Vanillu smákökur

Vanilla cookies

Someone had a birthday here this weekend, and we celebrated with the whole family. The birthday girl's request was a cheesecake. But just a cheesecake was somehow too boring for me. So I went all out with the "vanilla" theme – I made a vanilla unicorn cake with colorful cream cheese frosting, added a bit of decoration, and I had a pretty sweet themed cake. I love things like that!

And to make sure everyone is fed, I also cut out a batch of plain vanilla cookies for the 7th birthday, baked them, and then decorated them colorfully with vanilla icing and sprinkles.

I'll definitely use the vanilla cookie recipe again for Christmas, but with different cookie cutters!

Ingredients

300 g wheat flour

130 g sugar

1 tsp vanilla sugar or similar

1 tsp baking powder

90 g margarine

70 g light syrup

50 ml milk

Preparation

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

In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, vanilla and baking powder.

First add the soft margarine and mix, ...

...then add the syrup and milk.

Knead the dough thoroughly, adding more flour if the dough is still sticky.

Knead thoroughly into a smooth dough.

Roll out the dough in portions on a floured surface with a rolling pin and cut out the cookies as desired, ...

...until the last bit of dough is used up.

Place the cookies on a baking sheet lined with baking paper...

... and bake in the preheated oven on the middle shelf at 350 °F (180 °C) (upper and lower heat) for about 8 to 10 minutes, until the cookies are golden brown.

If you like, you can decorate the cookies afterwards with icing, colorful sprinkles, etc.

In this sense:

Bon appetit!

[Translated from here.]

Mars-Snúðar

Mars rolls

I love cinnamon rolls, pretty much in every situation. And in many different variations. But of course, there are more than just cinnamon rolls – I recently came across a recipe for rolls with little pieces of Mars chocolate, and I just had to try that!

Memo to myself:

Next time I'll try the recipe with licorice chocolate; I imagine it would be delicious too!

Ingredients for about 20 rolls

150 ml lukewarm milk

1 tsp dry yeast

2 Tbsp sugar

50 g soft butter

1 egg

1 pinch of salt

350 g flour

2 - 3 Tbsp lukewarm water

1 - 3 Tbsp flour

180 g Mars chocolate

30 g butter

Preparation

For the dough, put all ingredients (except the water) into a large bowl...

...and knead thoroughly.

If the dough is too dry, add more water in portions until a good consistency is achieved.

Cover the yeast dough and let it rise.

For the filling, melt the butter and let it cool slightly.

Cut the Mars chocolate into small pieces.

Divide the dough into two parts, knead briefly again, and add a little more flour if the dough is still too sticky.

Then roll out half the dough...

... and brush with half of the melted butter.

Then spread half of the chopped chocolate over the dough...

... and roll it up as tightly as possible.

Cut the dough into slices about 2/3 inch (1.5 cm) thick.

Then place the snails on a baking tray lined with baking paper and let them rise for another 30 minutes.

Repeat the same with the second half of the dough.

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

Bake the snails in the preheated oven for about 15 to 30 minutes until they are golden brown.

Let it cool a bit and then serve.

Bon appetit!

[Translated from here.]

Rabarbarapæ

Rhubarb pie

Today I have a recipe for a very simple and delicious Icelandic rhubarb cake for you.

In our original homeland Germany, the rhubarb harvest begins in April and traditionally ends at the end of June. An old farmer's rule states that no more rhubarb should be harvested after St. John's Day (June 24th). This rule has the following background: The high temperatures cause the oxalic acid content in rhubarb to rise. And too much oxalic acid is unhealthy for humans. However, this has nothing to do with the rhubarb flowering, which often begins around this time; there is probably no connection between flowering and rising oxalic acid levels. One also often reads that the plant needs a rest period after the harvest from the end of June onwards to gather enough strength for a good harvest the following year.

In Icelandic cuisine the rhubarb season on the island usually begins in early June and practically lasts throughout the summer. I have no idea whether the plants here don't need a rest period, or whether the longer dormancy period during the Icelandic winter compensates for this.

The temperatures in the Icelandic summer are probably not so high that the oxalic acid concentration in the rhubarb becomes too high, but you often read the tip to use an extra tablespoon of sugar for rhubarb that is harvested at the end of summer, because the rhubarb also becomes more acidic as the season progresses.

So this is my last rhubarb recipe in Germany for this year - and I'm looking forward to having fresh rhubarb again when we fly to Iceland next week!

Ingredients for about 6 servings

500 g rhubarb

1 tbsp sugar

200 g melted butter

180 g white sugar

1 tsp baking powder

120 g wheat flour

1 tsp ground vanilla

2 eggs

Preparation

Wash and trim the rhubarb, cut it into slices about 1/2 inch (1-2 cm) thick, and place it in a baking dish. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of sugar, stir, and let it stand briefly while you prepare the dough.

In a bowl, mix the melted butter with the sugar, flour, baking powder and vanilla.

Add the eggs and whisk thoroughly.

Pour the batter over the rhubarb.

Then bake the cake in a preheated oven at 350 °F (180 °C) upper and lower heat for about 30 minutes until the cake is golden brown (toothpick test!).

Let cool slightly and then serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream or both.

Bon appetit!

[Translated from here.]

Gamla góða rúg­brauðstertan

Traditional rye bread cake

I love rúgbrauð, that heavy, sweet, moist Icelandic rye bread. It tastes so delicious - and you can also use it for other things, like a rye bread cake.

Here on the blog, I've already tried and presented various typical Icelandic rye bread cakes - today I have another recipe for you. I found this recipe online, in an old article in the magazine Morgunblaðið from December 1967.

For the cake, apart from the Rúgbrauð, you mainly need eggs, sugar, some flour and a bit of potato flour, and the filling consists of cream, bananas, apples and grated chocolate.

Since I didn't want to bake Icelandic rye bread specifically for the cake in Germany, I used pumpernickel for the recipe and I think the result is really good!

Ingredients

4 eggs

200 g sugar

125 g pumpernickel

1 tbsp potato flour

60 g flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

2 bananas

2 apples

1/2 lemon

50 g grated chocolate

200 ml whipping cream

300 ml whipping cream

chocolate to taste

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 400 °F (resp. 200 °C) upper/lower heat.

Separate the eggs.

Mix the egg yolks with the sugar in a large bowl.

Chop the pumpernickel thoroughly...

...and mix with the flour, potato flour and baking powder into the egg-sugar mixture.

Beat the egg whites until stiff and carefully fold in.

Carefully fold the beaten egg whites into the remaining ingredients.

Pour the dough into two springform pans lined with baking paper (approx. 8 inches resp. 20 cm diameter)...

...and bake at 400 °F (200 °C) for about 10 to 15 minutes. Then let cool thoroughly and carefully remove from the springforms.

For the filling, wash, peel, quarter and finely grate the apples.

Cut the bananas into small pieces.

Whip the 200 ml of cream for the filling until stiff and mix with the grated apples, the banana pieces and the grated chocolate.

Place the first layer on a cake plate or similar and spread the filling evenly over it.

Then place the second layer on top, whip the remaining cream until stiff and decorate the cake as desired.

Serve the Rúgbrauðsterta well chilled.

Bon appetit!

Translated from here.]