t really have a recipe for that, but of course you can make your own! Which is probably even better. But you will need it either way, so provide custard somehow.

Make as any ordinary dough. Mix fresh yeast with melted butter and milk, or dry yeast with flour. Knead until you have an elastic yet firm dough. Set to rise for about an hour, or until it reaches double size. While it’s rising, start making the filling. You can use whatever sugar you like, but I prefer dark brown sugar. At least part brown sugar to give a richer taste. Mix sugar of your choice, butter and cinnamon together. And when the dough had reaches a nice volume, knock it down, roll it out as thins as you like. Remeber thinner dough means smaller buns with more filling, or you can get thicker rolls, but with less filling. Hmm. Hard choice. Or I guess you can have both if you strech it out the right way! Leave to rise for about 20 minutes, then put on a nice scoop of custard on each roll, and bake on 200 C for 10-15 minutes (depending on the size) Bake until lightly golden. And then, while they’re still hot, drizzle with icing and enjoy… Trust me, you will.

Breakfast Pancakes

Ever since my trip to the US last year, my breakfast habits have severely changed, and will never be the same again. I used to say that breakfast, or the morning is that one time of the day when I only want something healthy. Oatmeal, fruits, dark rhye bread was, and still pretty much is, my day to day breakfast routine. But over there, I realized that it can be so much more. French toast, muffins, doughnuts, pancakes – you name it, I ate it. When in Rome, right? And though I liked it, I didn’t really think I’d adopt these habits when I came home. But a few weeks later, when I started craving pancakes for breakfast for the first time in my life, I knew there was no going back. I had become a pancake addict. Which is quite strange, because I’ve never really liked pancakes before. Not the Norwegian way, which is for dinner, and ultra thin. Oh no! Give it to me a la Americana! Stacked XXL-pancakes, thick and fluffy and drenched in maple syrup…

And suddenly it hit me again! Pancakes! I wanted pancakes this weekend. I’ve never posted about it before, because I didn’t manage to get any decent photos, and I’m not very patient when pancakes are awaiting! I decided on plain regular ones, as this is my first pancake post ever. Figured I should start from scratch and then become more experimental. So I found a recipe for perfect pancakes here, which was exactly what I was looking for. My previous tries are less perfect, at least in apperance. That’s why they haven’t made it through here. But here it goes, pancakes for breakfast. I’m getting so used to this…

Fudge Brownies – aka dry chocolate cake

I’ve got brownies on the brain. Needed to get it out of the system. Hence this post. Not that I need an excuse to make brownies, but that’s how it is. I do have a theory though, to this brownie obsession. I dyed my hair last week – from blonde to brown. So now, my boyfriend refers to me as brownie, instead of blondie. And hearing the word brownie a couple of times during the day, well, it gets to you one way or another! So unconciously this brownie-craving has been building up, and now it was about time to do something about it. And what better day than today to celebrate my new haircolour with brownies! I seriously needed to do something else than reading chemistry for a change, so I decided to take a day off reading and spend some quality time in the kitchen, followed by some quality time in front of the TV with baked goods, instead.

It’s with slight disappointment that I’m writing this, because I just took them out of the oven, and worst case scenario occured. I overbaked them! Arrgghhh! I hate when that happens, when all you want is gooey fudgy brownieness and what you get is simply chocolate cake. And it’s not the same when your mind is set on brownies. (Breathe in, breath out. It’s gonna be ok, it’s just overbaked brownies.) It was a good chocolate cake though. And with a little frosting it wasn’t so bad after all. I’m still posting about it and sharing the recipe, because I believe this was my mistake, and that these brownies can really be great. Just take a look here where I found the recipe! Now that’s what I call brownies. I have yet to make a truly succesful batch of brownies, but I will try this recipe again, closely watching the oven.. So give it a try and tell me how it turns out!

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups flour (4 dl)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 lb butter (225 g)
2 cups sugar (4,5 dl)
1/4 cup water (0,5 dl)
11 oz semisweet chocolate (300 g)
2 oz unsweetened chocolate (50 g)
1 tbsp vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1 cup pecans (2,3 dl)

Preheat oven to 325 F (200 C) and line a 9″x13″ baking pan with aluminum foil, allowing the foil to overhang the ends of the pan by a couple inches. Grease the foil with nonstick spray.

In a large saucepan, bring the butter, sugar, and water just to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring.
Remove from the heat. Stir the chocolates into the sugar mixture until completely melted. Let cool to warm so that the eggs won’t curdle.

Stir the vanilla into the chocolate mixture. Then add the eggs, and mix thoroughly.
Stir the dry ingredients into the chocolate mixture just until the batter is evenly blended. Less mixing = more tender brownies. (Ooops, I didn’t read that until now… no wonder they came out the way they did. When will I learn to read through recipes before starting?)
Stir in the nuts.Turn out the batter into the pan, spreading it evenly to the edges.
Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until the center is barely firm when tapped. (Keep an eye on them, as every oven is different! 25 minutes was way overdue for me)Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool to warm, about 20 minutes. Or not! Just dig in and get warm hopefully fudgy brownies all over!

Do I dare…. French macarons

THE DARING COOKS OCTOBER 2009 CHALLENGE: MACAROONS

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

When I got to know this month’s challenge was french macaroons my first thought was YES! I love macaroons. I fell instantly in love with these wonderful creatures when I was in Paris a few years back. I was wandering down Champs Elysées, and spotted a bakery that I had to enter. There were lots of things to choose from obviously, but the macaroons stacked on the shelves immediately caught my eye. They were so cute, looking like sweet mini-hamburgers, I knew I had to try them. They had all kinds of flavours and colours, but I safed it, and chose the chocolate macaroon. One for me and one for my boyfriend. We went outside and sat down on a bench, and took these mysterious things out of the paper bag. (At this time I had never heard of macaroons, and didn’t know what to expect.) I took a bite – looked at my boyfriend who just did the same – we both smiled and started to giggle. It was sooo good! I didn’t know what to say but smile at this. That crisp shell sandwiched together with a thick layer of tasty chocolate ganache was probably one of the tastiest chocolate-things I had ever eaten. From that day, I was a dedicated macaroon lover.

I dreamt about it, and started exploring the net looking for recipes, just to realize this was a big thing in the baking world. Big, because of its delicioius taste, its super cute look, the varieties in taste, filling or colour, but also, if not mostly because making macaroons is an art. It takes time. It takes practice. And there are a gazillion ways on how to supposedly get the best result, and I have a long looong way to go when it comes to making perfect macarons. So, after my first thought, I started to move from Yes! to oh-oh, No….. My two previous tries didn’t turn out too well. Not too bad either, but I didn’t get those characteristic feet around the edges. And they were a little uneven in size and shapes. The taste was good, but they were quite flat, and not very impressive looking. Not like the mini-hamburger I had in mind. More like a crèpe, I’m afraid. But third thimes a charm, right?

So, I rolled up my sleeves, put on my apron, and started to bake with great confidence. A little too confident maybe. I had read about what to do to ensure the feet. Letting the piped shells rest for some time before popping them in the oven, stacking them on several baking trays and not over-folding the batter. I tried it all. Though I think I failed at the last one. My bowl was a little too small, and it was hard to fold the batter properly, and it sunk together too much at the end. And my piper was not acting very cooperative, so the batter turned more and more runny as my kitchen got more and more messy.

I eventually gave up and spooned the batter onto the tray instead, and popped them in the oven. And to my disappointment, no sign of feet. I still had a slight hope maybe one of my 3 trays would grow some feet, but no, not this time either. Arrgh. My kitchen turned against me today, ever had a one of those days? First I managed to continue whisking above the eggwhites, in the air, leaving eggwhites all over my kitchen bench. Then, my piping-instrument was just acting just evil, also leaving a great mess, only this time brown and chocolate flavoured. I had a real yin yang thing going on there… Then, I dropped my bowl of grinded almonds on the floor…. And then, no feet! I think I deserved some feet today. But the taste was good, though. I made all the shells with cocoa powder and decided to be more creative with the filling. I had plain chocolate ganache of course, and used that as a base. I also made some with coffee flavour and some snickers-macaroons, with peanut butter and ganache. Not overly creative, but what can I say – I’m a chocolate lover!

They were all quite good, despite their sad apperance. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I didn’t have too great expectations. So somewhat surprised, I found them really good! They had a crispy edge, with a softer chewy texture, and with a heavenly thick layer of chocolate gancache in between, the missing feet were almost forgotten. The peanut butter-chocolate ones, aka snickers macaroons were delicious too. You gotta love that peanut-chocolate combo! I can’t really say I feel any closer to mastering the art of French macarons yet, but after all, I am an amateur. It was a fun challenge though! And a tasty one! Here’s the recipe!

Noodles and veggies

I’ve had serious noodle-cravings lately. I love noodles, always have and always will, but I don’t eat it that much longer. When I was younger, and discovered noodles for the first time, I made myself a bowl for supper several times a week. I loved that hot soup and the noodles together, and my personal touch, a few slices of cheese that meltet into the noodles…. yum. So every now and then I remember the noodle-days, and start dreaming about some noodle dish. Like today. My body was also craving vegetables after a rough weekend. And you might think I had too much to drink. Nope. Not alcohol-related rough, but rough in the matter of food. There were burgers, pizza, cookies, chocolate and sushi – all meat, cheese, sugar and wheat and hardly anything green. And I do need my veggies. My body doesn’t handle all that meat that well, and no one shouldn’t eat too much meat anyway. So today noodles and veggies were on the menu!

I had bought some eggnoodles and broccoli, and decided to leave the rest to whatever my fridge contained. It was like always packed with stuff, but I somehow managed to pull out some mushroom, spring leek and cabbage in addition to the broccoli. I chopped, boiled and stir fried, and that was that, and pretty good too!

Ingredients (2 people)
200 g eggnoodles
1/3 broccoli
2-3 champingons
2-3 spring leeks
2 handfuls chopped cabbage
Garlic and chili

Bring a pan of water to the boil, add the noodles, cook for a couple of minutes til it’s al dente, then remove from heat and drain. Chop the vegetables in more or less equally sized bites. Heat some oil (sunflower or corn) in a wok, and add the broccoli and mushrooms. Stir fry for a few minutes til it starts to soften and colour, then add the rest of the veggies. At the end stir in finely chopped garlic and chili.

Seasoning
1 teaspoon honey/brown sugar
1 teaspoon 5 spice powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2-3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 tablespoon maizena
water

Mix everything together, and add water until it reaches desired consistency. You want it to be like a sauce, runny, yet a little syrupy and thicker. I didn’t really measure up the spices, so taste to see if it needs more of anything! When you have your tasty seasoning sauce ready, pour it over the noodles, and serve! Yumyum on a plate!

Dorie’s chocolate chip cookies

Now that autumn is here, there’s something in the air. Something besides leaves and water. Something that makes you crave things, like baked desserts, apple pies and to me also cookies! Chocolate chip cookies, to be exact. It might have something to do with the post where I found this recipe as well. Maybe. But still, I’ve had cookies on my mind for some time now, so it was time to put thoughts into action. Like every other baker, I’m on an everlasting search for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Though, I’m not sure if I really want to find the perfect recipe, I mean, the fun is searching and trying, right? Anyway, when I stumbled upon this recipe at slowlikehoney, especially with those mouthwatering photos, I knew I had to give it a try. The fact that the recipe was from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking, from my home to yours, gave me even more faith in it. I don’t have the book, but I think I have to purchase it on Ebay or something, because I’ve come across so many delicious things from that book, and everybody says it’s great. So, definitely on my wish list!

I remember when I started baking, my favourite thing to make was probable chocolate chip cookies. Only, we didn’t call them that. My mom has a recipe from her mother, and there, they’re called Old Virgins. Or Gamle Jomfruer, in Norwegian. A kinda strange name for a cookie, indeed, but despite the name, I loved baking and eating them. I remember them as crunchier than a regular ccc, but just as good! And back then, (jeez, it sounds as if I’m waaay old) I hadn’t tasted another ccc, so to me, it was the best. But now, with all my cookbooks, and all the recipes on the internet that are available, I felt that my mom’s old virgins could not possibly be the best. I mean what are the chances? But now, many recipes later, I think maybe they’re not so bad after all. They never were bad, but maybe they were actually better than I imagined. I know for sure I’ve made my batches with not-even-close-to-perfect-chocolate-chip-cookies. And wouldn’t it be nice if I came back to that recipe, after all that searching? Like closing the sircle. Hmm, interesting thought. I’ll have to make them again soon to taste what they were really like.

But that was a degression and really has nothing to do with these cookies, because they were, I think, pretty close to perfection! Even though I overbaked them slightly, they still had a chewy center and crispy edges, and large chunks of chocolate and roasted hazelnuts. Just the way I like it. And they even remained chewy, or soft, after cooling, which is not always the case. Hmm, I wonder if this could be it? When do you know, really? I mean I can’t really omit that there is a better recipe out there. But maybe I’ll never get my hands on that one, so for now, I think this is as good as it gets. Chocolate chip cookie heaven.

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie?
Origin: “Baking: From My Home To Yours” by Dorie Greenspan

Ingredients:
● 2 cups/ 4,5 dl flour
● 1 tsp. salt
● 3/4 tsp. baking soda
● 230 grams/ 2 sticks unsalted butter at room temp
● 2,3 dl/ 1 cup sugar
● 150 grams / 2/3 cup light brown sugar
● 2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
● 2 large eggs
● 300 grams 12 oz. bittersweet chocolate (I didn’t use all that chocolate, half of it was enough for me)
● 2,3 dl/ 1 cup chopped walnuts (I used hazelnuts instead)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven 190 C degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment or spray with cooking spray.

2. Whisk the flour, salt, and baking soda together.

3. Beat the butter on medium speed for about 1 minute until smooth (you can use a stand mixer, but I don’t have one so I used a hand mixer). Add the sugars and beat for another 2 minutes, until well blended. Beat in the vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for1 minute after each egg goes in. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients in 3 portions, mixing only until each addition is incorporated. By hand with a wooden spoon, mix in the chocolate and nuts. The dough can be covered and refrigerated for up to 3 days. (Normally, I put it in the fridge for just a half an hour just to firm it up but this time I couldn’t wait. )

4. Spoon the dough by slightly rounded tablespoonful onto the baking sheet, leaving about 2 inches between spoonfuls.

5. Bake the cookies one sheet at a time and rotating the sheet at the midway point- for 10 or 12 minutes, or until they brown at the edges and are golden in the center. Pull sheet from oven and allow the cookies to rest for 5 minutes, then transfer to racks to cool to room temperature.

Serve while hot with a large glass of cold milk. Ahh, the sweet smell and taste of home. Try this recipe today, you won’t be sorry.

Glutenfree apple cake

Finally, the season’s first applecake was made. At least my first. I’ve been longing for this moment, but life got in the way, I guess. It’s a sure sign that summer is over, and autumn is upon us, when applecakes and other apple creations are being made around every other home. The sweet sweet smell of cinnamon and apples sneaking around the house, meaning apple cake is on its way sure is on my top list of why I love atumn! Together with the crisp air, that I get to wear my collection of scarfs, flea markets, Norwegian apples and plums, and of course staying inside baking and munching while the rain is pouring down! Ahh, nothing better than that.

Of course, apples are available all year round, but nothing compares to the crisp and tangy Norwegian apples that are to be found only this time of year. They are perfect on their own, but they are also ideal for baking. They have enough taste and sourness to them to survive the baking process and still remain tasty. I want to taste the apples too, not just the cake.

And I had the perfect apples for this. You see, there is a park close to where I live, with apple trees….. And nobody seems to pick those apples, so I did! I mean, public apple trees, means public apples, means the apples are meant for the public (me). So my conscience is clean! Even though I tried to hide the best I could. I am a grown woman after all, with my pockets bursting with apples. Ahem.

Anyway. They maybe weren’t all ripe, but that means even more taste. Stolen apples = baking. And I had a specific recipe in mind. Applecakes are always good, but I seemed to remember this as a really nice one from my glutenfree diet a year ago. So here’s my virgin apple cake for the season – let there be many more!

Ingredients
150 g real butter
150 sugar
3 eggs
250 g glutenfree flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
About 6 apples, depending their size

Mix butter and sugar well. You can easily use brown sugar – that’s even better!
Stir in one egg at a time.
Sift flour, bakingpowder and vanilla sugar, and stir into the mixture.
Pour the batter in a greased spring form.
Cut the apples in thin slices. Put them in a bowl with loads of sugar and cinnamon, and toss them around, making sure they are all covered in sweetness. Then press them down and into the batter, as many as you can.

Bake in a preheated oven set to 175 C for about 35 minutes.
(The recipe says 30 min, but the last time I made it the center was running, but this time, after 45 minutes, it was a little overbaked, so my best guess is 35-40 minutes, but keep an eye on it! Every oven is different.)

Serve lukewarm with whipped cream, watching the rain pouring down outside. And realize, autumn isn’t too bad after all.