Happy Christmas!

Hello all you lovely and beautiful people,

I just wanted to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and to let you all know that I recorded a wee cover of the song The Christmas Waltz sung by among others She & Him.

The song was a real challenge for me as it is quite low, but I adore this beautiful song, so I decided to cover it anyway!

Merry Christmas and Much love,
Mona

Saffron wreath

Hello all,
In the week leading up to Christmas I get in an incredibly "bakey" mood. All I want to do is bake, eat and sing christmas songs. I thought I'd share some photos and the how-to of a baked wreath that I made, that was a major success at work and in the family. I'm personally very pleased with it, if I may say so myself.

The dough is the traditional Swedish saffron bun dough, that I shared last Christmas on the blog (here). This saffron wreath is made super luxurious though, by adding not only the gold of the world of spices, but also almond paste, orange zest, raisins, pistachios and cranberries. I garnish the whole thing with chopped pistachios and cranberries giving it a look of true christmas jewels bedazzling the wreath.

Without further ado...

Saffron wreath

INGREDIENTS

• 5 dl milk
• 50 grams fresh yeast
• 1,5 dl sugar
• 2 grams saffron
• ~14 dl flour
• 100+50 grams butter
• 200 grams almond paste
• 60 grams pre-shelled raw (unsalted) pistachios
• 60 grams raisins
• 40 grams cranberries
• Zest of 1 orange
• Cinnamon
• 1 egg

DIRECTIONS

Melt 100 grams of the butter in a pan together with the milk. Let it reach 37°C. Solve the yeast in the milk and butter mixture, then add the sugar. Solve the saffron in 1 tablespoon warm water, and the add it to the rest. Add the flour, you might not need all of the flour so add it in additions. When the dough isn't super sticky anymore and releases from the bowl it is saturated for flour. Cover and let prove for 1 hour, until the dough is twice as big.

Whilst waiting for the dough you can grate the almond paste, chop the pistachios, raisins and cranberries, and zest the orange. Save a bit of the pistachios and cranberries for garnish.

Divide the dough into two equal balls. Roll out the ball to a rectangle with a rolling pin to about 1 cm thickness. Spread half of the rest of the butter (25 grams) onto the rectangle and then add half of the almond paste, pistachios, raisins, cranberries and zest of the orange on top of the butter. Press the fillings into the dough a bit. Sprinkle cinnamon on top of the rest of the fillings.

Roll the rectangle up on its long side and bring the two ends together, forming a circle. Press the ends to each other so they stick. Then cut slices in the circle with scissors, you're just cutting about halfway through the roll. Do this at an angle and then turn the cut in the opposite direction. I've added photos (and a gif) of these steps as I'm terrible at describing it.

Do this all along the circle creating a beautiful wreath. Put the wreath on parchment paper and cover and let prove for another hour. Before baking give the wreaths an egg wash and garnish with the left over pistachios and cranberries. Bake at 200°C for 15-20 minutes at the lowest part of your oven.

I really think this is the most decadent you can go while steering clear from chocolate. Pistachios, cranberries and the gold - saffron! Oh this is such a heavenly bit of baking!

I just baked this for the second time this year (so my fourth wreath of the year) and I am still head-over-heels for it!

I hope you all enjoy the recipe and if I don't blog again before Christmas I want to take the opportunity and wish all of you a very Happy Christmas!

Take care and spread joy!
Much love,

In between

God fortsättning!
That's what we say in Swedish between Christmas and New Year's Eve and it basically means good continuation.

These days, between Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are a bit dull in my opinion. I get this post-Christmas boredom, I suppose it's because it is after the whole excitement of the food and the gift-giving and getting, and so on. And the handful of days before New Year's feel like they drag along. I'm ready for the new year to start, and I can't wait for this old one to be over!

In my boredom I decided to wear a pretty outfit consisting of the blouse from Emmy Design that I got myself for Christmas. If you follow me on instagram (@curlsncakes) you know that I was wondering if people give themselves Christmas gifts. I usually do, what about you?

I sort of like the idea of giving a gift to yourself. Because in the end it's all about love, isn't it. Sure, we give gifts to some people because we "have to", but the best gifts are the ones given to people we really care about. So why not give one to yourself? It's the ultimate expression of self-love!

Blouse: Emmy Design (here)

Skirt: Chicwish (here)

Heels: ModCloth (here)

Much love to all of you!

Happy Christmas

Hello all you lovely people!
I just wanted to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas (if you do celebrate it) and/or Happy Holidays!

I'm curled up with a nice blanket, eating tons of chocolate, Nutella fudge, knäck and other yummy things. I'm so full that I really should stop eating, but there is no end to it in sight.

In Sweden we celebrate on Christmas Eve by opening presents and having a big meal. So yesterday I unwrapped my Christmas gifts, amongst them a warm sweater and a madeleine tin, which I look forward to using very much.

For Christmas Day I wore this magnificent emerald dress by Chi Chi from ModCloth, and I absolutely love it. I also wore the highest heels I've worn this year, these gorgeous sparkly ones that I got on Black Friday Sale from ModCloth.

I don't usually go to many parties, as I've mentioned before, so I really like to go all in for special occasions like Christmas. I love to do my makeup, wear fancy clothes and high, uncomfortable heels for a festive day. So I did just that, even though I had no real party to go to, and stayed at home with my family. Who's to say you can't dress up for a day at home?

Dress: Chi Chi London via ModCloth (here)

Heels: ModCloth (here)

Anyway, I've had a splendid Christmas even though it was the first one in my life without any snow. I hope you all had a lovely yule time too. Sending you lots of love!

Golden Spice

Hello all you lovely people!
Hope you are having a wonderful time these days before Christmas is upon us.
I have been baking all day whilst listening to She & Him's Christmas record, and I thought I'd share the recipe for the traditional Swedish Christmas-time saffron buns called Lussekatter or Lussebullar.

These are delicious with an amazing scent of saffron. They also get a lovely yellow colour from the saffron, and they are mildly sweet. Great to have with a cuppa. They do need to prove for quite some time, so it's not the quickest of bakes, but it's definitely worth it in the end!

Saffron buns

INGREDIENTS

• 5 dl milk
• 50 grams fresh yeast
• 1,5 dl sugar
• 2 grams salt
• 2 grams saffron
• ~14 dl flour
• 100 grams butter
• 1 egg
• Raisins

DIRECTIONS

Heat the milk to 37°C. Solve the yeast in the milk. Add the sugar and then the salt. Solve the saffron in 1 tablespoon warm water, and then add it to the rest. Add the flour and butter in additions. You might not need all of the flour. When the dough isn't super sticky anymore and releases from the bowl you're preparing it in it's saturated for flour.

Cover and let prove for 1 hour, until the dough is twice as big.

Divide the dough into balls of about 60 grams. Roll out the balls to snake-like shapes and then roll them up into S-shaped buns. Put the S-shaped buns on parchment paper and cover and let prove for another hour. Before baking give the buns an egg wash and stick in raisins in the buns, bake at 225°C,  for about 8-10 minutes.

Much love!

Nutella heaven

Hello you lovely people!
I want to share a recipe with you today for another one of my favourite Christmas treats. Last week I wrote about Knäck, which is a traditional Swedish toffee that we eat around Christmas time. You can see the post and get the recipe here.

Today I wanted to introduce you to a more modern sweet treat. It contains my favourite ingredient in the whole world -- Nutella. I'm a Nutella nutter! I love Nutella more than I should, and any recipe with Nutella is a good one in my opinion. This recipe is originally from Tasty Kitchen, but I found it on the blog Sockerrus. And it truly has become one of my Christmas must-haves.

Let's get to it...

Nutella Fudge

INGREDIENTS

• 1 can of sweetened condensed milk (about 394 grams)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla powder
• 200 grams dark chocolate, chopped
• 400 grams Nutella
• 40 grams butter (I use salted butter, but you can use unsalted butter and add a bit of salt at the very end)

DIRECTIONS

Prepare a 20x20 cm square pan by lining it with parchment paper.

Put all of the ingredients in a bowl that can be heated, I use a glass bowl. Create a double-boiler by putting the bowl over a pan with simmering water. Melt the ingredients until everything is incorporated and smooth, takes about 5 minutes.

Pour the mixture in the prepared pan and smoothen the top with a spatula. Put in the fridge until set, at least 2 hours.

Cut into squares with a hot knife. Store in an airtight container in the fridge.

Much love!

Christmas sweets

Hello lovely people!
It's that time of year...

I love this time of year so much. There's excitement in the air, people think about each other and the love is graspable.

I love the preparation for Christmas as much as I love Christmas itself. I find so much joy in shopping for presents, wrapping them up, decorating and above all else Christmas baking and sweets making!

Today I want to share with you one of my favourite sweets to make for Christmas. It is the traditional knäck, which is a Swedish toffee popular around this time of year. It's a very simple recipe that is so delicious!

Knäck translates to "break", probably because of its breakable consistency (I prefer it to be a bit softer though...). It can be made with three ingredients and it's an easy recipe to remember as you have as much of each ingredient. Traditionally there's little pieces of almond in knäck, however I like my knäck to be smooth and almond-free, but if you're a fan of almond you can just add that. In Sweden we pour the knäck into waxed paper cups that we just call knäck-cups, so maybe go for the smallest mini-cupcake cups you can find. The smaller the better as they really are no bigger than a coin.

Knäck

INGREDIENTS

• 2 dl sugar
• 2 dl golden syrup
• 2 dl heavy cream

DIRECTIONS

Put all the ingredients in a saucepan and stir on heat until the sugar has melted. Then let it simmer. How long you let it simmer affects the end consistency you'll get. If you want it to be soft and chewy (the way I like it) let it simmer until it reached the hard ball stage. The stage is defined by pouring a little of it into a glass of cold water, if it can be rolled into a ball then it is done. Easier than that test is to just let it simmer until it reaches 124°C, but not everyone has got a jam thermometer. Continue to simmer if you want the knäck to be harder.

Much love!