This year our two blueberry bushes, planted 3-4 years ago, finally produced a lot of blueberries and we had enough for several different treats. I made two sorts of blueberry cakes and we also ate them plain them as a healthy snack. And there was even enough blueberries to top these wonderful, tangy and refreshing lemon mousses with crunchy crumble. The crumble gives a nice crunchy contrast to the smooth mousse and the blueberries give a fresh finishing touch.

Crumble
50 gram butter
50 gram flour
50 gram sugar
a pinch of salt

Combine flour and sugar in a bowl. Rub the butter into the flour mixture. Keep rubbing until the mixture resembles crumbs. Sprinkle on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake in 200 degrees C until golden, stir a couple of times during baking. Leave to cool.

Lemon mousse

250 ml whipping cream
2 eggs
1 large organic lemon, zest and juice
5 tbsp sugar
4 gelatine leaves (or 2 tsp gelatine powder) + 2 tbsp water
100 ml Kesella (quark) (can be omitted, sometimes I add it and sometimes not)

Put the gelatine leaves into a small cup containing 2 tbsp water (or sprinkle gelatine powder into the water). In a separate bowl beat the egg whites with an electric beater until fluffy and light. In a second bowl beat egg yolks and sugar with an electric beater until fluffy and pale. In a third bowl, whip the cream.

When the gelatine has soaked up the water, place the cup in a pan of simmering water (don’t boil) and stir until melted. Let cool slightly. Combine lemon zest and juice with the gelatine mixture. Then carefully add the whipped cream, egg yolks and sugar (and quark, if used). Finally gently fold the whipped egg whites into the mixture. Divide the mousse between 4-5 glasses or cups and chill until firm. Serve with crumbles and fresh bilberries or blueberries.

G trying to pick a blueberry.

Some months ago, while traveling in Colombia, I encountered the fruit Granadilla for the very first time. It’s a variety of passion fruit, but very sweet and mild rather than sour. It quickly became a favourite and as my husband wasn’t too fond of it I always got his Granadilla too whenever it was served to us as a dessert.

Some weeks ago I had the honor of attending a fun cooking event at Electrolux with chef David Chang, the owner of Momofuku. He has been awarded with the White Guide Global Gastronomy Award and thus visited Sweden during a couple of days. The Swedish chefs Magnus Nilsson, Mathias Dahlgren and Sayan Eriksson also participated in the cooking event. The event was a bit special since the theme was microbiology and fermentation. David Chang held a presentation about his work in the Momofuku lab where they experiment with fermentation and different kinds of molds…

Above you can see how crowded it was in the Electrolux kitchen (the Swedish culinary team actually practices here). From left to right you can see Magnus Nilsson, David Chang, Sayan Isaksson and Mathias Dahlgren. Standing on the opposite side of the table, in stripes, is chef Klas Lindberg who won the prestigious title “chef of the year” in January.The whole event ended with lots of scrumptious food served by the Swedish culinary team. Delicious!

Swedish television filmed the event, and you can see a short 5 minute program below. Most parts are in English. You’ll be able to catch a glimpse of me (dressed in orange) and also my fellow food blogger Anne.

Photo from last year.

Spring is slowly approaching and I can’t wait for all garden plants to wake up after the winter. My favourite berry, smulgubbe (Fragaria × vescana), is a cross between strawberries (Fragaria ×ananassa) and wild/woodland strawberries (Fragaria vesca). The Swedish name for strawberry is jordgubbe and the name for wild strawberry is smultron, hence the name smulgubbe. The flavour, imagine eating a strawberry and a wild strawberry at the same time, is absolutely fantastic and I can’t imagine a summer without them. The variety that I have, Rebecka, produce berries through out the whole summer season. I grow them in containers hanging on the trellis so that I can easily access them everytime I go out on my deck. During winter I half bury the whole containers so they’ll survive the cold. The plants produce a few runners, but not as many as strawberry plants usually do, so you’ll eventually get more plants. If you live in Stockholm, you can find Rebecka plants during late spring at the garden center Zetas and probably also the one called Slottstr?dg?rden Ulriksdal, two of my favourite places in Stockholm.

Slow cookers, in this case a Crock-Pot, are fairly new in Sweden as opposed to the US where they’ve been on the market since the 70s. The food is cooked very slowly on a low temperature while you’re at work or do other stuff. I’ve been experimenting with a Crock-Pot lately and I’ve had lots of fun so far. The first thing I decided to do was a cross between soup and stew. It’s not authentical nor 100 % Hungarian, but I still call it a goulash. In the morning, before work, I loaded the Crock-Pot with my chosen ingredients and I set it on low for 8,5 hours. After all those hours it automatically switched to just keep the stew/soup warm until we we were ready for dinner.

Some people prefer to brown their meat before adding it to the slow cooker, but seriously, I will not brown meat in the morning while still being half asleep. At that time of the day I can hardly drink a cup of coffee. So I just threw everything in the pot and let it cook. The result was a hearty delicious soup/stew that we ate with newly baked baguettes. Absolutely amazing and I still can’t believe that all I had to do was to chop the ingredients. I was bit afraid that the potatoes would be over cooked, but they were perfect!

Crock-Pot Goulash

900 gram beef chuck (h?grev in Swedish)
2 yellow onions
2 Italian peppers (spetspaprika in Swedish)
6 potatoes, peeled
4 garlic cloves
1 tsp thyme
2 tsp pimenton de la vera (smoked paprika), mild
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp tomato puree
1,5 tsp ancho
2 tsp chipotle chili paste
2 bay leaves
1 can of crushed tomatoes
800 ml stock (preferably home made)
salt
pepper

Cut the meat, potatoes and peppers in large dices. Chop the onions. Finely chop or grate the garlic. Put all ingredients in a Crock-Pot and let cook on low temperature for 8,5 hours. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with fresh bread.

These adorable and moist mini cupcakes only contain 3 ingredients: eggs, chocolate and butter. The chocolate cake recipe came to my attention being one of the monthly challenges in “Daring Bakers” and thus popping up all over the internet. Regretfully I’m not a Daring Baker anymore due to lack of time, but never the less I do recommend this recipe. It’s very versatile and you can bake cupcakes, mini cupcakes, cakes or what ever with this lovely recipe. I chose to do mini cupcakes as I was making dessert for a New Year’s party at Lena’s with many guests. I made two batches and I ended up with more than 50 mini cupcakes. On a side note they they were quite easy to transport and not too fragile despite traveling by bus, metro and finally train.

For topping I made a “fluff”, which is widely known in Sweden lately, you basically melt 180 grams of candy or chocolate into 300 ml heavy cream. It’s important not to let it boil. Leave in the fridge overnight and then whip it up with an electric beater until fluffy and light. For this variant I used Polly which is a Swedish chocolate candy with array flavour. After whipping the “fluff” I piped the cupcakes and as a finishing touch I decorated each cupcake with a raspberry.

Flourless mini chocolate cupcakes

Makes around 25 depending on size.
(Source: Daring Bakers Challenge January 2009, for example here and here)

450 gram of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
150 gram unsalted butter
5 large eggs, separated

Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.

Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cupcakes will be dry).

With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.

Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.

Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter.

Pour batter into mini cupcake molds, the ones I use are called “sm?br?dsformar”. The batter should fill only 3/4 way up. Bake at 175 degrees C for 10 minutes.