Sallys Cookies

In the foodfest that is the Mcnana Blog, Sally has been promising this recipe for a while now!

Ingredients

200g/7oz dark chocolate at least 70% 

75g/3oz butter (unsalted)

225g/8oz light muscovado/caster sugar 

2 fairly large free-range eggs

-   about half a teaspoon of vanilla extract

 ˇ        50g/2oz skinned macademia nuts or other nuts if you prefer (I use 75g, but that's a matter of taste)

150g/5źoz self-raising flour 

Preparation method

1.  Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Melt the chocolate in a small heatproof glass bowl over a small pan of simmering water, with the base of the bowl not quite touching the water. Occasionally push any unmelted chocolate down into the melted stuff. Turn off the heat as soon as the chocolate has melted. And don't touch the bowl with your bare fingers until it's cooled down a bit...... (trust me).

2.     Blend the butter and sugar together in a food processor until smooth. Break the eggs and vanilla extract in a small bowl or jug, whisk just enough to break up the eggs, then add the mixture gradually to the butter and sugar, beating/stirring constantly. Gradually add the melted chocolate and continue to mix.

3.     If you use hazelnuts or almonds, toast them in a shallow pan until golden, shaking regularly so they colour evenly. Whichever nuts you use, grind the nuts coarsely using a pestle and mortar or small food processor, then remove half and continue grinding the other half until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. (I like to keep the whole lot fairly coarse so you can feel the nuts in the cookies. YMMV though). Add the flour and both textures of nut to the cookie mixture. Stop mixing as soon as everything is combined.

4.   Place large, heaped tablespoons of the mixture on to a baking tray lined with baking parchment, leaving ample space in between each 'blob'. You should get twelve out of this quantity. Don't!!!!!!!! be tempted to flatten the cookies, they will do so in the oven anyway. 

5.  Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes. This depends on your oven. I take them out of mine after 10 minutes. The cookies will have spread and be very soft to the touch. They will seem almost uncooked, check that the top is dull and no longer shiny and firming. Remove them from the oven and set aside to cool a little. As soon as they are cool enough to move without breaking, slide a palette knife underneath and carefully lift them onto a cooling rack. 

Best eaten the same day.

In the unlikely event that you have stale leftovers (seriously....) crumble them over ice cream :D

And Heres the Recipe!

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  I have tried two different recipes and like both so I will share them both here.

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  The first recipe is...

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  2 1/4 tsp dry yeast

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  480g white flour

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  320g rye flour

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  1 tsp salt

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  1 tbsp anise seed

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  1 tbsp fennel seed

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  75g butter

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  2 cups (5 dl) milk

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  150g light syrup (I haven't found a syrup here in the US which tastes like the Swedish kind. You can buy it at IKEA and I would highly

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  recommend it if you live close to an IKEA)

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  (it is used for baking)

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  You mix it all up and let it stand for about 30 min. Then you divide the dough into equal parts (how big depends on how big your frying pan

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  is) and use a rolling pin to make them the size of the pan and as thin as you can without them falling apart when you lift them from the

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  table.

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  You are supposed to fry them dry in the pan but I like to fry them in butter because it makes them taste extra fantastic!  (not strange..)

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  You may be able to replace the light syrup for Caro Syrup - some friends of mine says they do that - but I have never tasted how it turns

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  out so I can't say if that is good or bad.

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  The second recipe does not use the syrup...

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  Here it is:

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  5 dl (about 2 cups) of either plain yogurt, milk or cream (or a mix of any of the above that comes out to 5 dl)

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  75g melted butter

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  1 tsp salt

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  2 tsp sugar

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  1/2 tsp baking soda

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  12 dl white flour (about 5 cups)

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  1. Mix all the dry ingredients

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  2. Add the liquids (butter included in this but make sure it has cooled off)

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  3. Use rolling pin to make thin round bread in the size of your frying pan

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  4. fry in dry frying pan a couple of minutes per side.

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  (once again I like to fry it in butter...)

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Lydias Wonderful Bread

I found out a couple of days ago that the house my mother grew up in, which has been in the family for 3 generations, is being sold.It has been taken care of by my uncle, who passed away a couple of months ago, the last few years. His wife cannot afford to keep the house and none of his siblings can afford to buy it, and neither can any of us from the younger generation.

We used to go there for 2 months every summer. It is in the north of Sweden in a beautiful location.

It has a main house

and a barn (which you can see here with the house from the opposite direction from the picture above) some fields, a forest, and a "baking house" which you can see below

I find the "baking house" particularly interesting (even though I never thought so growing up) because it was build for the purpose of...

you guessed it... baking.

They would bake something called "tunnbröd" (thin bread) which looks like this...

That is the kind of oven they used in the "baking house".  They had stopped using it when I was little, but they still had everything

there that used to be used.

The house is by a lake where we used to go fishing...

and also walking distance to a river

I felt sad today thinking about how some things in life don't turn out the way we always imagined... but then decided to focus on the good

things instead. So - I decided to bake tunnbröd for the family. The kids have never had it. In lack of a "real" tunnbrödoven I did it in a

fryingpan on the stove...

(wasn't able to take a picture so this is not my stove - but it shows how it is done)

and then I told the kids about the "baking house

We visited in 2006, but the kids were 10 months, 2 years and 4 years - and don't remember it.

I wish I could take them now before the house is being sold, but I don't see how to make it happen. At least I have lots of pictures and

memories to share.