sea salt – Scandelights

Before I start bombarding you with more restaurant reviews from Palma, I thought I’d intercept with a recipe.

In Sweden this type of biscuit is very common among grannies, home bakers and most people. So for me they’re nice but nothing special (although very scrummy), but every time I make biscuits for my friends or colleague they rave about them. And devour them in seconds (well minutes, but they disappear quickly) and then I’m bombarded with questions for the recipe, if they’re easy to make (yes!!) and personal orders.

So, on the recommendation of all my colleagues (who were the lucky ones to try this particular biscuit) – do make some!

Butterscotch biscuits with sea salt, makes about 25

Translated and adapted from Anna’s recipe.

100 g softened unsalted butter

1 tbsp golden syrup

80 g caster sugar (or 100 ml)

2 tsp vanilla extract

150 g plain flour (or 250 ml)

1 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 175C.

Beat butter, syrup and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add vanilla, flour and baking powder. Stir to combine with a wooden spoon. Shape to a dough and divide into four. Shape each quarter into a roll and place two and two (far apart) on parchment paper covered baking trays. Flatten with your hand and/or a fork (not too much as they will flatten while cooking too). Scatter with sea salt.

Place the trays in the middle of the oven for approx.13 minutes or until golden (they will still be soft at this stage). Leave to cool slightly on the trays. Transfer to a cutting board and cut into slices on the diagonal. Leave to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

The third cake for work last month was very popular; my colleagues are crazy about almonds.

The recipe for this cake is from a wonderful Swedish food blog called Anne’s food, and yes, it is in English. I made some slight changes to the recipe though, as I couldn’t find any good substitute for the chocolate with nuts in (Marabou’s Schweizernöt). Instead I used regular milk chocolate for the ganache and added some chopped almonds to it as well as some seasalt at the end. Toasted chopped almonds would have been even better, will do that next time.

The salt I used was a vanilla salt from Halen Môn, but using regular Maldon salt is just fine. I was just intrigued to try the vanilla salt. It is black from all the vanilla seeds and taste wonderful.

Almond cake with milk chocolate ganache, chopped almonds and seasalt, serves 8-10

2 eggs

270 g caster sugar

100 g ground almonds

75 g plain flour

100 g butter

Ganache:

200 g milk chocolate

5 tbsp cream

1 tbsp butter

Garnish:

chopped almonds

seasalt

Preheat the oven to 175C. Melt the butter and grease a round cake tin. Beat eggs and suga pale and fluffy with an electric mixer. Add the almonds, flour and butter. Stir to combine properly. Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 20-25 minutes. Leave to cool completely before spreading on the ganache.

Melt the chocolate for the ganache in a saucepan on low heat or in a bain marie. Add the cream and stir, then add the butter and combine. Spread the ganache onto the cake and sprinkle with the almonds. Let it set and sprinkle with salt before serving.