Marzipan-Stuffed Danish Strawberry Tart with Chocolate
Before the slow descent into autumn, I’m cramming my kitchen with as many of summer’s sweetest berries as reasonable. Most of the time, I don’t get around to doing anything with them–they generally don’t last long as soon as my…
Lingonberry-Studded Almond Cake (Gluten Free)
If you had asked me in my youth to define Norwegian food, I would have listed off a number of almond-flavored desserts: towering kransekake wreath cakes served at weddings, layered birthday cakes draped in a sheet of marzipan, buttery fyrstekake…
Norwegian Cardamom Buns (Boller)
It smelled like the neighborhood Scandinavian bakery in my home the other day, with the aromas of freshly baked Norwegian cardamom buns and hot coffee brewed as strong and dark as the Nordic night. Boller—buttery, cardamom-scented buns —are just right…
Norwegian Apple Cake with Autumn Spices (Gluten-, Dairy-, and Egg-Free)
When the leaves begin to turn and the air becomes laced with a chill, I know that fall has finally arrived. It’s my favorite season, the one that brings back memories of crunching through fallen leaves as a child, picking…
Icelandic Happy Marriage Cake (Hjónabandssaela)
The thought of rhubarb takes me back to my grandparents’ garden, a place that surely was dwarfed by the farms that were their former landscape back in North Dakota yet seemed to me the most amazing sort of wonderland. Some…
Cardamom-scented Fastelavnsboller (Semlor) with almond and cream
I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the scent of cardamom filling the house when baking boller. These plump Norwegian buns with the slightest touch of sweetness need nothing–aside from perhaps a smear of butter—to make them a treat any…
Norwegian Christmas Cookies: Fattigmann
Gathering the dough into a ball, I inhaled the scent of the cardamom and butter, warm in my hands. Like all those memories from my childhood, the feelings stirring in my heart filled me with a sense of love, a security…
Norwegian Christmas Cookies: Sandkaker / Sandbakkelse
I never tire of seeing the variety of cakes and cookies in the Scandinavian tradition. With little more than butter, sugar, eggs, and flour, and often a scattering of spices, we can create an extensive assortment of treats. Sometimes elegant…
Norwegian Christmas Cookies: Pepperkaker
I returned home the other day and was surprised by the warmth and smell that greeted me. Cinnamon and cardamom, clove and ginger. Warm butter and sugar. The scents of baking. Earlier in the day I had made pepperkaker, but…
Norwegian Christmas Cookies: Berlinerkranser
I grew up knowing the tradition by taste rather than by name. Syv slags kaker–or seven sorts of cookies. The way it goes, you wouldn’t be a proper Norwegian if you didn’t serve at least seven types of cookies at Christmastime. I…
