ScandiKitchen Christmas

Bronte Aurell shows us how to celebrate Christmas Scandi-style in her new book ScandiKitchen Christmas. Here we are lucky enough to have a few recipes from the book to share with you to try at home!

Recipes this month:

Christmas Kringle

Kringle is a Scandinavian word for pretzel. While the traditional shape is the same as the well-known German variety, I’m calling these kringle because the recipe is the same as the one used for Danish pastries. Every Scandinavian bakery has a kringle sign outside the door – while the kringle might not be in the traditional shape, it will still usually be filled with dried fruit, marzipan and nuts. This dough is the basis of all wienerbrød, or what we call Danish pastries in Denmark. It is a flaky, deliciously sweet pastry, and while it does take a little time and practice, it isn’t difficult. Tasting these treats straight from the oven more than makes up for the effort. You can use this dough as a base for other Danish treats such as swirls, spandauer and tebirkes.

Rolled Turkey with Meatball Stuffing

Having lived abroad for so long, Christmas for me is all about traditional food from home. Of course, living in the UK, British traditions have influenced our family, so we are partial to turkey at Christmas – with a Scandi twist, of course. Roasting a whole turkey is hard to do well, so I prefer to use sections of the bird to control the cooking better. Here I have mixed it up and settled on a marriage of Swedish and British flavours.

Meringue Wreath

One Christmas I had guests who didn’t like rice pudding, so I made this instead, as it also uses the Danish cherry sauce I would have made for the risalamande. It’s not traditionally Scandinavian, but it is so indulgent and beautiful that I just had to include it here as it’s a great alternative to rice pudding and it has the same flavours. Add the filling just before serving to prevent the meringue going soggy.

Swedish Ginger Biscuits

These are probably the most famous treat to come out of Sweden (besides the Plopp chocolate bar). This recipe is a quick dough which is easy to roll out so the kids can make lots of festive shapes. Every December, families across Scandinavia will sit around a table with a batch of dough, festive music on, making loads of cookies and baked goods for all the coming Sundays of Advent.

Read more in the December issue…