Súkkulaðibitakaka

Cake with chocolate chips

This weekend I finally baked another Sunday cake, a loaf cake with roughly chopped chocolate chips. The recipe is pretty simple, actually quick and the cake tastes delicious!

Ingredients

5 eggs

180 g powdered sugar

250 g soft butter

240 g flour

2 Tbsp potato flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

120 g chopped chocolate

Preparation

An hour before baking, let the butter soften at room temperature.

Then preheat the oven to 350 °F (180 °C) upper/lower heat.

Mix the eggs with the powdered sugar until foamy.

Stir in the beautifully soft butter.

Then mix the flour, potato flour and baking powder. (By the way, in Icelandic, “baking powder” is called “lyftiduft” - definitely one of my favorite words.)

Fold the roughly chopped chocolate into the dough with a spoon.

Then pour the dough into a greased or lined king cake mold...

...and let it bake in the oven on the middle rack at 350 °F (180 °C) upper and lower heat for about 50 minutes (test with a toothpick!).

In the last quarter of an hour, check the cake every now and then to make sure it isn't getting too dark and, if in doubt, cover it with aluminum foil or something similar.

The cake tastes best fresh, but you can still eat it the second day!

[Translated from here.]

Kjötsúpudagurinn á fyrsta degi vetrar

Meat Soup Day on the first day of winter

Yesterday was fyrsti vetrardagur in Iceland, the first day of winter.

The day goes back to the old Icelandic calendar, which divides the year into 6 winter months and 6 summer months. The first day of winter is the Saturday after the 26th week of summer, usually the Saturday between October 21st and 27th.

The first Monday of winter, the gormánuður , is also known as the “slaughter month” - after the cattle round-up at the end of September, the slaughter of the animals that were not to be brought over the winter followed. Therefore, the first month of winter is the perfect time for good meat soup made from freshly slaughtered Icelandic lamb.

Íslensk kjötsúpa , or Icelandic meat soup, is a hearty soup made from lamb and vegetables. Potatoes, carrots, beets and cabbage are mostly used, and sometimes onions and leeks are also used. The soup is often thickened slightly with rice or pearl barley. Sometimes kjötsúpa is more reminiscent of oxtail soup, sometimes it is based on vegetable broth or contains a tomato base.

On Skólavörðustígur, the first day of winter since 2003 is celebrated as kjötsúpudagur , or meat soup day .

Skólavörðustígur Street runs from Hallgrímskirkja down to Laugavegur. The street takes its name from the old stone school control room that stood up here on the hill for around 140 years. The control room was demolished in 1931 to make room for the large statue of Leifur Eiríksson by the US sculptor Alexander Stirling Calder (1870 - 1945), which was given to Iceland by the USA in 1930 to mark the 1,000th anniversary of Alþingi. By the way, when the statue was erected here, Hallgrímskirkja was only in the planning stage; construction of the church began in 1945 (completion in 1986).

On the first day of winter, the Skólavörðustígur is closed to traffic and free meat soup is served in several places - usually from 1 or 2 p.m. and until all the soup has been served.

Yesterday the first soup station was from Kaffi Loki at the top of the street.

At Krua Thai there was also a stand in front of the shop with Icelandic meat soup, which was also served in the style of Thai in Icelandic sheep's wool sweaters. The soup had a very slight Asian touch, but it was definitely íslensk kjötsúpa .

At the Sjávargrillið restaurant there was still meat soup, like everywhere else in wide cardboard cups for the soup, but the spoons had already run out. I think that could also have been a reason why the delicious free soup portions were particularly large here!

There was also a stand with meat soup in front of the Galleri at Skólavörðustígur 5 - here again the more reddish version.

The last stop was down at Laugavegur at the stand of Bændasamtök Íslands , the Icelandic farmers' association. Subjectively, the kjötsúpa here was particularly tasty and spicy.

Yesterday it started at 1 p.m. At most stands the meat soup was already completely served around 2:40 p.m. I think we missed one stand. In any case, it was a very nice event - oh yes!

[Translated from here.]

Kjöt í káli

Meat in cabbage

So-called one-pot dishes are/were very popular, and many people love (or hate) them. This is a very classic Icelandic dish that is prepared in just one pot - so stew is its traditional form.

In any case, I am very enthusiastic about the result.

The preparation is specifically designed to stack all the ingredients in the pot, cover with the cabbage leaves and then pour the meat broth over them and let everything simmer slowly. But under no circumstances should you stir!

Ingredients for 4 persons

700 g fresh lamb
1/2 head white cabbage
4 potatoes
4 carrots
1 tsp coarse sea salt
1 pinch of pepper
1 tsp ground cumin
500 ml meat broth


Preparation

Cut the meat into cubes - about half into larger cubes (approx. 3 x 3 cm) and the rest into smaller pieces.

Wash, peel and roughly dice the potatoes.

Wash, peel and slice the carrots.

First place the large cubes of meat on the bottom of a large pot.

Spread the potato and carrot pieces on top.

Now add the smaller pieces of meat on top and sprinkle with salt, pepper and caraway.

Wash and clean the white cabbage and remove the stalk. Shred the cabbage leaves a little and place them on the meat.

Pour in the vegetable stock and then let the whole thing simmer over low heat for about 1.5 hours - if necessary, add more water if it becomes a little dry.

Then serve the dish with bread.

[Translated from here.]

Eplakaka

Apple Cake

Here finally comes the apple cake that I didn't bake last Sunday because we spontaneously wanted to take advantage of the good weather and go to the volcano again. But I baked the next day, my husband has to work from home, so I had time and we were able to have a nice coffee hour together again (thanks to the time difference of currently 2 hours).

I found the fluffy cake with the sugar-cinnamon crust extremely tasty - and my little one wanted extra help, so this cake was really well received!

Ingredients

250 g brown sugar

250 g margarine

4 eggs

80 g hot water

1 pinch of ground vanilla

250 g flour

2 tsp baking soda

2 large apples

2 Tbsp sugar-cinnamon

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 350 °F (180 °C) upper/lower heat.

In a large bowl, stir the sugar with the margarine until fluffy.

Then stir in the eggs one at a time.

Add the hot water, the ground vanilla, the flour and the baking powder and stir.

Then put the dough into a springform pan lined with baking paper.

Wash, peel and cut the apples into thin slices.

Place the apple slices on the cake (stick them a little into the dough) and sprinkle with the sugar and cinnamon.

Bake in the preheated oven at 350 °F (180 °C) upper and lower heat for approx. 50 minutes (test with a toothpick!).

Then let the cake cool slightly and carefully remove it from the tin. Even warm, the cake tastes particularly delicious with its crispy sugar cinnamon crust!

[Translated from here.]

Hrossabjúgu, uppstúf og kartöflustappa

Horse sausage, white sauce and mashed potatoes

Here I'll show you a very classic Icelandic specialty - "bjúga", a sausage made from meat dough, salted and smoked. (Incidentally, bjúgu used to be the classic lunch on the day before Christmas Eve, on Þorláksmessa.)

The sausage “bjúga” is made from horse, pork or beef. It consists of meat that is put through a meat grinder and the sausages are then salted and smoked. This gives the sausage its very special, intense smoky taste. I found it to take a bit of getting used to, but ultimately quite tasty!

By the way, our horse sausages here were traditionally served in a white sauce with potatoes or mashed potatoes as well as peas and red cabbage.

Ingredients for 4 servings

4 sausages

Ingredients for the white sauce

1 Tbsp margarine
1 Tbsp flour
400 ml milk

1 tsp sugar

1 pinch of coarse sea salt

1 pinch of pepper

1 pinch of nutmeg

Ingredients for the mashed potatoes

800 g potatoes

100 ml warm milk

150 g soft butter

salt and pepper

1 Tbsp sugar

Preparation

Put the sausages with skin in a pot, pour in cold water and bring to the boil.

Then reduce the heat and let the sausages simmer for about 30 minutes.

For the sauce, melt the margarine in a small saucepan.

Add the flour and stir.

Then pour in the milk in small portions while stirring constantly and then let the whole thing simmer for about 5 minutes.

Then season with sugar, salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste.

To make the mashed potatoes , wash the potatoes, peel them if necessary and boil them in salted water.

Then drain the water and mash the cooked potatoes and mix with the hot milk.

Melt the butter in it, stir and season with salt, pepper and 1 tablespoon of sugar to taste.

Then serve the bjúgu directly with the mashed potatoes, the white sauce and peas and red cabbage.

[Translated from here.]

Við erum dugleg!

We are hard-working!

Things seem relatively quiet here at the moment, I haven't posted many recipes lately and I (unfortunately) often don't respond to messages until late...

Should I tell you why that is?

We are self-publishing our second cookbook!

We've been at it for a long time, at first it was just a vague plan that gradually became more and more concrete. We've been serious about it since July - and recently we've been working flat out on it in every half-free minute.

Now at the weekend we both sat on the project every day until the night. My husband mainly took over the "technical side", setting and designing everything, designing and designing the cover... and I also cooked, baked, took photos and wrote and adapted the final texts.

In the picture here we are going through all the material again, adding to it, rearranging it, moving it, exchanging things... at some point neither of us could look straight ahead. But on Sunday night we did it - the data for the first test print was sent online to the printer!

The whole house still smells like Christmas, we still have a few last Christmas muffins, the cookie jar is well filled and we still have Christmas ice cream in the freezer. And there are still Christmas decorations everywhere... (My husband has already asked me if we want to look for Easter eggs for Christmas.)

Delicious Iceland at Christmas time

As convinced Iceland and Christmas fans, the idea has been coming to mind for a while - our new cookbook is about the Icelandic Christmas season, recipes and traditions.

Our new book will hopefully take you right into the middle of the Icelandic Christmas season, tell you about Icelandic Christmas customs, of course also about the 13 Santa Clauses and the dangerous Christmas cat, and bring the Icelandic Christmas home with more than 50 culinary recipes. From Christmas cookies, Christmas confections and Christmas cakes to soups, salads and other starters to main courses, side dishes, desserts and Christmas drinks, our Christmas book contains traditional and modern dishes from the Icelandic Christmas season.

Now we are eagerly waiting for our first test print!

[Translated from here.]