Recipes

Name: Beetroot Brownies
Prep time: 30
Cook time: 25
Yield: 20
Ingredients: 400g Cooked beetroot; 200g Plain chocolate; 100g Butter; 3tsp Vanilla sugar; 250g Caster sugar; 3 eggs; 100g plain flour; 25g cocoa powder

Aug 05 2015

Back with Beetroot Brownies

Oh boy – I’m sitting here staring at my computer and I must admit… I’m almost not quite sure what to do. Where do you begin when you’ve been away for so long? Well, how about I just start talking about how my summer’s been, and then I’ll see where that leads? I’ll finish up this post with some beetroot brownies, because you can never have too much beetroot (or too many brownies for that matter!).

So, summer? Well – it’s been wet, it’s been chilly, and the number of “nice, sunny days” we’ve had I could probably count on one hand. Disappointing to say the least. Coupled with a late, cool spring, it has not made for ideal growing conditions in the garden. I’ve planted some wax beans and some haricots verts, but they’re small and I don’t think they’ll ever amount to anything much. Especially not now that we’re already in August. My spinach has been growing like crazy though. More than we can eat, so we’re going to pick the lot soon and blanch and freeze it.

Despite the weather, we have had some good days. One trip to the beach, a couple of trips to Rismyrliden, and some visits to Pite Havsbad (ok – it was raining last time we were there, but it’s inside so we still had fun!).

My wife and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary on the 30th of July (already?!) by going out to eat in a pretty nice restaurant in town. Certainly not cheap but very tasty! Happy Anniversary dear – and here’s to many more!

Duck breast with orange sauce, fennel and Västerbotten cheese risotto

I’m now (finally!) the proud owner of a grill, so we’ve been enjoying some food cooked outside, in various charred states (ok, I’m getting better now, but it’s a whole art!). I even bought a pizza stone to sit on the the grill which I can cook bread, or more obviously pizzas, on, and some different types of wood chips to smoke the food. I cherry-wood smoked a whole flank of salmon a few weeks ago which was a lot of fun!

So, where have I been? Well – I’ve been here, I’ve just been working like a crazy-man. Running your own business isn’t easy work at the best of times, but juggling studies in Swedish and family life together makes for one hectic schedule. I’m now finished with my Swedish (although will be starting some university studies next term) but hope to try and breathe some life into FiveEuroFood again. It’s been far too long since I posted anything. I haven’t even been that keen on cooking recently. It’s far easier to boil up some palt than cook when you’re working on a deadline, although speaking of those… I must admit that I’ve totally changed my mind on them now. I had them at #8 on my top 10 worst Swedish foods; I still think they’re a bit “special”, but hot dang they’re good. Butter, lingonberry jam… ok, you’ll have a little carb’ coma if you eat too many and need to sleep for the next 6 hours, but they’re really good. Definitely something you should try if you come here, especially if you go Piteå. There’s a restaurant there which serves all kinds of different “gourmet” palt — even vegetarian variants.

So, on to today’s recipe. Beetroot brownies! It seemed like just a couple of years ago people were stuffing beets and zucchini into all manner of unsuspecting cakes and cookies, and then suddenly it all went out of vogue and the whole “gluten is killing us”, “sugar is killing us” craze came along. Sorry — you’ll need to pry my gluten and sugar products from my cold, dead hands. That stuff is staying. Life is too short to deprive yourself of deliciousness when you don’t have to.

Sissi from WithAGlass.com once joked that I should probably have a beetroot blog since I have a lot of beet recipes (ok, we’re not talking hundreds here, but it’s definitely something I have used a great deal in the past). Who knows, maybe I should publish a beetroot cookbook. Anyway, my son is getting more adventurous and less picky with his food. Certain vegetables (ok, most vegetables) are still a no-go for him, although he seems to love celery, cucumber, and raw spinach. I figured if he won’t eat it directly, why not bake the veg into something delicious like a brownie? Besides, everyone knows that even the most unhealthy of foods becomes nourishing and power-food-like when you bake beets into it… right? Right?… ehm… yeah.

Joking aside, I really enjoyed these beetroot brownies. I wasn’t able to cook the beets for as long as I would have liked so it meant they were still a little hard when I puréed them. Not a problem for me because I just love me some beetroot, but unfortunately my mother-in-law wasn’t a fan. However, as long as you make sure the beets are sufficiently cooked then you’ll really never know they’re in here.

Have a great day folks, and here’s to hoping I’m able to post here with a little more regularity!

Yields 20

Beetroot Brownies

Moist, rich, chocolatey brownies with less sugar and fat than regular versions, and filled with naturally sweet beetroot

30Prep Time

25Cook Time

60Total Time

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Ingredients

400g Cooked beetroot
200g Plain chocolate
100g Butter
3tsp Vanilla sugar
250g Caster sugar
3 eggs
100g plain flour
25g cocoa powder

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius and then place the butter, chocolate and beetroot into a food processor and blitz until combined.
Place the caster sugar, vanilla sugar and eggs into a large bowl and whisk until frothy and pale.
Mix together gently with the beetroot, chocolate, and butter and then add in the flour and cocoa powder and fold in until well combined.
Grease and line a large, square baking tray with greaseproof paper, and then pour in the batter.
Place into the oven and bake for about 25 minutes. Remove and allow to cool completely in the tin before cutting into squares and enjoying.

https://homesweetsweden.com/back-with-beetroot-brownies/

Dec 10 2014

The Best Birthday Cake

Warning: This post has a high calorie and fat content. People trying to achieve a bit of pre-Christmas weight-loss should probably not venture any further. Or perhaps they should, because this cake is awesome.

Whipped cream, whipped ganache, raspberries, blueberries, all sitting atop a deliciously light sponge cake – this cake has it all (had it all… it’s gone now!). Best of all, every part of this cake is as simple as you could ever want. There’s no complex steps involving precise measuring of temperature or time which means that this is truly a no-fail cake, and while there are plenty of cakes around which are more visually impressive, few yield such good results for so little effort, so henceforth I am naming this the best birthday cake, or perhaps “my” best birthday cake, since it was my birthday, and this was my cake after all.

I mentioned in my last post that I had my birthday on the 3rd of December. I didn’t actually make the cake on that day. We had some family over on the following Sunday, so that gave me plenty of time to think about what kind of cake I was going to make, as well as allowing me to focus on my birthday dinner on the day itself (a big, fat, magnificent steak with this sauce for anyone wondering, and some “french fries” made from parsnip and carrot which were very good. Incidentally, we’d got them to try to trick William into eating vegetables, since he has such a penchant for french fries. Suffice to say, we failed and he was not a fan).

Normally, when making a cake like this, I would fall back on a traditional English sponge cake recipe. I’ve had a run of real bad luck with those things recently though. Surprisingly, the best one I made in recent memory was this one way back when I was visiting England, and that was using my mother’s questionably accurate balance scales and equally questionably accurate gas oven. It seems recently that no amount of precise measuring, careful beating and folding, or clock-watching when it’s in the oven yields a good result. I’m so often left with a rather dry offering and so for this birthday cake I decided to look to Sweden for inspiration and use a sockerkaka base.

Seriously – you can’t go wrong with sockerkaka. It doesn’t require any fiddly things like folding”, or even creaming. You just add ingredients into a bowl bit by bit and whisk the heck out of it. Dump the batter into a tin and shove it in the oven, wait a bit and then it’s done. It really does make the best cake – or in this case the best birthday cake – and I have to be honest when I say I don’t think I’ll ever bother trying to make an English sponge cake again.

Once baked and cooled, I split the cake into three layers and re-sandwiched each layer with an ample layer of whipped ganache and some blueberries for good measure. The only problem with the ganache in the filling was that my wife said it looked like I’d put a slice of liver pâté between each layer. I suppose I can sort of see her point, but the flavour was fantastic. What do you think?

I’ll be getting my Christmas baking on soon. First up is some “lussebullar“. I’ve written about these before in a post which coincides with Lucia day here in Sweden, but when I made them back then the photo was absolutely dreadful (and to be honest I baked the buns too long, so they weren’t great). This time around I’ll be able to replace the photo though. As for the other things I’ll make – that’s a surprise (mainly because I don’t actually know myself yet), so watch this space!

Have a great day everyone and enjoy the cake!

Serves 10

The Best Birthday Cake

Whipped cream, whipped ganache, blueberries, and raspberries sit atop a Swedish sponge cake base, making this truly the easiest and the best birthday cake

40Prep Time

40Cook Time

140Total Time

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Ingredients

For the cake250g Caster Sugar

3 Eggs
2tsps Vanilla Sugar
2tsps Baking Powder
75g Butter
100ml Water
160g Plain Flour

For the filling100g good quality plain chocolate

130ml whipping cream
50g Blueberries

For the topping350ml whipping cream

250g Raspberries
150g Blueberries

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Grease and flour a cake tin with a diameter of about 22cm. Whisk together the eggs and sugar using an electric whisk until pale and increased in volume.
Whisk in the vanilla sugar and baking powder. Add in the flour and continue whisking before melting the butter in a pan with the water. When the butter has completely melted, pour into the batter and continue whisking until everything is well mixed.
Pour the batter into the prepared tin and then place into the preheated oven. Bake for about 25-30 minutes, testing by sticking the cake with a fork or small skewer after about 25 minutes. Remove the cake when the skewer comes out clean.
Allow to cool for a few minutes in the tin before carefully turning out and allowing to completely cool on a wire rack while you make the whipped ganache.
Pour the cream for the filling into a small saucepan, and break the chocolate into small pieces and add to the cream. Place over a gentle heat and stir regularly until the chocolate has completely melted and combined with the cream.
Place the ganache into the refrigerator for an hour and once it is completely cool, whip it until thick like whipped cream.
Slice the now cool cake carefully into three layers using a long knife. Sandwich each layer together with half of the ganache, dropping some blueberries into the filling on each layer as you go.
Finally, whip the cream for the topping until stiff and spread liberally onto the top and sides. Decorate the cake with the raspberries and blueberries and enjoy!

Notes

Store the cake in the refrigerator when not eating, but allow to come up to room temperature for about an hour before enjoying because refrigerator-cold cake is never a pleasure.

https://homesweetsweden.com/best-birthday-cake/

Nov 26 2014

Aaaand I’m back with a Spiced Plum Cake!

It’s high time I got back into the swing of things. Months have passed and I’ve made only two mediocre updates. I haven’t even been cooking or baking that much, but that’s changing starting from now! Christmas is coming, and before that in just a week from now it’s my birthday. The perfect time of year to get busy and flex one’s baking muscle! For today’s post I have made a spiced plum cake after finding some cheap organic plums for just 5kr. They were from Sweden, and I have no idea how they grew plums at this time of year, but they weren’t that special – a bit hard and not very juicy – so baking with them was a perfect idea.

I think I’ll give Swedish gingerbread a go this year, or maybe some aniseed pigs, or maybe both. Of course, I’m choosing the worst possible time of the year to make a “comeback”. It’s getting darker which doesn’t give me many opportunities for decent photography, as can no doubt be witnessed from today’s offering. Still – as I said last year – it could be worse. I could be somewhere like Tromsø, in Norway. While I’m sure it’s a lovely place, the sun rises today at 11am, and sets at 12:02pm, and it’s not even December yet. This time in a month they’ll have some perma-night going on which would make any kind of food photography absolutely impossible without some fancy equipment (of which I have none) so I should be grateful for the small things.

We’ve had a bit of snow two or three times but it all keeps melting away and yesterday was an unbelievably depressing day. Raining all day, and positive temperatures of around +3 degrees Celsius or so which made everything muddy and dirty. My car looks in a very sorry state with all the crud which sprays up off the road and there’s absolutely no point washing it until everything freezes “properly”.

My son is getting on well at kindergarten. He was terribly sad about having to go there in the beginning but now he absolutely loves it. If he’s ever unhappy you just have to mention it to him and remind him that he can go there again soon and he’s all smiles again.

Well, I’m not going to waste any more time, so I’ll jump right into the spiced plum cake now. I’ll be visiting all the sites I used to look at slowly over the coming days. Sorry I’ve missed so many of your wonderful posts – I can’t wait to catch up!

Enjoy the cake, and I’ll see you all again soon (and this time I mean it!).

Serves 8

Spiced Plum Cake

Juicy, sweet plums rest atop a delicate sponge in this spiced plum cake. A perfect way to use plums which are a little hard or lacking in juiciness.

15Prep Time

25Cook Time

40Total Time

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Ingredients

190g Butter
190g Caster Sugar
3 Eggs
190g Plain Flour
2tsps Baking Powder
3tsps Cinnamon
6 Plums

Instructions

Start off by preheating your oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Cream together the butter and sugar and then whisk together the eggs.
Beat in the eggs bit by bit until completely combined and grease and flour a 20cm cake tin.
Cut the plums in half and remove the pits. Arrange the plum halves flat side down in the bottom of the tin.
Sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into the batter and fold in gently. Transfer the batter into the tin, covering the plums, and then place into the preheated oven.
Bake for about 25 minutes. Before removing, check the cake is completely baked in the centre by sticking it wth a skewer and ensuring it comes out clean.
Remove from the oven when ready and allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to allow to finish cooling.

https://homesweetsweden.com/aaaand-im-back-with-a-spiced-plum-cake/

Jun 25 2014

Quick Halloumi and Avocado Salad and the giveaway results

This “quick halloumi and avocado salad” is the result of some creative thinking, and while I originally had no intention of posting it, it looked just so darn nice on the plate (and tasted amazing) that I decided to grab a few quick snaps and write it up.

I was in town and lost track of time somewhat. My wife was due to work in the afternoon and when I returned from town she was taking a well-deserved nap before leaving. I decided to make her a little something to eat before she went to work but the question was… “what?”.

Having a look through the fridge I found halloumi, avocado, and some fresh spinach and pea shoots (leftover from my fried brie – yes, this dish is indeed from a couple of weeks ago and I’m only getting around to posting it now!). Well, that was about everything I needed. Chuck in a slice of bread and you’ve got something fairly balanced – protein, carbs, fat… you could even add in a soft boiled or poached egg on top, although I didn’t feel like that was necessary. Of course, like I said – this salad was the result of some quick refrigerator-raiding. I wouldn’t substitute the halloumi (because oh my God I love halloumi) or the avocado, or the bread really, but the salad composition itself… you can totally wing it.

In other news, my vegetables are coming along fairly well. Pretty much all the peas I planted have come up and are looking healthy. The squash, peppers, chillies and tomatoes in the greenhouse are also looking good. The cucumbers… not so much. I sowed the seeds initially in these little cardboard pots, like egg-boxes. The claim was that when planted directly into the earth, they would break up and “become one with the earth”. “Bulls*#&”, is all I have to say. My cucumbers started yellowing and looking decidedly unhealthy. My only thought was that those stupid little pots had indeed not broken up and were basically stunting the growth, since the roots could not grow out, and the seedling must have by now used up what tiny amount of nutrients was in the soil in the small pot. I carefully dug up on of the seedlings (which incidentally hadn’t really grown a great deal, despite being out there for around two weeks already) and noticed that the cardboard pot was in “great” shape, and fully intact.

I carefully removed the pots from all seedlings and replanted them – a couple of them are looking healthier already, although I think it’s too late for three of them now. Well, I’ll know for next time, that’s for sure!

Anyway, before I move on to the recipe, here’s something I guess a lot of you have been waiting for! The results of my previous giveaway, kindly sponsored by TeaVivre.

Here we go, thanks to random.org:

That means the winners are:

Please get in touch with me here (or by email if you have that) and we’ll sort out the details for the delivery.

Serves 2

Quick Halloumi and Avocado Salad

A simple but fresh, satisfying salad featuring halloumi cheese and avocado

5Prep Time

10Cook Time

15Total Time

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Ingredients

200g Halloumi cheese
2 slices Wholegrain Bread
1 Avocado
1 large handful of fresh Spinach
1 small handful of Pea Sprouts
2tbsps Olive Oil
1tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
2 Lemon Wedges
Salt and pepper

Instructions

Cut the halloumi into two large thin blocks and grill the halloumi on a hot grill or grill pan for a few minutes on each side until slightly charred.
Remove from the pan and rub 1tbsp of the Olive Oil into the bread on both sides. Grill the bread as well to achieve a similar result as for the halloumi.
Arrange the spinach over two plates before placing the grilled bread and halloumi on top.
Half the avocado and remove the seed and skin from each half. Slice and place next to the halloumi before garnishing with pea shoots and the lemon wedge.
Mix together the remaining olive oil with the balsamic vinegar and drizzle over and sprinkle on a little salt and pepper to taste.

https://homesweetsweden.com/quick-halloumi-avocado-salad/

Jun 19 2014

Physalis and Green Tea Jam and a Giveaway

I’ve never cooked with physalis (is that the plural?) before, and come to think of it I’ve never cooked with green tea either, so making this gave me a great chance to flex my culinary muscle, and while making jam isn’t really “thinking outside the box”, the physalis and green tea jam was easy to make, and the taste was amazing. Like… actually, really, really good. It ended up being one of these experiments which you feel really pleased with, and given my previous opinion of physalis, it was nice to know that they can be turned into something delicious.

You see, up to now, physalis have always been these “sticky little berries” which they put on top of cakes and desserts in France, and no-one ever eats them. Well, I always did, because I don’t like wasting food – even if it’s just a tiny “sticky little berry” – but nine times out of ten, I would see them discarded on the side of the plate at the end of the meal. So, what prompted me to suddenly get busy in the kitchen with both physalis and also green tea?

Well, for the physalis, it’s a short answer. They were on special at the store (along with sun-dried tomatoes – yum!) so I grabbed a couple of packets and declared to my wife that I’d “figure something out later”. The green tea requires a slightly longer explanation.

I recently got an email from Alison at a company called Tea Vivre. She asked me if I’d like to try a selection of different teas, and – hey, I’m British – we do love our tea, right? Naturally I replied in the affirmative that, indeed, I would love to try some tea, and although she didn’t ask me to, I said I would also make something using the tea as well, so there you go. While cooking it into a jam perhaps isn’t the most conventional use of green tea it sure made for a gorgeous background flavour to the physalis. The teas that Tea Vivre kindly sent to me were:

Nonpareil Te Gong Huang Shan Mao Feng Green Tea
Organic Superfine Dragon Well Long Jing Green Tea
Premium Tai Ping Hou Kui Green Tea
Fengqing Dragon Pearl Black Tea
Bi Luo Chun Green Tea (Pi Lo Chun)

Now, I’m no green tea expert, and can’t really proclaim to knowing the difference between those, except in taste alone. They all tasted really good; I visited my sister in China about 14 years ago (wow, that’s a long time!) and drank a lot of green tea during my time there. The flavours were enough to bring back happy memories of my trip there – experiencing such a new, exciting culture in the furthest away place I’d ever been to at that age.

My favourite tea was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Nonpareil Te Gong Huang Shan Mao Feng. The phrase “nonpareil” (without equal) tends to be used to denote things of superior quality so I guess it isn’t odd that I found it the best. I used the tea which sounded the “least exclusive” in my recipe below – the Bi Luo Chun, but I was drinking it while I was making the jam as well and also found it had a lovely clean flavour – probably the most refreshing out of them all, which is why I think it went so well with the jam.

In any event, Alison kindly offered to also sponsor a giveaway (well, three actually). Three people will each win the following:

Premium Dragon Well Long Jing Green Tea (7g x 2)
Bi Luo Chun Green Tea (Pi Lo Chun) (7g x 2)
Huang Shan Mao Feng Green Tea (5g x 2)
Premium Jasmine Dragon Pearls Green Tea (7g x 2)
Peach Jasmine Dragon Pearl Green Tea (7g x 2)

To enter, simply do the following:

Required

Leave a comment below

For optional, additional entries

Subscribe to my mailing list (signup form at the top and bottom of the page), then leave a comment to let me know you’ve done so.
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The winners will be selected randomly using random.org (based by comment number) and announced in a post on the 25th of June. Winners will then have 24 hours (from the time the post is first published) to get in touch with me. If they don’t then a new winner(s) will be selected.

Best of luck to everyone, and I hope you enjoy the physalis and green tea jam!

Yields 1

Physalis and Green Tea Jam

A fragrant, delicately flavoured jam, with background hints of green tea.

5Prep Time

5Cook Time

10Total Time

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Ingredients

200g Physalis
120g Jam-making Sugar
120ml strong Green Tea

Instructions

Start off by thoroughly washing a small, empty conserve jar and lid. Preheat your oven to 150 degrees celsius and place the jar and lid into the hot oven for about 10 minutes to sterilize it.
Remove the papery leaves from the physalis and then wash them, before cutting each one in half.
Place into a small pan and add the green tea. Cover and simmer for about 3 - 5 minutes, until the physalis have started to soften a little more.
Add the sugar and bring to the boil. Boil the jam for about 5 minutes before gently pouring into the sterilized, and still quite hot, conserve jar.
Seal immediately, and allow to cool before enjoying.

Notes

The jam is great as a topping for toast or english muffins, but goes equally well with bread and cheese.

https://homesweetsweden.com/physalis-green-tea-jam/

Home Sweet Sweden

Adventures of a British ex-pat in Scandinavia

Recipes

Back with Beetroot Brownies

The Best Birthday Cake

Aaaand I’m back with a Spiced Plum Cake!

Quick Halloumi and Avocado Salad and the giveaway results

Physalis and Green Tea Jam and a Giveaway