Karamellukaka

Caramel Cake

Here I have a recipe for a caramel cake for you, which I baked last month for my husband's birthday. The cake was really well received - sweet, thick cream, but overall not too heavy or too sweet thanks to the fluffy layers..!

The cake actually consists of two light, airy layers of pale sponge cake, plenty of sweet, thick caramel cream, and finally decorated as desired. I used salted caramel brittle, for a crunchy, crispy moment while eating with a slight salt note, as a contrast to the fairly sweet caramel cream.

Here I then decorated the cake with birthday candles - after all, it was also a birthday cake!

Ingredients

Ingredients for the dough

200 ml of milk

180 g melted butter

300 g flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

3 eggs

280 g sugar

ground vanilla or vanilla flavoring

Ingredients for the cream

70 g butter

250 g brown sugar

100 ml whipping cream

1 tsp ground vanilla or vanilla flavoring

200 g powdered sugar

40 g soft butter

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 180 °C top and bottom heat.

Whisk eggs and sugar in a bowl until frothy.

Add flour and baking powder and stir.

Add the milk and the melted butter, ...

... also the ground vanilla, vanilla flavoring, etc., and mix everything into a smooth dough.

Pour the batter evenly into two springforms lined with baking powder (diameter 20 - 22 cm), ...

... and bake in the preheated oven at 180 °C top and bottom heat for about 20 minutes, until the bases have turned nice and golden brown.

For the cream, gently heat 70 g of butter and 250 g of brown sugar in a pan over low heat for just under 10 minutes.

Pour in the cream and stir for 1 minute. Then remove the pot from the heat and let everything cool down a bit.

Add the powdered sugar and the soft butter and mix everything thoroughly into a uniform cream. The cream should have a nice thick consistency. Then let the cream cool down a bit.

Carefully remove the first cake layer from the pan, onto a cake plate
lay down and pour over with cream.

Then carefully place the second cake layer on top and cover everything with the remaining cream.

Place the finished cake in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours and decorate with powdered sugar, chopped nuts, or the like to taste before serving.

In this sense then: Happy Birthday! Happy birthday!

Enjoy your meal!

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Súkkulaðibomba

Chocolate bomb

This here is an Icelandic recipe for a real 'chocolate bomb,' a two-tier rich chocolate cake with a delicious cream made from cream cheese and mascarpone. When decorating the cake, you can really let yourself go!

For us, for example, I decorated it to a real Brúðarterta (wedding cake) - for the wedding of child no. 2 and his newlywed wife.

In the original Icelandic recipe, AB-Mjólk is used, which is available in many different versions in Iceland. Here in Germany, I replaced the AB-Mjólk 1:1 with buttermilk. Alternatively, one could also use natural yogurt.

Ingredients

460 g of flour
180 g sugar
4 eggs
500 ml AB milk
250 ml sunflower oil

80 g chopped chocolate

60 g cocoa powder

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

vanilla extract

400 g cream cheese

350 g mascarpone

250 g powdered sugar

2 - 3 tablespoons baking cocoa

if necessary, some grated chocolate, chopped nuts, or the like

Preparation

Stir together all the ingredients for the dough.

Divide into two baking pans (24 cm in diameter) and bake in a preheated oven at 200 °C top and bottom heat for 20 minutes each.

Take the two cake layers out of the oven and let them cool thoroughly.

For the cream, put the cream cheese with the mascarpone and the powdered sugar as well as the baking cocoa into a large bowl and mix well so that a uniform cream is formed.

Divide the cream into two portions. Set aside one cake piping bag full of cream for the decoration.

Place the first cake layer on a cake plate or similar, use the pastry bag to pipe a pattern all around, and then spread the rest of the first portion of cream on the cake layer.

Place the second cake layer on top, spread with the second portion of cream, sprinkle with grated chocolate, chopped nuts, etc., to taste, and finally decorate the cake with the cream from the second piping bag.

Finally, if necessary, the special cake decoration is then fitted.

Then let the finished cake rest in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours and serve well chilled afterwards.

Alternatively, you can also bake one cake base with cocoa and the other without, to create a color contrast, and also prepare only half of the cream with cocoa. You can really let yourself go here!

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Grillsósa

Barbecue sauce

We had dear visitors here over the weekend and in the evening we grilled together, everyone had brought something and my contribution was, among other things, this barbecue sauce here, with bell pepper and onion.

I made the barbecue sauce, however, for a friend with a cow's milk intolerance without dairy products; for this, I replaced the crème fraîche with 200 g of 'vegan cream cheese' and about 50 ml of 'vegan cooking cream,' which I stirred together. Sometimes it's not that easy at all to get such substitute products here in Iceland in the supermarket – in Bónus we only found 'milk alternatives'; only in Krónan did we also find things like 'vegan butter' and 'vegan cream cheese'.

The result was really tasty!

Ingredients

200 g crème fraîche

1 yellow bell pepper

1/4 red onion

1 tbsp tomato ketchup

1 pinch of coarse sea salt

1/2 tsp chili pepper

Preparation

Wash and clean the bell peppers, peel the onion. Cut both into small pieces.

In a bowl, stir together the crème fraîche with ketchup, salt, and pepper, and fold in the chopped vegetables.

Serve the barbecue sauce as a side with grilled meat or sausages.

But the sauce also works well as a dip for small-cut vegetable strips. We tried it out for you specially, later on in the evening..!

Enjoy your meal!

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Perlubygg með arfasósu

Pearl barley with ant sauce

This dish is traditionally prepared with fresh bird droppings.

If you - like me - can't get fresh chickweed at the moment, you can also make do with arugula/rocket, lamb's lettuce, or young spinach. I have chosen rocket here (in Icelandic:burdock salad) decided, I got that in the supermarket in town.

Pearl barley or barley pearls (bankabygg resp. perlubygg) were a staple of Icelandic cuisine until around 1940, before they were largely displaced in everyday cooking by imported products such as rice and noodles. I now really enjoy using them in my meals.

Barley in the field in Vallanes

By the way, the barley pearl salad is a recipe from the category 'always vegan'. So not 'veganized', but truly traditional without any animal products. Also perfect if guests, for example, cannot eat cow's milk products.

Ingredients

300 g pearl barley

750 ml of water

1 apple

1/2 red onion

300 g fresh pennywort

200 ml apple juice

100 ml of rapeseed oil

coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Preparation

Bring the water to a boil in a pot, add the pearl barley, and cook until soft for about 20 minutes. Then drain the water and set the barley aside to cool.

Peel and chop half an onion.

Wash half of the onion pieces with the honey or the arugula or similar, and put both together with the apple juice and the rapeseed oil into the blender and puree.

Quarter the peeled and core-removed apple and cut it into small pieces.

Mix the remaining onion pieces and the little apple pieces with the cooled pearl barley and pour over the green sauce. Mix everything thoroughly and season with salt and pepper. Keep the finished salad covered in the refrigerator.

With us, there was the green barley salad on weekends as a side dish for BBQs with friends.

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Ískalt kaffiskyr

Ice-cold coffee skyr drink

This week was somehow extremely stressful, I thought, and on top of that the great heat in Germany... Today there was then only quickly an 'iced coffee' for everyone, before we had to head off again to take the kids to the bus.

Actually, the original Icelandic recipe calls for using coffee skyr with caramel, but since there are not so many types of skyr in Germany, I made do with vanilla skyr and added coffee extract and chocolate sauce to round it off a bit in terms of taste. Then stir vigorously once – perfect!

We were all very satisfied with the result, nice and ice-cold, fresh and delicious!

Ingredients for 3 drinks

400 ml vanilla skyr
200 ml of milk
1 Tbsp coffee extract
2 Tbsp chocolate sauce

90 ml of cold coffee

6 - 9 ice cubes

Preparation

Mix the vanilla skyr with the milk, the coffee extract, and the chocolate sauce in a blender.

Put 2 - 3 ice cubes in each glass and pour 30 ml of cold coffee over each.

Then evenly distribute the skyr milk mixture into the glasses.

Stir as desired and enjoy ice cold!

Enjoy your meal!

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Kotasæluís með jarðarberjum

Cottage cheese ice cream with strawberries

Apparently, cottage cheese ice cream was an absolute trend on TikTok three years ago, after all, the ice cream is low in fat and high in protein. However, the trend completely passed me by - I only came across the recipe now on the page of an Icelandic dairy; after all, the company also produces cottage cheese (kotasæla) here. And delicious strawberries also grow in Iceland!

Given the current heat wave in Germany with temperatures of up to 40 °C, I really wanted to try out the ice cream recipe!

My conclusion..? Definitely good in terms of taste, but in the freezer, the ice cream becomes quite hard quite quickly due to the low fat content, so you have to let it thaw a little before eating.

Ingredients for a family pack of ice cream

700 g cottage cheese

500 g frozen strawberries

40 ml liquid honey

3 - 4 Tbsp lemon juice

Preparation

Put all the ingredients for the ice cream into a large blender and blend really thoroughly.

Then put the mixture into a suitable mold, smooth it out, and let it harden in the freezer. Stir regularly so that it does not become too firm too quickly.

Then enjoy according to taste, for example, like we do here with fresh strawberries, chocolate sauce, and fresh basil leaves.

A refreshing cool down..!

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Skyrkaka með hvítu súkkulaði

Skyr cake with white chocolate

The region around the Borgarfjörður in Western Iceland (Vesturland) has been inhabited since the settlement. The landscape in the valleys is well suited for the livestock farming. The area is known for its dairy products, especially for its cheese. And on farms like the family business creamery (cream farm) Erpsstaðir one can get the cheese and delicious Skyr specialties, such as Skyr ice cream or Skyr pralines, in farm shop also try directly on site.

About 10 years ago, we rented accommodation there, and for our children, the view into the cowshed was really exciting - however, the biggest highlight for them was the sheep that casually walked into the farm shop.

Here I have a skyr recipe for you - Skyr cake, skyrkaka. This time in a very creamy version as "no bake cake" - ideal for the summer!

However, the cake does not completely firm up in the refrigerator. You can cut it, but it remains soft and creamy. Alternatively, you can also serve it as a dessert in a shallow dish and then let your creativity run wild when decorating, just like I did here with blueberries, white chocolate shavings, and strawberries.

Ingredients

260 g cookies

150 g butter

1 tsp cinnamon

250 g vanilla skyr

250 g strawberry skyr

1 Tbsp powdered sugar

1 tsp ground vanilla

100 g white chocolate

200 ml whipped cream

fresh fruits and, if applicable, chocolate for decoration

Preparation

Melt the butter.

Thoroughly crush the cookies, mix them with the melted butter and the cinnamon, and put the mixture into a springform pan lined with baking paper, pressing it down well and forming a rim all around the sides.

Place the cake base in the refrigerator to firm up while preparing the filling.

Slowly melt the chocolate in a water bath and let it cool again.

Stir the vanilla and the strawberry skyr with the ground vanilla and the powdered sugar.

Add the cooled chocolate and stir in.

Whip the cream until stiff and carefully fold it into the Skyr mixture.

Then pour the mixture onto the cookie base, smooth it out, and let it set for at least 4 hours (preferably overnight!).

Then decorate the cake with fresh fruits and, if desired, a little chocolate, and serve well chilled.

Enjoy your meal!

Translated from here.