Lördag i Stockholm

We spent the Luciadagen weekend in Stockholm checking out the city a little bit more and to learn some Swedish Christmas baking secrets from Catherine’s colleague Per.  We arrived around 10:30 and spent a couple hours walking around Gamla Stan (old city) and checking out the Jul Marknad (Christmas Market).  The sun even made an appearance, which if you’ve been following along is quite the rare occurrence these days.

Jul Marknad in Gamla Stan
Jul Marknad in Gamla Stan
I'm not sure what this building is, but Catherine says this show looks like a postcard picture.  The advertisements on top are for two of the big daily newspapers.
I'm not sure what this building is, but Catherine says this shot looks like a postcard picture. The advertisements on top are for two of the big daily newspapers.
Gamla Stan from Södermalm
Gamla Stan from Södermalm
City hall from Södermalm
City hall from Södermalm
One of several churches in Gamla Stan
One of several churches in Gamla Stan

Per made us a traditional Swedish lunch of kale soup with eggs and knäckebröd and then we got down to business of baking.  Per had already prepared the pepparkakor dough using his aunt’s secret recipe.  So “all” Catherine and I needed to do was roll out the dough and cut into shapes.  The challenge is that the best pepparkakor is made very thin and cutting the shapes and getting them off of the counter top without mangling the cookie is difficult.  But after the first tray we started to get the hang of it and the cookies turned out great.  We made a variety of shapes, but mostly the simpler ones worked best like circles, hearts, and diamonds, although Catherine made lots of pigs as well.  Pigs may seem like a strange shape for Christmas cookies, but Swedes eat pork for Christmas dinner and have a little sense of humour about it so it’s not an uncommon shape.  But Christmas trees, Santas and angels not so popular in the Swedish cookie shaping.  Per was impressed, and happy that he didn’t have to roll out all the cookies himself this year.

Per scooping out the dough
Per scooping out the dough
Catherine rolling and cutting
Catherine rolling and cutting
The final product - much better than any store-bought pepparkakor!
The final product - much better than any store-bought pepparkakor!

While we were rolling and cutting Per was busy preparing two other Swedish Christmas specialties: Knäck and Chocklad-kola also made with secret family recipes. Knäck is a traditional hard Swedish toffee and Chocklad-kola is a softer dark toffee.

Per boiling the Knäck
Per boiling the Knäck
045
Cutting the chocklad-cola into strips
The choklad-kola wrapped individually wrapped in paper
The chocklad-kola individually wrapped in paper
Once the knäck reaches the perfect (very hot) temperature it gets spooned (very carefully) into tiny paper cups.  Catherine got to help with this difficult job but for my own safety I continued rolling cookies...
Once the knäck reaches the perfect (very hot) temperature it gets spooned (very carefully) into tiny paper cups. Catherine got to help with this difficult job but for my own safety I continued rolling cookies...

We had a great time learning to make three new treats – and sampling wasn’t too bad either!  If you’ve been good (and if Canada Customs doesn’t decide to confiscate our unlabelled baking), Tomten may just bring you some of these treats as a julklappen.

1 Comment

  1. How COOL is that, to get to make local goodies? When I made the white-chocolate-espresso-toffee bark last year, I was salvaging a batch of espresso caramels that I think were supposed to look like your chocklad-kola but went too far too quickly and became hard-crack toffee. This year, I did it that way on purpose, but kept it back just a little to make soft-crack toffee, and the bark is just as yummy. Now that I see these, I am inspired to make the caramels as they are supposed to be made, but probably not this year.

    The expressen building certainly is postcard worthy, and I also like the shot of the church from closest, where the spire looks like an alien landing.

Comments are closed.