Thumbs & Slices

After the total and complete disaster of the Fikonrutor recipe I admit I wanted to throw in the towel.  Is it really worth it to work my way through the Fika cookbook?  I felt very discouraged.  Then I turned the page.  I turned the page to the next recipe of Jam Thumbprint Cookies (syltgrottor) and since it was the week of Valentine's Day I thought this would be a fitting cookie with it's slight licorice flavour and sweet raspberry jam.  

The recipe for syltgrottor makes only 24 large thumbprint cookies in mini cupcake papers.  I even had pink heart papers already stashed in my pantry which I had at one time purchased at Dollar Tree.  The recipe found on page 41 of the Fika cookbook went pretty much as directed except I once again found the dough not wanting to come together enough so that I could form balls with the dough.  I did have to add a little bit of water to be able to work the dough properly.  I'm not totally sure why this happens.  Are the measurements off or is it just a difference in Canadian to Swedish products?  Who knows, but the addition of water worked and I was able to form the dough into balls and form the thumbprint.

This recipe is a fairly simple recipe and quick to make.  Hubby and I were on the fence about the anise seed flavouring.  The licorice flavour from the anise seed matched well with the raspberry and it's not something I would have normally been drawn to which I like.  The whole reason I decided to embark on making all the fika recipes was to do and try different things.  That being said, if I was wanting to make a thumbprint cookie I probably would not turn to this exact recipe again.  That doesn't mean it doesn't taste good or it didn't turn out...I just mean that there are better recipes available and I'd most likely turn to those instead.

Having gained confidence from the syltgrottor recipe turning out I also made Martas Skurna Chokladkakor.  Who Marta is I don't exactly know but two things are for sure....1) Marta knows how to make great smelling cookies and 2) Marta likes chocolate.  Translated these are basically Sliced Chocolate Cookies.  This recipe makes 48 cookies and is the most successful turnout of a cookie recipe in this Fika book.

The recipe says that this cookie is traditionally topped with pearl sugar.  I didn't feel that a special trip to Bulk Barn was in order and rummaged around in my pantry for decorative sugars.  I came up with either red or green Christmas sugars.  As much as I love green, I felt that green on a chocolate cookie wouldn't display as the prettiest cookie so I went with red.  Two other changes I made this time was that instead of the cane sugar which I was also out of, I just used regular sugar AND instead of mixing by hand I used my Kitchen Aid mixer to combine all the ingredients.  I honestly think the mixer alone is what made this dough so workable.

The dough is shaped into long logs then brushed with egg and sprinkled with (red) sugar.  I had a picture of this process but have omitted it because once I looked again and as proud as I am of the accomplishment it does not look appetizing in the slightest. 😝  The logs baked perfectly in my hottish oven at slightly under the 400 degrees it states and indeed baked for 15 minutes.  While warm they get sliced into cookies and I used my Cake Boss dough scraper which I received free once when purchasing Keurig coffee cups.

The chocolate cookies taste similar to a brownie and are crisp on the outside but tender on the inside.  I know Hubby likes them because he's enjoyed most of them.  Now I'm looking forward to the next recipe which is very similar but almond flavoured.  Will it turn out as well?  You'll have to stay tuned to see if this Swedish baker in training makes it all work out!

 

fikonrutor

Woh...woh!  No need to swear!  Unless you just watched the Atlanta Falcons lose the Super Bowl like I just did.  No, Fikonrutor is not a bad word but are fig squares in Swedish and is found on page 38-39 in the Fika The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break cookbook.  It seems easy enough or is it?  Read ahead to see what else besides the Super Bowl has me grimacing!

This recipe appears like a perfectly delightful bar type of cookie.  Looks are deceiving.  The recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups of fig preserves.  I didn't even try very hard to to look for anything remotely fig preserved because I knew outside of squeezing it out of a bag of Fig Newtons I wasn't going to find it.  I had first thought of using a pie filling instead but would I use raisin or mince meat?  Luckily I re-read the recipe description and it said Fikonrutor is traditionally made with raspberry jam so when we were at Walmart Saturday I bought a jar of raspberry jam as well as a jar of strawberry because I've looked ahead to the thumbprint cookies that come after this recipe.  I'm planning a bit ahead.

Sunday (today) after church and lunch I got busy making up the dough.  1/2 cup ground almonds, 1 1/2 cups flour, 2/3 cups cane sugar (used the last of mine up), 6 ounces butter and 1 egg.  I mixed it by hand as instructed but it wasn't coming together very well in spite of my mushing and mushing together of the ingredients...so I added about a tablespoon of water and Voila!  It came together lickedy split and I rolled it into a log, put it in a Tupperware container and threw it in the fridge.  The recipe said for at least and hour or more.

During that time Hubby and I decided to go out and enjoy the day.  At first we thought maybe we'd go for a walk but once in the car we saw the oil maintenance light come on the dash which meant to change the oil.  For the record before this I had told Hubby I didn't want to go out because I didn't want to spend money.  Off to the Great Canadian Oil Change we went.  The oil change took less than 20 minutes and cost $71.  Then we thought we'd go for coffee and hit up one of our favourite Tim Hortons locations right in downtown Saskatoon.  We both had cafe mocha's and carrot muffins. I paid with a gift card.  Funny to do this when my intention was to bake something at home to have with coffee!  On our return trip home we thought we better fill with gas so this little excursion cost us $110.  Ugh!  See!  Should have stayed home!

Innocent dough.

Back at home I re-read the fikonrutor directions...roll 3/4 of the dough in a rectangle then top with the jam and use the remaining dough to make a lattice pattern.  Easy for someone who is not rolling pin challenged like myself!  I cannot roll out a rectangle to save my life!  The base went fine but remember this dough was chilled and by working with it was warming up.  Cutting the lattice was easy but separating the pieces to lay on top was very difficult.  I did what I could to make it work all the while becoming extremely frustrated.

In retrospect, while I was making the lattice I should probably have put the baking tray back in the fridge to make certain the butter remained hard.  I did not and I suspect this is the first part of perhaps why this "adventure" when awry.  

The instructions said to preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and as I've mentioned in previous blog posts my oven is about 25 degrees too warm so I set my oven on 375.  I probably should have put it on the described 400 this time.  *shrugs*  

One of these is not quite like the other 🙈

 Okay, so the baking tray went into the oven and I started to tidy up my mess from the counter and took out the chicken pot pie which was going into the oven next for our supper when I heard a 'booiiiiing' come from the depths of the stove.  Cringing I opened the oven door to see my cookie sheet which has never before warped...twisted and warped.  What the heck?!  Wait! It gets better.  Now the one end of the cookie sheet is raised off the wire rack in the oven and all the dough and raspberries are slowly seeping towards the other end. 😱😱😱 I grabbed another dish and tried to weigh down the raised end but to no avail.

Fikonrutor!

At this point I check my recipe instructions one more time "Bake for about 10 minutes."  ABOUT?  about??  It doesn't tell me what it should look like when cooked or how the edges should be nor any definitive time limits.  Yes, I should have kept it in the oven longer even if I have a history of over doing the recipes.  I'd rather have almost burnt over raw....which is what I ended up with.

FIKONRUTOR!!

Yet, last weeks cookie had similar instructions about cooling so with a slight crumb of hope I continued on.  I cut it into squares like it said which is when it became apparent that most of the squares hadn't cooked at all and everything seemed very slippery, oily and buttery.  I did let everything cool and was able to separate some squares which had cooked and they did taste good. (Yes, I still sampled.)  I debated what to do and I left them cooling and resting on the counter for some time....

....then I gave up.  Instead of the 35 squares I was supposed to end up with I got maybe 15.

This recipe SHOULD have been very very easy squeezy.  If I were ever to attempt it again which I probably won't because I put a red dot on the page (which basically means run for your life) I would just squish all the dough into a 9 X 13 baking dish and put the jam on top and not mess around with the rolling of the dough or the lattice top.  I would definitely bake it at 400 and I would definitely need to bake it longer than 10 minutes...probably closer to 20 considering this experience.

I did give one to Hubby to taste test and he said "ah - hmmmm nommm"

I'm learning that when you try the recipes in this book you have to read between the lines and go more on instinct and baking skill than exactly what the instructions are telling you.  Also I haven't found a big benefit to using the cane sugar and I think when I try the next recipe I'll just go with regular sugar.   It doesn't hurt to have a back up treat to have on hand when your baking is a disaster.  Thank goodness for afternoon excursions!

Thank goodness this is a thing!  KitKat to the rescue!