I can promise you that no matter which Swedish café you’ll enter, they will most probably have kärleksmums. It’s a typical Swedish cake, which translates to the cute name love yummies. In the book Sju sorters kakor (Swedish cakes and cookies, which you can win here) they are called Snoddas and some people even call them Mocha Squares, but I’ve always called them love yummies becuase that’s what they are :-) They are not as rich and dense as the rather similar chocolate gingerbread from Nigella; but they are much lighter and have a rather mild chocolate taste. I really like the frosting and my mother often use the frosting from this recipe on other cakes and cookies.

Kärleksmums / Snoddas / Mocha Squares
(makes 30-35 pieces. Recipe from “Sju sorters kakor” aka “Swedish cakes and cookies)

cake:
150 gram butter
2 eggs
300 ml caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla sugar
1 tbsp cocoa, sifted
450 ml flour
2 tsp baking soda
150 ml milk

frosting:
75 gram butter
2 tsp cold coffee
1 tbsp cocoa, sifted
2 tsp vanilla sugar
350 ml icing sugar

garniture:
shredded coconut

Heat the oven to 175 degrees C.

Melt the butter and let it cool. Whip the eggs and sugar until white and fluffy. Add the dry ingredients varied with the milk and the butter. Pour the batter into a buttered and breaded rectangular pan, about 30 X 40 cm.

Bake the cake in the lower part of the oven for about 15 minutes but not too long as you don’t want a dry cake.

Let the cake cool. In the meantime melt the butter for the frosting. Add the remaining ingredients. Spread the frosting over the cake and sprinkle a lot of shredded coconot. Cut the cake in squares.

Yesterday was the first sunday of Advent. Christmas is getting closer and closer and it’s time to get into that Christmas mode. We bought new Advent star lights for our windows which we hang up, we baked ginger bread cookies and we started on building a ginger bread cookie house which we’ll finish this evening. And for our Advent breakfast I baked Lussekatter which means Lucia Cats. They are basically S formed Saffron buns which are very common in Sweden before Christmas and especially on Lucia day. I always use the same recipe, the one from Arla which contains quark (Kesella) as it makes the buns moist and nice. I really recommend this recipe, the saffron buns becomes very moist and juicy, far from the dry ones found in stores. The only thing I’ve changed about the recipe is that I add more saffron, which both I and Fredrik like a lot.

Lussekatter

50 g fresh yeast
100 g butter
500 ml milk
250 g Kesella lätt (quark)
1.5 g saffron (3 Swedish “bags” of saffron).
150 ml caster sugar
abour 1700 ml flour

For garnishing:
raisins

For brushing:
1 beaten egg

Melt butter in a pan and add the milk. Make sure that the mixture is lukewarm (37 degrees C). Pour the mixture over the finely divided yeast. Mix and then add the remaining ingredients. Work the dough so it becomes smooth and nice. Cover the dough with a kitchen towel and let it rise for 40 minutes.

Knead the dough, divide it into 32 pieces. Form each piece of dough into a string, 15-20 cm long, then arrange the string in a double S. Place 2 raisins at the ends of each bun. Cover the buns with a kitchen towel and let them rise for 30 minutes.

Brush the buns with the egg and then bake them in the oven at 225 degrees C, about 5-8 minutes until they are golden brownish yellow.

Many countries have their own versions of potato based dumplings; kroppkakor in Sweden, Klöße in Germany, Knödeln in Austria and so on. In Poland there are many dumpling variants made of boiled potatoes. We have the ones with savoury filling “Pyzy“, the sweet ones “knedle” and “kopytka” which are not filled with anything at all. Some people would probably want to add “pierogi” to the above dumpling list, but their dough normally doesn’t contain any boiled potatoes (apart from the filling) so they don’t really belong here.

Knedle ze śliwkami is typical Polish sweet dish, often eaten as a sweet dinner. The Polish kitchen isn’t always healthy… :-) Normally the dumpling dough is made of boiled potatoes, but I found a variant made out of quark (my middlename should be quark…) on the Polish food forum which I read. The result was excellent, and even Fredrik really liked these dumplings.

Knedle ze śliwkami
(makes 12, serves 4)

Dough:
250 gr quark (don’t use Kesella as it’s too runny; I made my own quark)
1 egg
120-130 gr flour
2 tablespoons of melted butter

Filling:
12 small sweet plums
12 tsp caster sugar

For serving:
melted butter
caster sugar
cinnamon

Wash the plums, pat dry and stone by cutting a gash. Stuff each plum with one teaspoon of sugar.

Boil water in a large pot.

Prepare dough in a bowl by mixing all ingredients. Work dough until firm, if the dough is too sticky add some flour. Divide the dough into 12 pieces, then flatten each piece with your hands and wrap it around each plum.

Quark is a kind of soft cream cheese often used in Polish recipes and you’vre probably noticed that I use it a lot, especially in cheesecakes as I’m used to eastern european cheesecakes with quark instead of cream cheese. The problem is that in Sweden we only have Kesella. Kesella works rather well in some recipes but for most dishes it’s just too watery and runny. Some dishes calls for compact quark, and that you solve by making it yourself. This is just the base recipe, when you’re done you can use this homemade quark in cheesecakes (maybe a Tiramisù cheesecake or raspberry cheesecake brownies, pierogi (a sort of Polish tortellini), pancakes (either Polish ones or pancakes that melt in your mouth) or other dishes. Or you can just add some of your favourite spices and put it on a piece of bread together with some tomato slices and you have yourself a delicious sandwich. In day or two I will post another great dish which calls for this homemade quark.

Quark-curd
(makes about 400 gr)

2 litres of filmjölk 3% (Kefir should work as well)

Pour the filmjölk into an ovenproof container.

Heat the oven to 100 degrees C. Put the container into the oven for about 1 hour.

It’s done when the quark-curd has thickened slightly and begun to separate from the whey. Be aware that you need to carefully stir with a spoon to see if the whey has separated or not.

Cover a large sieve with a clean kitchen towel (sterilized with boiling water!) and pour everything in the container onto the towel. Let drain for at least 1 hour, preferably longer.