Category: Sweets

When I was at Uni in a town called Lund in the south of Sweden I worked part-time as a waitress at this small hotel in the countryside. It is a lovely manor house and had recently been made into a hotel and restaurant business when I started to work there. The three chefs were great and created lovely food from local produce. The house could be quite cold in the winter and the warmest place was of course around the stoves in the kitchen. We used to stand there a lot drinking hot cocoa or Jerusalem artichoke soup, try a bit of this and a bit of that.

And every year in December we would open up the big banquet room as a temporary restaurant for the julbord, basically a Christmas themed smorgasbord. There was enormous amounts of food here, from pickled herrings, to Christmas ham, homemade sausages and of course a sweet section to finish it all off with. People always went mad coming here, both with the food and the snaps (much needed to help digest the food). I remember of course trying most things we served, but not all in one go as our guests. And this peanut butter flapjack is a recipe I kindly asked one of the chefs for. I haven’t made it for years and was surprised how nice it is, now that I made it again.

Chewy, soft and crunchy – all at the same time. With a hint of peanut butter and a layer of chocolate on top. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?! 😉

Peanut butter flapjack

50 ml caster sugar

50 ml golden syrup 

250 ml cornflakes

75 g smooth peanut butter

75 g dark chocolate

Bring the sugar and syrup to a boil. Take away from the heat and add peanut butter and cornflakes. Spread out onto parchment paper in a tin. Leave to cool in the fridge. Melt the chocolate over boiling water and spread on top of the flapjack. Let it set and cut into squares.

Last year I found this recipe on Allrecipes.com and really wanted to try it. I didn’t have time however, but made sure to have time to make it this year. It is lovely, and the marshmallow fluff helps to make it set. The only downside is the boring beige colour, but the flavour is great, so once people have tried it, they won’t care about the colour. And if you want to make the fudge look more appetizing, may I suggest wrapping them in coloured cellophane.

Click on the link above to see the recipe.

When I was home in Sweden last (in October) I found a few old folders with recipe clippings that I’ve found over the years. I decided to go through them all and only save the really good ones. This was a recipe that made the cut, but I have no idea where it is from. Lovely truffles, but I would like an even stronger muscovado taste. Might experiment with that last year. Can’t believe it is already a week into December, so this year I definitely won’t have time.

Muscovado truffles, makes 20-25

200 g dark chocolate

100 ml double cream

25 g butter

3 tbsp dark muscovado sugar

2 tbsp light muscovado sugar

Decoration:

 75 g dark chocolate

snowflake sprinkles

Chop the chocolate. Combine cream and sugar in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, add the chocolate and stir until smooth. Add the butter and stir until smooth and glossy. Put the mixture in the fridge to cool down. Roll into small balls, dip in melted dark chocolate and let dry on parchment paper. Add the snowflakes before the chocolate sets.

Another sweet recipe from Matplatsen. I removed the honey from the recipe though (forgot I mean) but they turned out really well anyway, so will stick to this from now on. They are definitely sweet enough! 🙂

Milk chocolate fudge

300 ml double cream

300 ml caster sugar

100 ml golden syrup

50 g butter

100 g good quality milk chocolate

Pour cream, sugar and syrup into a sauce pan. Bring to a boil and cook until the temperature is 120C. Remove pan from heat and add the butter. Boil for another 2 minutes, then remove from heat and add the chocolate. Stir until it has melted. Pour into a parchment paper lined tin. Leave to cool in the fridge and cut into squares.

I took a day off work on Tuesday to have a whole day to myself baking Christmas goodies. I suspect I am a bit obsessed with baking because I forgot to eat and to sit down and relax, I had so much fun in the kitchen. I got a lot done though, and everything was really nice and tasty! Still have a few things in the fridge to finish off, but still pleased with how much I managed to do. I had to run the dishwasher (though small) 4 times, that’s how much washing up I created, haha. So happy to have a dishwasher!

I will definitely post a few Christmassy recipes here the next couple of days. The first one is Rocky Road. I know that there are loads of different versions, but pleeease try this one. It is amazing, I promise you will fall in love with it. This version isn’t completely my own, the creator is a Swedish tv-chef called Leila, and I found the recipe on a blog called Matplatsen, where Victoria had made a few changes to it. And me being me I of course had to make a few changes myself… 😉 Just can’t help myself.  

People, try this! It is sooo nice that my best friend Emma and my mother have asked me already to make it when I get home for Christmas. And of course I will. 🙂

Rocky road

2 bags of Dumle toffee (I think Rolos would work too, or any other chewy toffee)

2 handfuls of marshmallows

250 g salted cashews

100 g salted pastachios

400 g milk chocolate

100 g dark chocolate

Put the toffees in a bowl, cut the marshmallows in half with scissors (or use mini ones) and add them and the nuts. Melt all the chocolate together over boiling water. Add it to the nutmixture and make sure everything is coated with chocolate. Spread it out onto parchment paper in a square/rectangular dish. Keep in the fridge to set. Cut it into squares and serve. Enjoy, I know you will! 🙂