Swedish waffle day!

 Today is Swedish waffle day! Waffle day is celebrated on March 25, the same day as the Christian holiday of Annunciation (used to be a public holiday). Why we celebrate waffle day today is because Annunciation used to be called Vårfrudagen (Our Lady's Day) in swedish and that sounds like Våffeldagen (waffle day). Våffeldagen also marks the beginning of spring and end of winter.

I learned from wikipedia that we've been eating waffles in sweden at least since the 15th centuary, so you can imagine how many recipes there are. My favourite comes from Vår kokbok, a cookbook that can be found in almost every swedish home. We've got the 19th edition, printed 1996.

Waffles 

100 g melted butter

400 ml milk

10 gram yeast

300 ml flour

Heat the milk until it's 37 degrees C. Mix yeast and half of the milk, then add the flour, then add the rest of the milk. Let it rest in room temperature for about 30 minutes. Mix with the melted butter. 

Bake in the waffle iron.  

Serve golden brown with jam and whipped cream. 

If you want to know more about strange Swedish traditions i can recommend Sweden.se's lifestyle section.

Lemon and poppy seed cupcakes

Last weekend i made the yummiest cupcakes ever! Thought i'd share the recipe with you!

The cupcake recipe is from one of my favourite cookbooks "Rosendals trädgårdscafé" from 1994 (Rosendal's garden café) by Monica Ahlberg. Rosendal's garden is a beautiful place in Stockholm, well worth a visit.

Blue and yellow lemon cake


175 g butter
300 ml sugar
2 egg
zest and juice from 1 lemon
(2 tablespoons candied orange peels)
75 ml blue poppy seeds
200 ml flour
Melt the butter, and let it cool a little bit. Mix it with sugar, egg, lemon and flour. Pour in to cupcake cases (or a cake tin)
Bake for about 10-15 minutes (if you make a cake you need about 35 minutes) in 180 degrees C. Let them cool.

The cake is really good on its own or with some whipped cream. But this time i made cupcakes, so i covered them with yummy icing. I found the recipe at the blog Made by love. 


Lemon Cream Cheese Icing


70 g soft butter
1 cup icing sugar
Zest from 2 lemons and jucie from 0,5 lemon. 
120 g philadelphia cheese. 
Mix it all together, and cover the cupcakes.

Enjoy!