The Nordic Baking Book

Product Information

Nordic baking is, beyond doubt, a defining characteristic of how people relate to the nations in the region, or at least their ideas of what those countries are. Danish pastries, cinnamon buns, rye breads and all-butter biscuits flowed from Scandinavia into the bakeries and home kitchens of Europe and beyond a long time ago, yet the same can barely be said for Iceland, Finland and Denmark’s distant Faroe Islands. Nilsson has it covered and ‘The Nordic Baking Book’ is another stake in the ground for the chef as his nation, and neighbouring nation’s pre-eminent food archivists. There may be a grandmother sat, right now, on Gotland, wondering when he is going to arrive to collect her saffron braids recipe, but she appears to be the only one left out. No other book on Nordic baking is as comprehensive and informative. Nilsson travelled extensively throughout the Nordic region - Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden - collecting recipes and documenting the landscape. The 100 photographs in the book have been shot by Nilsson – now an established photographer, following his successful exhibitions in the US. This recipe comes from Gudrun Einarsdottir who helped me out with a lot of the Icelandic content for this book. It was originally her grandmother’s. Now, I do have to say this is another one of those recipes where perhaps a little more info would have been useful. The full recipe (I made half) said to roll each half of the dough out into a 12×16-inch rectangle; once you sandwich the rectangles with the jam, to cut into 12 squares. By my calculations those would be 4-inch squares. I think it more likely that he meant 24 squares, or fewer if you want them rectangular and not square. I wound up with about 12 with my half recipe. The baking instructions were also vague, giving a temperature (345F) and then “bake until golden”. For the record that was about 14 minutes in my oven. Norwegian Sweet Pressed Cardamom and Vanilla Tuiles

Nilsson makes a defining statement in early in the book that denies the importance of getting everything right, even following the recipes to the letter, rejecting the idea that baking is a science of ingredients. He is ready for other people’s mistakes and adjustments to create something new, potentially better. So, the pressure is off. It’s a book to enjoy, screw up and see what happens. If only we could all be so relaxed about what comes out of the oven. It’s hard to imagine buyers of such a beautiful and heavy book wanting anything other than perfection, exactly as Nilsson found it in that remote Lapland kitchen. Interestingly, Andrea Geary of America’s Cooks Illustrated magazine tells me that she discovered that: “like cinnamon, cardamom has anti-fungal qualities that slow fermentation”, and suggests that the dough is so copiously spiced that one can up the yeast content to improve the rise without spoiling the flavour. And she’s right: this is one dough that can take it. What I also like about this book, is the author reiterating the fact that all ovens are different and we need to become accustomed to our own.

So much here to discuss. This recipe intrigued me because it said I needed a liter of “brewer’s wort”, which apparently is readily available in Sweden. After scouting around online and enlisting the help of my friend and beer-brewer Tom, I bought a pound of dry malt extract (concentrated brewer’s wort) for a traditional dark beer. The recipe said it made four loaves, so I mixed up just a half liter of wort and started the dough…only to decide that the proportions in the recipe seemingly had some errors, as that half liter of liquid was supposed to suffice for 1.25 kg of flour (about 2.75 lbs). Uh, no way. And the yeast amount seemed to be far too little – only 1.25 tsp of instant. So too much flour, can deal with that, but what about the yeast? Certainly there was no yeast in my wort. I wound up halving the flour, doubling the yeast, and hoping the spice amounts were ok as is, and came up with a pretty acceptable pair of loaves, although I think they should have been a touch sweeter. Take #2

Nilsson has two versions of glögg in the book, this one and a non-alcoholic version. The alcoholic version looks a lot like sangria, with sliced lemon and orange in it – if you can ignore the cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom. It has a delayed-gratification thing going for it as well, as it sits for at least a week before you warm it up and serve. I’ll return here with an update once I’ve actually sipped it. I know, this should be a wintery holiday kind of drink … but in this time of COVID-19, airport rules apply, if I want glögg in summer, by golly…

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A few recipes, including Johansson, Lemanski and the Triangle’s, recommend retarding the dough by leaving it to rise slowly in the fridge, rather than at room temperature, which, the Yorkshire bakery tells me: “will make the dough taste greeaaaat, and [is] easier for the final shape!”. With so much spice involved, I can’t really taste the difference, but I can attest it makes stretching and filling the dough an awful lot less faff, because the dough is firmer and so more amenable to being topped with butter. It also makes timing a bit easier, because you can, to a certain extent, choose when to bake it, as opposed to being at the mercy of your yeast. They also, in my experience, rise slightly better, but the difference is not significant. The filling

Speaking of yeast, for future reference, to convert fresh yeast to instant, multiply by .33. A 50g chunk of fresh equals 16.5g which I’ll call 5 tsp of instant yeast. 25g of fresh is about 8g or 2.5 tsp instant. Most of the recipes I find I need to cut in half. I don’t really need to make 40 rolls in one sitting, or four loaves of bread. Granted most things freeze pretty well, but still. The yeast-based recipes tend to be large because he scaled most of them to use a 50g chunk of fresh yeast (a common unit size it seems). The acclaimed chef featured in the Emmy-Award winning US PBS series The Mind of a Chef and the Netflix docuseries Chef's Table explores the rich baking tradition of the Nordic region, with 450 tempting recipes for home bakers Some principles are as easy as the author claims them to be, or make themselves apparent in the reading of his authoritative, humorous, historic and nostalgic introductions to each chapter and many recipes. The way to make cinnamon buns, vanilla buns, vanilla suns and more are all made using the same dough, or any of a few, basic wheat bun doughs that Nilsson has dug out to serve all purposes. The reader chooses the one that sounds easiest or tastiest. It’s a helpful demystification of recipes that can seem daunting, especially in a world where the Kanelbulle is gaining near-canonised notoriety. Some recipes receive such casual instruction that the discretion of an experienced baker is needed for success, while others are written with such precision that the importance of not desecrating their tradition is implied.

While the dough is rising, make the filling by mixing all of the ingredients together in a bowl. Step 3 Such a large book as The Nordic Baking Book with so many recipes and information is worth paying the extra price for. There are recipes with regional variations of the classics, some with a modern twist, and Magnus's family recipes. Don't go straight to the Index Bake the gingersnaps for 12–15 minutes, until they are cooked, but not dry. Once they start to brown a little around the edges they are generally done. Leave to cool on the baking sheet before moving. Chewy caramel shortbreads Kolakakor/kolasnittar (Sweden) Because fresh yeast is not widely available where I live, for the bread recipes I substitute 7g instant dried yeast for every 25g of fresh yeast (or 14g dried for 50g fresh). This has worked very well for me so far, but of course YMMV.