Swedish Sokerkaka (Sugar Cake)

This dense, spiced cake has become a staple in our home. It's so simple to make and uses ingredients you probably already have in your pantry:  flour, sugar, baking powder, dried spices, salt, eggs & cream. There's no butter to soften and no special order in which to combine ingredients -- you simply measure them, put them all in the same bowl and mix them together. I use a stand mixer, so from start to finish it takes me no more than 5 minutes to make the batter, pour it into a bund form pan and pop it in the oven.

The spice that the recipe calls for is one found in a lot of Swedish baked treats: cardamon. While I like cardamon, I tend to associate it more with savory foods -- our favorite Indian restaurant puts whole pods in its sauces and rice, and when I first tasted this cake I immediately thought *Chicken Vindaloo*. The second time I made it, I substitued cinnamon for the cardamon, which made for a delicious, lightly-spiced cake. The third time around, I used pumpkin pie spice (my husband's favorite).

Recipes for this cake abound on the internet. I used one from Beatrice Ojakangas' The Great Scandinavian Baking Book.

Macaroni & Cheese

Not typically what I would post on this blog, but this is a dish that is equally as comforting as any cake. By an enormous stoke of luck, my local supermarket stocks real English cheddar cheese -- in two versions, sharp and extra sharp(!!!). This may not seem like something to celebrate, but after having to substitute Emmental for cheddar in recipes for about 5 years, I was thrilled when I saw bonafide cheddar in the cheese case.

This recipe is from the Barefoot Contessa Family Style cookbook. It makes a ton of macaroni & cheese -- we had enough for at least 5 meals. It freezes well too. Highly recommended.

Kourabiedes

Normally I can think of desserts I want to make all on my own. I decided to make these, however, to follow up a Greek-inspired summer meal of grilled chicken & peppers, stewed tomatoes & onions and, of course, Greek salad (below).

When we travelled to Athens a few years ago, I ate my weight in baklava. Perhaps some day I'll try my hand at making filo pastry, but for now I'm sticking with sweets that are a little more accessible.

Flipping through my copy of the Joy of Cooking for Greek desserts, I came upon this recipe for kourabiedes that not only looked like something I could fit into a busy Sunday, but a recipe that I could do with ingredients I already had on hand.

These cookies are buttery and literally crumble / melt in your mouth. They look exactly like the powdered sugar-covered balls that are always left over on the Christmas cookie platter, right next to the malformed snickerdoodle no one wants to eat. I think if you put these kourabiedes on the platter, however, they would be the first to go...

Large Granny Square Blanket

Here's a crochet project I started nearly one year ago and finished in late June (with a few long breaks along the way). The inspiration for this large granny square blanket came from this project on the Purl Bee blog.

One of my favorite parts of making my first granny square blanket was doing the border rows. There were very few yarn changes, as opposed to the inside squares, and it was easy to get into a rhythm and stay there. To make this blanket you more or less crochet one border row after the next -- I loved it.

I made a lot of progress on this blanket during our vacation to the south of France last spring. To this I attribute the fact that the blanket didn't up being exactly square -- the edges are quite wavy, probably because I was more relaxed and my tension lower (crochet tension, though my regular tension was probably lower too!).

I made this blanket as a gift for our friends' daughter who is just a few months younger than ours. I think it will be perfect for in-between weather (Spring, Autumn) since the pattern lets in light and air, but not too much.

Here's more info on the materials used:

3,5 mm crochet hook

8 skeins Phildar Phil Thalassa in Indigo

6 skeins Phildar Phil Thalassa in Horizon

6 skeins Phildar Phil Thalassa in Denim

6 skeins Phildar Phil Thalassa in Meringue

This yarn is made up of 75% cotton and 25% Lyocell, which comes from seaweed and according to Phildar has anti-bacterial and anti-odor properties (perfect for a baby!).

Angel Food Cake

I had a craving for angel food cake and had been wanting to try out the recipe for a lemon-flavored version from the Barefoot Contessa Family Style cookbook. Plus, I'm always looking for recipes that let me use my kugelhopf pan and help me amortize the cost of my stand mixer...

This cake hit the spot, but I'm afraid I won't be posting any pictures of it outside of the tin. It was a bit of a struggle to get it out -- I had to cut and pull out a slice before I could gently "tug" the rest of it out without the top half sticking to the pan. To give you an idea, once out it looked like one of those airplane neck pillows, without a cover and toasted.