Happy new year everyone!
How was you new year´s eve? Full of festivities, celebrations, good friends and good food? Well – in that case, it was the opposite of mine. No, I´m not complaining, I actually had a great new years eve, it just didn´t turn out exactly as planned. But many good things in life happen by accident! Not that anything actually happened around here. Quite eventless, is a good way to describe the last day of 2011. We woke up quite late, or extremely late, to be accurate. We had spent the night at my parents after enjoying our christmas present for them, which was a basket full of quality cheeses, sausages and ham. Sneaky? Nooo… It was noon when we had our breakfast, but in our defense we slept really bad that night, or hardly at all. By this time our plans for the night were a little uncertain, since my sister had cancelled our original plan. Usually we spend new year at their house along with another couple, and me and my boyfriend are in charge of turkey (him) and cake/dessert (me – surprise!) So the turkey was alredy bought and I had my eyes on a certain cake. We thought of inviting some other people, as a 5-kilo turkey is slightly too much for two people, but as I was feeling a cold developing too, we decided that it would be best to take it easy. Low key-new years eve was our plan! And that plan, my friends, worked out indeed. Did you know you could watch the fireworks on tv? You don´t even have to get up from the sofa. Just place the food in front of you, enjoy the meal from the sofa, have a few films laid out, and you´re good to go! Well, we actually sat down by the dining table to eat – turkey deserved that, after all. But if we had planned this, we would probably go all the way with homemade pizza, and pizza, as you know, is best enjoyed from the sofa, in front of the tv. Well well, maybe next year! Or this year, actually.

The fact that we were going to have a 5 kilo turkey for dinner that night, didn´t stop me from making the cake I planned to bake for 8 people. You could think that a big dinner was enough, but I say a big dinner deserves a big dessert. Or to be honest, I´d be making this either way, no matter the size or shape of dinner. No way I´d let a New Years eve pass without cake! Unheard of! Oh no, I was making this cake. I couldn´t let it pass even if I wanted to, the pictures of it would haunt my dreams until I made it. I found the recipe via Tastespotting, on a random search for chocolate cake. And this appeared. I rest my case. Who can look at this and not make it? Certainly not me. I wasn´t going to let sickness and a 5 kilo turkey get in the way of me and this cake. So I made it. And I suggest you do the same…

Moist Chocolate Cake (Foodess.com)

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup hot coffee (or 2 tsp instant coffee in 1 cup boiling water, or simply 1 cup boiling water)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9-inch baking pans and set aside. In the large bowl of a standing mixer, stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add eggs, buttermilk, melted butter and vanilla extract; beat 2 minutes on medium speed. Stir in hot coffee. Pour batter evenly between the two pans and bake on middle rack of oven for 30 to 35 minutes, until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean. Cool completely on wire racks before frosting.

The cake turned out beautifully and tasty. The flavour was so rich and chocolatey. I was a little surprised by that, since there weren´t any chocolate, just cocoa powder. But I guess that´s what made that deep rich flavour. But…it didn´t turn out as moist as I´d imagined. I´d probably be perfectly happy with it, if I hadn´t seen those pictures of that insanely moisty fudgy cake. But I had. I think I know what did it, though. I didn´t add all the coffee, as I didn´t bother to brew more than I already had, (yeah, yeah, the lazy chef strikes again!)so the batter wasn´t as runny as supposed to. And I guess a runnier batter will make a moister cake, or what? I think that has to be it, cause I followed the recipe otherwise! Next time – cause there´ll be a next time, many next times – I´ll follow the recipe closely. And maybe subsitute some of the cocoa for chocolate? And definetely make more frosting. It´s a big cake, it needs its frosting. Especially to cover up for lacking moistness. Oh yeah, I´ll be making this over and over until perfection strikes! This recipe is a good starting point!

And then. She came back. With a present. She handed it over to me, and I was so glad to see it was a book! Because a book, meant the book. But man, was I surprised by the size!

The reason I had to get this book (I guess the main reason is that it was so hard to achieve) is that I´ve made several of the recipes from this book, only that I found them online. But each and every one of them turned out great! Some of them instantly turned into favourites, like , and not to mention this baby . So now there´s no excuse not to bake – not that there ever is to this girl! My motto is: There´s always an excuse to bake, to celebrate and to have cake! So with finally getting my hands on this baking-bible, I realize I have to get started to work my way through the 300+ recipes! And here it goes, my very first recipe: I started with muffins. Not the overly sweet cake-like kind, but a more filling muffin, that you can easily have for breakfast. It´s still sweet, but not in a sugar-overload kind of way, just perfect for breakfast or as a little accompaniement to a cop of coffee, whatever time of the day. This recipe had a picture of the muffins, and both the picture along with the title of the muffins, was what made me decide on baking these as the very first thing. And a quick look at the recipe showed that they were made partly with oatmeal and wholemeal, and healthier is always a plus when you bake a lot, and live alone… The muffins are called Great grains muffins, and the picture showed a perfect muffin (of course), bursting with prunes, and served with cheddar and a cop of coffee with milk. Yum, yum, yum – I wanted that scenario in my kitchen too! So, on with the apron and get baking!
I didn´t have prunes, so I substituted that with raisins. I didn´t have buttermilk either, but I had some crème fraiche I used instead. I also think I increased the amount of wholemeal. And I didn´t have cheddar either, but as Dorie says, the muffins are great with butter, or even plain. And butter, in my world, is never, ever wrong. Not this time either!

Great Grains Muffins (Dorie Greenspan, Baking from my home to yours)

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup yellow cornmeal
1/3 cup old-fashioned oats
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
2 large eggs
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3/4 cup quartered moist, plump prunes or other dried fruits ( cut up as necessary) and/or chopped nuts (optional)

I can´t believe summer is very soon to be over. Both my summer holiday and the season. I´ve had 2 months of holiday, just lazing. This has been such a lazy summer. You have no idea. I didn´t even bother to blog, although the only thing I´ve done these past weeks is cooking, baking and eating. It seems to me that I get lazier the more time I have on my hands, and the fewer things I have to do, which eventually probably will make me totally incapaple of doing anything at all. Well, I guess it´s a good thing there´s less than a week left until I start my studies again.

Today was such a beautiful day. The sun was shining and you could feel it warming your skin, though the sun is loosing to the sharp air as every day goes by. But not today. I spent it walking to the mountains, picking some blueberries along the way, reading in the park and eating ice cream. It was hot. It called for barbecueing, but I knew it would be too cold for that when my boyfriend would be back from work. So I decided to throw a little inside-barbecue for us. I had some aubergines and sausages as my base. I drizzled the aubergines with oil, salt and pepper, and roasted them in the oven together with the sausages. Now I needed some accompaniements. A kind of salad. I found some ears of corn in the fridge, probably from the last time we barbecued. Whenever that was. I wanted to use them, but I didn´t know in which way. Luckily I remembered to have seen a post about a corn salad on bloglovin that I had yet to read. So I read it, and that was my solution. It was quite summerly, just like I wanted this dinner to be, and it paired up very well with the aubergines and sausages. The recipe is from 101.cookbooks.com.
I added some little gem lettuce, for some colour and crunch and to make it a little lighter. It worked out very well, and my boyfriend, who is not exactly salad-man himself, absolutely loved it and came back for seconds. (Usually he just puts some on the plate, and that´s where it stays. For me to see and for him to avoid…) I also made the dressing to go with the salad, but I think the salad also can be served without. The dressing was that little extra something, though. So I guess I´m saying make it. Unless you don´t bother. Whatever.

But make this at least!

Corn Salad for 2 (recipe adapted from 101.cookbooks)

2 ears of corn
1/2 red onion
50 g roasted pepitas
50 g roasted sunflowerkernels
1/2 little gem lettuce

Dressing
2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon brown sugar
a squeeze of lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Use a knife and cut the kernels from the cobs. Finely chop the onion. Put it in a bowl together with the kernels while you make the dressing.

Combine lemon juice, salt and sugar in a bowl. Gradually add the oil, whisking vigorously until everything comes together. (Ooops, I see where I went wrong…I just put everything in a cup and stirred like crazy… Well, don´t be like me!) Adjust to your taste, but this dressing is ment to be on the sweet side.

Just before serving add the seeds to the bowl of corn, together with 2/3 of the dressing. Toss well and make everything well coated. If you want more dressing, add to your taste, or serve it on the side.

Hooray! First of all, it’s spring! And summer is here soon, though it feels like it’s already summer here today. 18 degrees C and sunshine – that’s summer, whether I’m here in Denmark or home in Norway. And secondly, and most importantly, rhubarb is in season! Nothing says spring or early summer more than rhubarb desserts and muffins. Although I love rhubarb in a strawberry/rhubarb pie, this soup, my mother’s rhubarb compote, rhubarb crumble……..this, is what exites me most! This is first on my rhubarb-list. Then comes the pie, that’s really good too…and it brings back memories from past summers, when my family have friends over and we just sit eating, talking, laughing and munching into the Norwegian summer night that never gets the chance to go dark, before the sun rises again. Lovely. But that’s another story. I’m a sucker for nostagia, especially the summer-related kind. Can’t help it. Now for the muffins. These darlings are a newer acquaintance, but instantly became a hit in my family, and I’ve been making them at least a couple of times every rhubarb season since. What surprised me the most when I first made them, was how incredible moist they were. We actually had to get a spoon, and scoop out the delicious muffin-rhubarb-goo and eat it like a mini dessert from a paper bowl. But the good thing about it, although I like to eat things with a spoon in general even if it’s not needed, I find it very comforting, was that we could really scrape every last bit of muffin out of the muffin cup. Very nice. And economic and ethically right, not to waste food. Which brings me to why I made these muffins right now. We have a group project at school to prepare a meal for about 200 people, sell it, and make all kinds of budgets, PR, hygienic controls. It’s quite a project. And it has to be a somewhat sustaineable meal. So we decided to go for a koncept of exploiting the nature in a good way, to go out and find edibles in the forest, your backyard or on the way to work for that matter. To use whatever’s in season, and to shop locally. So since rhubarb is in season, I suggested it, since a lot of people have it in their gardens. But mostly, to have an excuse to make them. What can I say, they are de-licious. And a smash hit with my fellow group members. And it looks really pretty. I’ve never had that purple rhubarb before, and it gave the muffins an almost plumlike pinkish colour. But tastewise, it’s all the same. Phew.

Rhubarb Muffins
100 g butter
2 dl sugar
3 eggs
ca 2 dl flour
1,5 teaspoon baking powder
0,5 dl rhubarb juice
250 g rhubarb 0,5 dl sugar
0,5 dl water

Cut the rhubarb into pieces and bring to a boil together with sugar and water. Boil until the rhubarb softens. Strain the rhubarb to squeeze out the juice. In a bowl combine the sugar and butter and stir. Add 1 egg at a time. Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture. Turn the rhubarb syrup carefully into the batter. (If you use the purple rhubarb, to make a marbled effect. Or just turn it in if you want a pink batter! If you use the pale rhubarb it doesn’t really matter.) (I also made a batch of unmarbled muffins, so you can skip the straining if you don’t bother or want to. That works too! But I think I’d do it, I think it makes them so deliciously moist.) Fill the cups 3/4 full, and top with a spoon of rhubarb in the middle. Bake for about 10 minutes for the small kind, and 15 minutes for large. Sift with powding sugar or make a simple glaze, and give them a whirl. And dig in, armed with a spoon for maximum pleasure…. They’re best eaten while warm, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Or served lukewarm, that also works. Or cold with a warm cup of tea as a late night snack when the Scandinavian summer air turns crisp. These are flexible babies! But whatever you do – just do it. Make them.

And if you wonder whatever that means, snurrs or kanelsnurrer, I can tell you that a kanelsnurr means cinnamon swirl or roll, and is a delicious yeast bun of Norwegian origin. And even though I found the recipe in a Danish baking book by Claus Meyer, it turned out to be Norwegian. He had tasted these buns at some baking-event in Norway, and ever since he couldn’t eat or smell anything cinnamon without thinking of the Norwegian baker Morten Schakenda’s snurrer. After several trials and errors with help and advice from many Danish bakers and chefs, he still didn’t achieve the wanted result, and had to make a trip to the Norwegian wilderness to get the recipe. More precisely, to Morten Schakenda’s bakery in Lom. Luckily, he got it! I’m thankful for that, and so should you be. The recipe is from the book “Morten Schakenda om boller og brød og tilfeldigheter fra bakeriet i Lom” that was named the best Norwegian cookbook in 2009. And what can I say: These babies are simply delicious! And it’s not just another cinnamon roll recipe, like you may think. Well, I guess it is, in a way…..but with a twist! First of all, they have another look than the ordinary rolls, which make them slightly more interesting. And, there’s a lot of butter in the dough, making them moist and buttery, and in my case a little dense – but that probably has something to do with the lack of raising. So, no density guarantee, but that’s not for everyone anyway. I, however, like it heavy…And what better way to end my fantastic Easter holiday in Norway with a traditional Norwegian recipe like this. So, I might have had my fair share of waffles – Norwegian and Belgian, chocolate cake, marsipan, ice cream and everything that consists of fat and granulated sugar last week, but I had to make a final thing, and it had to end sweet…And no regrets! The perfect end to a perfect easter.

Kanelsnurrer
Makes about 15

5 dl cold milk
50 g yeast
1 large egg
1 kg wheat flour
150 g sugar
15 g sea salt
12 g cardamom
150 g butter

Filling
125 g soft butter
125 g sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon

Additional
1 egg for brushing
sugar for sprinkling

Directions:
Pour the milk in a bowl. (The recipe says cold milk, but I would heat it up a little, my dough hardly rose at all….) Add the fresh yeast, and stir. Add the egg, flour, sugar, salt and cardamom. Knead the dough for about 20 minutes, or when you have a soft dough that is smooth and elastic. Cut the butter into small cubes and add them into the dough that will need another 20 minutes of kneading. (The long time kneading is important for the finished result).

On a floured surface, roll out the dough to a 40 cm x 50 cm square. Or any size of choice! If you’re like me, you don’t pay much attention to those measures. But don’t be like me. Only if you want to. The bottom line is, make a big square. Spread butter onto the dough and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. With your hands, smush evertying together so that it’s evenly distributed all over. (Oops – I might have overlooked this point which might have led to a caramel mess under the buns, but it might have something to do with my generous amount of filling. And that warm sticky caramel was actually divine, so who cares about a little mess?)

Fold a third of the dough towards the middle, and fold the other third over the first one, so you have 3 layers of dough. Roll out the dough to be 30×50/60 cm and cut it in 16 shreds. Twist every shred by grabbing it in both ends, and twist the ends in opposite directions, making 4 or 5 turns. Be careful not to squeeze out the filling. Take the twisted piece of dough with one hand, and turn it twice around your other hand’s index and middle finger. Put the remaining piece of dough over these twists, place it between your index and middle finger, and pull the fingers towards you, so the end is tucked into the bun. Place the buns on abaking sheet covered with baking paper, with the twists facing upwards. Cover and let them rise to reach the double size for approximately 2 hours.

Brush the buns with eggwash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake them on 200 C for about 12-14 minutes or till they turn golden. Cool on a rack, or enjoy immediately! Perfect to break apart and eat it bit by bit, making room for a zip of black coffee in between the bites!

It’s been a long cold lonely winter, but the it’s mid-march and spring is here! Well, that’s what the calender says anyway, but that’s not really in sync with reality. I was sitting here listening to one of my Beatles’ favourite songs, Here comes the sun, ready to embrace the season with spring, flowers and sunshine when all of a sudden it started SNOWING? Wtf? Ok, I know that’s not unusual in march, it always happens in Norway anyway. But I thought I’d escaped that, that I’d be safe here, now that I’ve moved to Denmark. That winter would be over when it’s supposesed to be, which is now. But no, it started to snow, it continued to snow, and the streets were white when I got up this morning… (One the bright side, I did see the weather as an excuse to make myself a nice cup of hot cocoa with whipped cream, but that’s another story…) But today I thought when summer isn’t coming to me, I have to come to summer! And no, I’m not on a one-way-plane to a Greek isle, unfortunately, but I do have the next best thing – Summer feel in the form of summer flavours, in the form of Greek salad! One of my all time favourites. Probably because it brings back nice memories of summer and sun. And that was exactly what was needed today. Summer in a bowl. And it helped! I didn’t mind looking out on the snow, when I had this! Plus it’s so easy to throw together, so if you too miss the summer, make this and dream yourself away to a little greek taverna along the beach…Instant summer is on your way! Help is near!

Greek Salad (recipe from Allrecipes.co.uk)

3 large ripe tomatoes, cut into medium pieces or wedges
2 cucumbers, sliced
1 green pepper
1 small red onion, thinly sliced (if you can’t spot any onion on the pictures it’s cause I didn’t remember it until after the photos…)
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano/greek salad mix, if you’re lucky to have some like me!
200 g pack feta cheese, crumbled
handful black Greek olives, pitted if desired

Directions:
In shallow salad bowl, combine tomatoes, cucumber and onion. Sprinkle with salt to taste and let sit for a few minutes so that the salt can draw out the natural juices from the tomato and cucumber.
Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with oregano, and pepper to taste. Sprinkle feta cheese and olives over salad. Serve.

Tip:
Letting the salted tomatoes and cucumbers sit for awhile before adding any oil is essential to a good Greek salad. The natural acidic juices from the tomato combine with the olive oil to make a delicious dressing, with no need for vinegar or lemon juice. Crusty bread is also a must so you can mop up every last bit of juice!

Enjoy!

FINALLY, the day for collecting our cupcakes arrived yesterday. You see, my friend and I bought these coupons where you got 6 cupcakes for the price of three sometime back in the autumn. We were planning on collecting them when my friend finally settled in her new appartment, but things got complicated, so that was delayed. We then decided to go get them some time before the holidays for a little pre-Christmas celebration. That never happened. So we decided on collecting them when our exams were done in january. That never happened either! But yesterday at school when it started to snow, we figured we definetely needed those cupcakes to survive spending the day at the library. Ohh, and am I glad we did! I bought apple, banana and sea salt chocolate, but I only tasted the last one. It was quite rich, but really, really good. Especially the frosting. So judging by that one flavour, I can higly recommend Agnes Cupcakes. And I’ve only heard other people rave about it. But cupcakes and studies go well together I can tell you! Or, actually not. We didn’t get much done, but we had a lot of fun, though. We had our little oasis in between all the dusty old books with colourful cupcakes and fresh coffee! Lovely! It certainly raised the bar for studying a bit…

This is one classy dessert! Wow, I impress myself… I’m usually the more rustic, rough looking kind of desserts or food in general, so when I make that little extra effort, which actually is really little, I feel so proud. So of course I’m sharing it with you today!

I had this lovely dessert a couple of weeks ago at a friends house. We’ve started a little dinner-group, where one is hosts a 3 course dinner, and the rest bring the wine. It’s great fun, and a nice way to try new dishes, like this one. The appetizer was really good, so was the dinner, but we all agreed that the dessert was the highlight of the meal. And it looked quite fancy too. Like the dessertmaniac I devored it. I haven’t had that much panna cotta in my life, and the few times, I’ve found it a little boring. But this was perfectly paired with the spiced apples which balanced the neutral flavour of the panna cotta. Delicious. From that moment I was a panna cotta convert. I got the recipe, and now that I’m home on vacation, what better way to start off my days of freedom, and to finish off my first meal at home with my boyfriend, than with this fine thing? I believe the boyfriend was impressed. Like always, he’s in charge of dinner, and I’m the queen of desserts. And now I’ve added this to my repertoire! It’s nice to get some outside inspiration, cause I tend to get stuck in my old habits and food routines, but I’ll definetely be making this again! I actually think I’ll add it to my book of recipes… And that, is a sign of quality.

Panna cotta with spiced apples (4)
2 leaves of gelatine
1 vanillapod
1½ dl full cream 38%
5 tablespoons sugar
3 dl sour cream 9%

2 apples
3 tablespoons sugar
½ dl water
1 staranis
1 stick of cinnamon(4-6 cm)
½ ts ground cardamom

Soak the gelatine in cold water for 10 min. Cut the vanillapod and scrape out the seeds. Pour cream, sugar, vanillapod and seeds in a small pan, and bring to a boil while stirring. Remove pan from heat. Remove the gelatine from the water, and put it into the warm cream mixture. Stir til everything is dissolved, and pour in the sour cream. Divide the panna cotta in 4 glasses (a ca. 2 dl) and cover in the fridge for at least 4 hours.

Spiced apples: Peel the apples and slice them thinly. Melt the sugar in a pan. Add water, staranis, cinnamon and cardamom and boil for about 2 minutes. Put the apples in the pan, and boil over low heat while stirring for about 4 min. Allow to cool completely.

Divide the apples onto the pannacottas and serve immediately.

It’s Christmas. It’s cookie time.
Let’s get down to business.

I’ve already made a batch of gingerbread. They turned out well, but they also turned out to be many. I brought one jar to school, now there’s only two back. And at the time, it’s just me. So I’m munching gingerbread, and I’ll be doing that for some time. But nevertheless, I feel the urge to bake some more cookies. Just something else. Something lighter (if you can say that about any cookie) and maybe a little less Christmasy. I found what I was looking for. Even though I’m very traditional when it comes to Christmas – cookie wise anyway – I know there’ll be plenty of that, so why not try something else? It’s still a cookie. So it has a some Christmas to it.

The cookies are lemon and lime flavoured sugar cookies. I found the recipe at joythebaker, but originally it’s from Baking from my home to yours, (I crave that book! I’ve found so many recipes from that book on various blogs, and they’re all so great. But it’s not available here…) and I knew I had to make them rightaway. And so I did…

I didn’t have any lime, but that didn’t stop me as I had a ton of lemons. I just skipped the lime part and added some more lemon instead. And that worked out fine. But I guess the lime would make that little extra je ne sais quoi… Great cookies anyway! Go bake!

Citrus Sables

2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter (preferably high-fat, like Plugra), softened at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted before measuring
1/2 teaspoon salt, preferably sea salt
2 large egg yolks, preferably at room temperature
2 cups all-purpose flour.

zest of 1 lemon and zest of 1 lime

For the decoration (optional):
1 egg yolk
Crystal or dazzle sugar.

1. Beat the butter at medium speed until it is smooth and very creamy. Rub the zest of the lemon and lime into the granulated sugar with your fingertips, creating a fragrant sugar. Add the sugars and salt to the butter and continue to beat until smooth and velvety about 1 minute. Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in 2 egg yolks, again beating until well blended.

2. Turn off the mixer, pour in the flour, drape a kitchen towel over the mixer and pulse the mixer about 5 times at low speed for 1 or 2 seconds each time. Take a peek; if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of more times; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, stir for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough and the dough looks uniformly moist. If you still have some flour on the bottom of the bowl, stop mixing and use a rubber spatula to work the rest of it into the dough. You want to work the dough as little as possible. What you’re aiming for is a soft, moist, clumpy dough.

3. Scrape the dough onto a work surface, gather it into a ball and divide it in half. Shape each piece into a smooth log about 9 inches long (it’s easiest to work on a piece of plastic wrap and use the plastic to help form the log). Wrap the logs well and chill them for at least 2 hours. The dough may be kept in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.

4. When ready to bake, center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper and keep it at the ready.

5. To decorate the edges of the sables, whisk the egg yolk until smooth. Place one log of chilled dough on a piece of waxed paper and brush it with yolk (the glue), and then sprinkle the entire surface of the log with sugar. Trim the ends of the roll if they are ragged and slice the log into 1/3-inch-thick cookies.

6. Place the rounds on the baking sheet, leaving an inch of space between each cookie, and bake for 17 to 20 minutes, rotating the baking sheet at the halfway point. When properly baked, the cookies will be light brown on the bottom, lightly golden around the edges and pale on top. Let the cookies rest 1 or 2 minutes before carefully lifting them onto a cooling rack with a wide metal spatula.

I decided to give them a little extra decoration, dress them up to be suitable Christmas presents. A nice frosty look to complement the sweetness. I made an icing from icing sugar, lemon juice and a little water. I love lemon-flavoured icing together with lemon-stuff! It’s so…..lemony! So these were right up my alley. But they’re delicious on their own, so it’s not needed at all. Plain, they would be the perfect accompaniement to a cup of your favourite tea, any day of week. But I made them festive and ready for Christmas. And they turned out quite pretty, I think. Don’t you?

I’ve fallen in love with beetroot. It’s actually good! Who would have known….Well, I didn’t. It’s a new aquintance in my life. Until now, my only beetroot-experiences have been limited to the pickled kind. And that’s never been a favourite of mine, so that was the end of that story, I thought. I was never really aware there was such a thing as raw beetroot. I didn’t deny it, I just never thought about it. Beetroot, to me, came from a jar. So I had to turn 28, move to Denmark and start studying nutrition to make this discovery. Beetroot exists! Even outside jars! Well, well. Better late than never. But now I have some catching up to do!

My very first meeting with this new love, was when we where making chocolate-beetroot cake for a happening at school. Needless to say, I was scheptical. But, the cake was lovely, and won me over once and for all. I’ll be making that again – healthy chocolate cake? yes please!

But, I couldn’t really taste it inside a cake, but when it appeared in a salad we got at a party, I decided to give it a go. And it was so good, and so much better than expected! Sweet, crunchy and gorgeous purple. From that point, it was official. I’m a beetroot lover! The following day I bought a 2kg bag of beetroots, that I’m still working my way through. I’ve already made this salad a couple of times, it’s so easy to toss together with whatever you have! Besides, it’s delicous and healthy, you can just feel it’s good for you. I love that. There’s really no recipe or measurements, but this is what I used today anyway! You could also throw in some avocado, that’s really good, and replace the pumpkin seeds with pistachios. And giving instructions aren’t really neccesary, but I do it anyway. For you. So greet your beetroot, and go ahead!

Barley Beetroot Salad
Beetroot
Pearl Barley
Spinach
Red onion
Red Cabbage
Fresh Coriander
Pumpkin seeds/Pistachios

Peel the beetroot and cut it in bite-size chunks.
Boil the pearl barley after instructions.
Cut the cabbage and the onion in rings.
And the avocado if you’re using that.
Now put a generous amount of spinach onto a big plate. Pour over the barley and vegetables. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, salt and freshly grounded pepper. Garnish with coriander, and serve!