The Nordic Baking Book

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No other book on Nordic baking is as comprehensive and informative. Nilsson travelled extensively throughout the Nordic region - Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden - collecting recipes and documenting the landscape. The 100 photographs in the book have been shot by Nilsson – now an established photographer, following his successful exhibitions in the US. Update: I did manage to let this sit for a week, and in one word, wow! It definitely has the spiciness that you’d expect in a mulled wine, but the citrus does make it bright and complex. I’ll be making more!

Now, I do have to say this is another one of those recipes where perhaps a little more info would have been useful. The full recipe (I made half) said to roll each half of the dough out into a 12×16-inch rectangle; once you sandwich the rectangles with the jam, to cut into 12 squares. By my calculations those would be 4-inch squares. I think it more likely that he meant 24 squares, or fewer if you want them rectangular and not square. I wound up with about 12 with my half recipe. The baking instructions were also vague, giving a temperature (345F) and then “bake until golden”. For the record that was about 14 minutes in my oven. Norwegian Sweet Pressed Cardamom and Vanilla Tuiles It's also important, because when the recipe lists (soft) Wheat flour when making a cake, you know exactly what to use. Much easier, I think than having to work out if you need Self-raising, plain, all purpose, cake or bread flour. From the pubisher of Nilsson's influential and internationally bestselling Fäviken and The Nordic Cookbook. I came to the Nordic Baking Book, by Magnus Nilsson, in a roundabout way. I’d been scouting around for a recipe that approximated an Eberhardinentorte, a luscious cream-filled layer cake with a marzipan coating, that we’d enjoyed at Schloss Pretzsch in Germany. The closest I found was Nilsson’s Prinsesstårta, or Princess Cake, in an article on bloomberg.com that discussed his Nordic Baking Book and published the recipe. Shape the dough into two logs a bit shorter than the width of your baking sheet. Place the logs on the prepared baking sheets and bake for about 15 minutes or until golden. The logs will spread out considerably during the cooking.While the dough is rising, make the filling by mixing all of the ingredients together in a bowl. Step 3

Nilsson is a Swedish chef whose restaurant Fäviken has received abundant praise for its innovative Nordic cuisine, which uses locally sourced ingredients. He's been profiled on The Mind of a Chef and Chef's Table. In his newly published The Nordic Baking Book, a compendium of regional baking recipes, Nilsson speculates as to the origin-story of kladdkaka, which started to appear in Swedish cookbooks and magazines in the mid-1970s. Hindbærsnitter (according to sundaybaker.co) are based on a Latvian pastry called Aleksander kuka made to honor Tsar Alexander III, which is based on a Finnish pastry called Aleksanterinleivokset made to honor Tsar Alexander I. Most of the recipes I find I need to cut in half. I don’t really need to make 40 rolls in one sitting, or four loaves of bread. Granted most things freeze pretty well, but still. The yeast-based recipes tend to be large because he scaled most of them to use a 50g chunk of fresh yeast (a common unit size it seems).Beat the butter, sugar and syrup together in a bowl until light in colour. Add the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger by sifting them together, into the bowl. Beat again until fully combined.

The ingredient amounts are in both metric (g, ml) and “imperial” (cups, tablespoons, etc.). But in a few places the provided metric weights seem inconsistent with the imperial measures. My rule of thumb has been when in doubt, go with the metric. Magnus Nilsson's The Nordic Baking Book is a bible for bakers ... The Swedish chef captures the heart of baking culture across Scandinavia.' – Wall Street Journal Magazine This is one of my all-time favourite cookbooks. In pre-COVID times, I travelled extensively around the Nordic countries every year because I have friends in Finland, Sweden and Denmark. I became mesmerised by the traditional treats which I sampled in bakeries all over the region. Nordic baking is sincere, cosy, unfussy, and not overly sweet - qualities which I prefer over the sugar bombs found in some parts of the world.A few recipes, including Johansson, Lemanski and the Triangle’s, recommend retarding the dough by leaving it to rise slowly in the fridge, rather than at room temperature, which, the Yorkshire bakery tells me: “will make the dough taste greeaaaat, and [is] easier for the final shape!”. With so much spice involved, I can’t really taste the difference, but I can attest it makes stretching and filling the dough an awful lot less faff, because the dough is firmer and so more amenable to being topped with butter. It also makes timing a bit easier, because you can, to a certain extent, choose when to bake it, as opposed to being at the mercy of your yeast. They also, in my experience, rise slightly better, but the difference is not significant. The filling This] is just the tome for those who have serious ambitions for their butter and flour.' – New York Times Update 12/10/2020: I made this again to nail down the changes…I used over 800g of flour (over 6.75 cups), a mix of all-purpose and bread flour (just because I had some). The dough worked up to a much nicer consistency. I divided the dough into three rounds instead of two, but still had to bake for 65 minutes to get a good internal temperature (Nilsson suggests generally up to about 205F for a bread such as this, mine were a bit over that). The finished product was nice and springy, and just done. I found some other recipes online, one used as much flour as I did, or more; one was mostly consistent with Nilsson’s; both had baking times of 40-45 minutes (one at 375F vs. 350F). What can I say, at that timing those loaves aren’t baked through in my kitchen. One of these days I’ll try one of the internet recipes to see how it turns out. In the meantime, this one as locally modified is pretty tasty! Danish Almond Tart Leavened with Yeast Both Aurell and Nilsson melt their butter before use, Johansson specifies cold butter, as if making a laminated dough for something such as a croissant, and everyone else uses it softened, with Triangle kneading the dough for several minutes before incorporating it. Although I get decent results from all of the above, which suggests to me it doesn’t make a huge amount of difference, I call on Ian Lowe, late of Tasmania’s Apiece Bakery, for expert guidance. He kindly explains that “both melted and solid butter interfere with gluten cross-linking when added to dough, albeit in slightly different ways”, which indeed suggests that there’s no particular benefit in spending time rubbing in cold butter. (Interestingly, Lowe also suggests that, if I want a lighter, fluffier bread, I should increase the egg, decrease the milk and butter, use all plain flour and increase the sugar – at which point I decide that actually I miss the richness. Thanks for your help, though, Ian.)

I let the hard work of kneading to my work horse of a Kenwood mixer. After that, rolling out the dough, spreading it with softened butter, then dusting with castor sugar and cinnamon, filled my kitchen with spice bliss. The result was sublime. For more experienced bakers, there is definitely plenty to explore. I am having so much fun playing around with the different flours, grains and seeds, as well as learning traditional knotting and shaping techniques. Speaking of yeast, for future reference, to convert fresh yeast to instant, multiply by .33. A 50g chunk of fresh equals 16.5g which I’ll call 5 tsp of instant yeast. 25g of fresh is about 8g or 2.5 tsp instant. Such a large book as The Nordic Baking Book with so many recipes and information is worth paying the extra price for. There are recipes with regional variations of the classics, some with a modern twist, and Magnus's family recipes. Don't go straight to the IndexA Brief History of Nordic Bread - This chapter is written by Richard Telstrom Associate professor, Food Culture Historian p. 242 - 4 stars - Dry Porridge Made from Toasted Oat or Barley Flour - It sounded very much like mămăligă, only with oats, so I was sceptical about serving with "rendered fat on top", instead I just fried balls of it in the fat left after the pork. Then the balls were happily eaten and a second helping looked for.