Scandinavian London and an Ancient Chocolate Cake

Cinnamon buns in the Nordic Bakery (see below).

Huzzah, the Spy has made it back to Blighty! The bluebirds are cartwheeling over the white cliffs of Dover, Winston Churchill and Sherlock Holmes are dancing the conga down the street, and Queen Elizabeth I is doing a victory streak across the rugby pitch with nothing to preserve her modesty but a St. George's Cross flag. And to celebrate? A Saturday breakfast scone The Orchard in Grantchester (fear not, a long-overdue 'best scone' post is clattering about in the Spy's brain), followed the next day by a tramp along the river to Fen Ditton and a plate of fish and chips from The Sea Tree down on Mill Road. 

On the road to Fen Ditton.

A few days later, he found himself in London for a working-lunch with fellow Spy and volcano-strandee Agent Gherkin. With some serious Norwegian food withdrawal symptoms, they were prompted to scurry over to the Scandinavian Kitchen on Great Titchfield Street and stock up on proper Scandinavian hot dogs, Smash chocolate (salty tortillas covered in chocolate: pure unadulterated heaven) and salted liquorice, before heading over to the Nordic Bakery on Golden Square for some serious cinnamon buns (the best in London, dear reader) and a strong cup of Finnish coffee. 

Clockwise from top right: a mighty collection of smash, salted liquorice, rye bread and pølse (hot dog).

Cinnamon bun (forward), orange-and-poppy-seed cake (back).

However, most importantly, he had made it back onto this beloved and daft little island in time for a particularly important family birthday, and thus he comes to the real purpose for this post. Back in the mists of time, a great-great-great Spy ancestor held the key to birthday cake heaven, with a dense, heavy chocolate beast that would be baked for any such celebration. She continued to churn out these wonderful creations despite the fact that in every other respect she had become knicker-boilingly doddery; testament to the enduring importance of culinary family traditions that are beaten into children as soon as they can hold a wooden spoon. The Spy was hardly a twinkle in a milkman's eye at the time of this venerable lady's demise, and yet he vividly remembers her cakes perched upon her kitchen table on top of a red-and-white checked tablecloth, although said tablecloth, table and cake towered above him on account of his diminutive stature. 

Confused, dear reader? Revolted, perhaps? Titillated, no doubt? Read on...

This is daddy in the Holy Trinity of Spy family birthday cakes , and in order to preserve the recipe for posterity, it must be shared with the world. On this particular occasion, the decoration took the form of a portrait of the Birthday Boy himself, with chunks of the aforementioned tortilla Smash for his noble and sagacious beard (note the cunning blending of culinary cultures: the Spy will not be caught napping) and chocolate sprinkles for his unruly (but no less noble) mop of hair. A generation or two ahead of the Spy, this esteemed gentleman also remembers this cake being made for him when he was a (marginally) less hairy, wee slip of a boy. Finally, the best tip for this recipe: make it badly. The less-risen, the denser and stodgier, the better. No fluffiness, no delicacy, no skill. Hell, this is a shoddy, occasionally bearded monstrosity very close to the Spy's heart, straight from the hills and moors of northern England. 

Nana's Chocolate Cake:

Cake:

7 oz self-raising flour

1-2 oz cocoa powder

8 oz caster sugar

1/2 tsp salt

4 oz margarine (Nana used 'Stork')

2 eggs, beaten

5 tablespoons evaporated milk

5 tablespoons water

1 tsp vanilla essence

Icing:

2 1/2 oz margarine, melted

2 oz cocoa

9 oz icing sugar

3 tablespoons milk, heated

1 tsp vanilla essence

Pre-heat oven 180 C, grease and flour two 8 inch cake tins

Sieve flour, sugar, salt and cocoa into bowl

Rub in margarine

Stir in eggs, vanilla essence and liquids

Beat well

Divide between tins and bake for 30-35 mins until skewer/knife comes out clean

Leave for 5 mins in tin, then cool on wire rack

To make the icing, sieve sugar and cocoa, add liquids, beat until smooth 

Sandwich cake together with half the icing, and spread the other half on top

Decorate, with beard if necessary

Hairy cake contemplating his hairy doom...

Spotlight: Brown Cheese (Oslo II)

Brunost sandwiches from Baker Hansen.

As ash rains down upon Oslo and the Spy tries not to panic as he contemplates a stranded eternity, he finds himself in tuneful voice. Consequently, he has penned an ode to one of the strangest and most beautiful delicacies of the Nordic cuisine (greatest expressions of art flourishing in the face of adversity etc etc). What dish might this be, he hears you ask? The ungodly Icelandic rotten shark, predominantly forcefed to unsuspecting tourists? Seared sheep's head, or indeed any of the dishes consumed during Thorramatur? The grisly hanging dried fish that brought such prosperity to Norway's medieval shores? The traditional Thursday delicacy of raspeballer, which sit in the stomach like cannonballs and would no doubt be every bit as lethal in battle? Rotten herring, as celebrated with great joy (and copious quantities of raw onion) at the Annual Fermented Herring Festival in Sweden? Indeed no. The Spy is talking of Brunost, otherwise known as brown cheese or gjetost (goat's cheese).

Individually wrapped slices of brunost, for that life-or-death toffee cheese emergency...

Made from milk, whey and cream, brunost is boiled for hours until the water evaporates and a sweet, caramelised gloop remains. It is a tricky ingredient to use in combination with others, and in comparison to more standard cheeses, there are few recipes that incorporate brunost apart from sauces to be eaten with game. One particularly fine trick is to toast a slice of bread, preferably muesli or seeded, spread with a layer of jam, preferably strawberry, and then top with a thin slice of brunost. (Incidentally, always slice, dont cut. The cheese slicer or ostehøvelen was invented (or at least patented) by the Norwegians for such a case as this, for a lumpy great chunk of brunost is a Monstrosity unto the Lord.) Otherwise, just stick to having it plain in sandwiches. However, the Spy, being a terrible foreign type, has a sacrilegious habit of asking for 'choose your own fillings' sandwiches in bakeries that consist of both salad ingredients and slices of brunost on top. The idea is that he then takes the two halves apart, thus creating two smørbrød (open faced) sandwiches for the price of one (salad for main course, brunost for afters). Yet however many times he tries to explain this to the people working in the bakeries, he is simply met with a pitying expression, and, on several occasions, a flat refusal to commit such a dastardly culinary crime. Alas...

The freakish monstrosity of a brunost-and-salad sandwich, pre-deconstruction.

Anyway, in homage to this fine and distinguished son of Norway, the Spy feels An Ode rushing to his lips, ready to gush forth like a flowing river of Viking mead (*cue lugubrious throat-clearing cough*): 

Oh Mighty, Noble, Sweet Brown Cheese,

You make me tingle to my knees,

You dont melt well, you're bad for cooking,

An orange brick, not too good-looking.

Yet of all cheeses, you're the king
Your goaty goodness makes me sing, 

On toasted muesli-bread you go

With strawb'rry jam, it's odd, I know,

But yummy, and one's gotta find

A way to make those flavours bind.   

The bakers in the sandwich shop

Refuse to place you on the top

Of salad, though I beg and plead,

They quake, assuming I've been freed

From some nut-house, 'til I assert

One half's main course, one half's dessert.
(A word of caution, please note well,
When paired with chutney, brunost's hell.)

All glory be to you, geitost,

Without you, I'd be wholly lost.

Huzzah, hip hip, and give me more,

'Til I explode upon the floor!

A final note: the Spy has not forgotten that this blog is in fact called 'Feasting in the Fens'. Consequently, he is delighted to inform you all that the Cambridge Cheese Company in All Saints Passage sells brunost, so strap on your skis and get down there right now.

There's only so many pictures of brunost a Spy can take. Behold some mighty Viking axes instead.

And behold a mighty Norwegian flag. Note the angle of the horizon: the Spy was rather green around the gills at this point.

Spotlight: Oslo Bakeries

Baker Hansen: fine loaves and finer women

Life can be tough, and sometimes the Spy feels that its burden lies heavy upon his shoulders. For instance, he is currently surrounded by a veritable bevvy of blonde, buxom beauties, with legs up to their ears (not literally of course, as this would be disturbing rather than titilating, rather like the dog-headed men and one-legged monsters on a medieval map). He is also surrounded by delicious baked products, and if he fancies a change of scene, in the course of a two minute walk down the road, he will pass at least five other top-notch bakeries, all boasting stunning interior design and free coffee refills.

Is the Spy in heaven, I hear you ask? Did he finally meet his match, perishing in a cliff-top tussle to the death with his arch-enemy Moriaty, a fluffy yet rabidly bloodthirsty white cat called Tiddles and a deadly umbrella stand full of ricin-tipped waterproof devices? Indeed no, for faced with such a situation, the Spy would merely grab an umbrella and vault over the aforementioned arch-enemy, stuffing a Petrou Brothers' large haddock into his dastardly underpants on the way, thereby causing Tiddles to attack said dastardly nether-regions with furious and fundamentally fatal feline feroicity. No, the Spy is simply abroad once again, this time working in Oslo, the city to which his heart will always belong.

Noble soldiers marching outside the Slott. The Spy was disappointed to discover they were rather weedy in the flesh, a Bluebottle boy-scout division perhaps? (L). Piles of noble snow still melting despite the sun (R).

Fear not gentle reader, he will be back in the fens soon, and will not visit you with a million non-bog-related posts from this fjord-ridden and mountainous terrain of rapey, pillagey Vikings past and flaxen-haired, socially forward-looking giants present. However, a couple of points must be addressed. Most importantly, the bakeries. By Odin, the bakeries. As the Spy takes his morning constitutional up Bogstadveien from the Royal Park (see pictures above) up towards Viglelandsparken (home to more stone sculptures than the White Witch's winter palace, only more Nordically liberal nakedness; see pictures below), he passes no less than 6 bakeries, all with their own unique style and clientèle. A short summary is called for...

Behold the phallic might of the Vigeland sculptures. The gentle, innocent Spy nearly fainted clean away.

1. Åpent Bakeri: classy, beautiful, posh, delicious muesli bread. 

Bread bread bread...

2. Godt Brød: ecological, delicious, best for making up sandwiches.

Godt brød and its spring flowers.

3. Baker Brun: yummy, but probably the weak link in the chain. Not to beconfused with Baker Brun in Bergen, home to the seeded bread of the Spy's dreams.)

 

Said dreamy seeded Bergen bread #1 and #2. Yes, the Spy really does take pictures of his bread at every available opportunity. What of it?

4. Baker Hansen (x2, the one further up the hill on the left is best): Scandinavian chic, lovely lamps, best scones. 

Baker Hansen: classy chic and the best scones on the block.

5. United Bakeries: very classy, amazing decor in all their branches (see here for a short and delicious film on the subject).

United Bakeries on Valkyriegata, with its walls covered in coffee grinders.

 

The branch on Slemdalsveien, with a tiled floor much coveted by the Spy.

And the same bakery from the outside: where else would you find Viking snakes over the door?

Dont ask the Spy to choose between them (ok you twisted his arm, Baker Hansen for scones and brunost sandwiches, United Bakeries for decor and bread, Godt Brød for lunchtime sandwiches and Åpent Bakeri for muesli-bread). There's a time and a place for each, which is why they all seem to be doing a roaring trade, despite their proximity to each other. Anyway, the Spy must brush off the bread crumbs and return to work before his enemies discover him, covered in flour and locked in a passionate embrace with a magnificently breast-plated Valkyrie...

What better place to consume your bakery-pillaged spoils than on the top of Ekeberg park, looking out onto Oslo (just to the right) and its collection of islands? 

Spotlight: Easter

 The most important culinary traditions associated with Easter; ignore them at your peril...

For his next escapade, the Spy returns to his native routes in order to celebrate the joys of Easter. He has always been a fan of this particular occasion, for just as his aforementioned Catholic heritage demands that he worships at least ten different patron saints daily (everything from St Anthony for help finding his lost socks to St Agatha when he fancies a spot of bell-ringing), it also approves of a festival (possibly) associated with Eostre, who was (possibly) an ancient European goddess of the dawn. The Easter Vigil mass was always a highlight of Easter week for the youthful Spy, during which the priest would take all the altar servers out into the graveyard, light an enormous incense-scented bonfire and stick nails into towering painted candles. The meaning was never entirely clear, but the Spy always lived in hope that the priest would branch out into a spot of chicken sacrificing, as the occasion did have a tint of black magic and paganism about it, but alas, this happy event never transpired,  much to the Spy's chagrin.

Spring flowers down on the Backs

This is a time of year to celebrate, for just as Christmas is a way of brightening the dark foggy days of midwinter, so Easter (usually) coincides with the time when all the tree blossom, tulips and daffodils start to Sit Up And Make An Effort, colouring the drabness of the winter with a veritable painter's palette of colours. There are so many lovely recipes associated with Easter, from spring lamb to a host of cinnamon-based cakes and buns. The Spy could write an essay on the subject, but in order to preserve some modicum of sanity amongst his readership, he is going to stick to the two classics he made this week, Simnel Cake and Hot Cross Buns. The Spy is not a superstitious creature, but he suspects that if these two products remained un-baked at Easter, the fabric of society would instantly crumble and the world as we know it would cease to exist.

 Glossy buns cooling on the wire rack

 

In Britain at least, the first Hot Cross Buns have to be shared to bring good luck for the rest of the year. The cross on the top makes the division more egalitarian if you're dealing with an even number of luck-seeking bun-guzzlers, but it was something of a sore point in the Spy's childhood home, where there were five little 'peccadillos' all clamouring for a bite of the action, so to speak. There are a thousand and one theories surrounding the origins of hot cross buns,  recently discussed in neat little article on the BBC website. In any case, these spicy little fellows are delicious, whether snaffled when still warm from the oven, or split, toasted and buttered later on. Use whatever fruit you like; sultanas and raisins and candied peel are standard, but if Waitrose can peddle a Cranberry and Date variety of hot cross bun, you could always vary the fruit to suit your tastes.

A most cunning step-by-step photographic guide to hot cross bun action: dry ingredients, add fruit, knead, allow to rise, piping on the crosses and a bun or two in the oven...

Hot Cross Bun Recipe:

450g / 1lb strong plain flour plus extra for kneading and crosses (you can replace some strong plain flour with strong wholemeal flour too)

1/2 tsp salt

50g / 2oz caster sugar
zest of 1/2 orange

2tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsps mixed spice

1/2 tsp grated nutmeg

50g / 2oz butter, cubed

7g sachet easy-blend yeast

115g / 4oz currants or sultanas
50g/2oz chopped mixed peel

1 egg
150ml / 1/4pt tepid milk

Topping:
50g/2oz caster sugar
2 tablespoons water
(you could also sprinkle with cinnamon sugar before baking)

Mix flour, salt, yeast and spices in a large bowl. Rub in the butter with fingertips. Add sugar, fruit, peel and zest and stir together
Beat egg into tepid milk. Make a well in the dry mixture and pour on the milk and egg mixture, stirring to make soft dough

Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and knead for 5 mins until smooth and no longer sticky (dont add more flour unless absolutely necessary, it makes them hard)
Leave in bowl with damp teatowel or oiled clingfilm and allow to rise for 1 hr
Tip onto floured surface and knead again for a minute or two until smooth

Divide into 20 balls, shape each. Set in rows, a little apart, on a lightly buttered baking sheet. Cover with oiled clingfilm again and leave to rise for 1 hr until doubled

Pre-heat oven to 220 C/425 F/Gas 7
Make the topping by blending 3 tablespoons of flour with 2 tablespoons cold water to make a paste. Spoon into a small food bag and snip off the corner. Pipe a cross onto each bun and place in oven, baking for 15-20 mins
While they are baking, make a glaze by disolving the sugar in the water and allowing to boil for 1 min. When the buns are taken from the oven, brush immediately with the glaze and cool on a wire rack.

Simnel cakes are a lighter, more spiced version of the fruit cake eaten in the UK at Christmas, with the addition of a layer of marzipan sandwiched in the middle and eleven little marzipan balls perched on top to symbolise the eleven apostles. The twelfth apostle, Judas, gets left out of the party for bad behaviour, but a certain marzipan-fixated member of the Spy's immediate family always insisted on fashioning an extra large Judas ball and then devouring him mercilessly before he reached the cake (as if burning in the pits of hell wasn't punishment enough...).

 Simnel cake cooling in the tin

As with most of these traditions, the recipe varies around the country, and this is a rather unorthodox version from the Waitrose Food Magazine, which replaces the dried fruit (raisins and sultanas) with grated apple and ginger. This is a way of combating an unfortunate misjudgement made by the Spy's mother due to the gooey marzipan layer in the middle of the cake, which causes the skewer not to come out clean, which is the usual test to check that a cake is done. Upon seeing this sinful goo upon her skewer, the Spy's mother continued to bake the cake believing it not to be done, until a horrible smell of burning filled the kitchen... Regretfully she does not seem to have learnt from her mistakes, for The Burning of the Simnel Cake has since become an Easter tradition as precious as the Politically Incorrect Morris Dancing with a Coconut of Bacup, Lancashire, or The Great Hare Pie Battle of Hallaton, Leicestershire. It's these little traditions that makes one so proud to be a member of a potty little island somewhere off the coast of France.

Step-by-step simnel cake making: melting the butter and sugar, making the marzipan topping, glazing the apostles and grilling...

Simnel Cake recipe with Apple and Ginger:

Serves 11

200g butter

300g light brown muscavado sugar

3 large eggs, 1 beaten

25g fresh root ginger, grated

2 medium cooking apples, peeled cored and grated

200g self-raising flour

200g crystallised stem ginger, cut into little chunks

250g marzipan

Preheat oven 170 C / gas 3

Line a 20cm round, loose-bottomed cake tin with baking parchment

Melt the butter in a large pan and stir in the sugar

Cool slightly then beat in 2 eggs and root ginger

Stir in flour, apple and crystallised ginger

Pour mixture into the tin, put it on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 1hr to 1 hr 15mins (cover with baking parchment if it browns too quickly)

When cooked, a skewer will come out with a few crumbs

Heat the grill. Roll out 200g marzipan and make a circle the same size as the cake tin

Roll the rest into 11 marble-sized balls for the apostles

Lay the marzipan circle onto the cake, brush with beaten egg and arrange the balls around the edge, brushing with more egg

Grill carefully, as it burns easily

Leave to cool in the tin

(p.s. for a good standard simnel cake recipe see here)

 With any leftover ginger, peel and place in a teapot with some boiling water. Enjoy a calming cup of ginger tea as a reward for all your labours (perhaps with a slice of cake to keep the tea company...)

Spotlight: A New York Passover Seder

The Seder plate (see below).

On the final stretch of the Sneaky Spy’s Stateside Saga, our crafty hero abandoned work and trundled up to Long Island, to join friends for their Passover Seder and become Educated in the Ways of all things Jewish. As a good Catholic Spy who went to Catholic Spy School and still sports his school-regulation wimple on special occasions (the little coquette), his friends had their work cut out, for little did they realise the true depths of his cross-cultural ignorance. However, inspired by the promise of a table heaving with grub, he was an eager pupil, and by the end of the meal could even join in with the rousing chorus of an Aramaic song about a baby goat. The Spy isn’t going to sugar-coat it; bad, bad things happened to the goat, but the blow was somewhat softened by the four glasses of fortified wine that the text demanded be consumed during the course of the meal. DEMANDED, I tell you.

Let the feast begin...

Anyway, the Spy certainly doesn’t have the authority to wax lyrical about the traditions surrounding the Seder, so he will merely share some of the highlights of this occasion (any corrections gratefully received), which included:

Traditional chicken soup, with obligatory matzoh dumplings. There was much debate as to whether the dumplings should be feather light or as dense as golf balls (popular opinion favoured the latter), which the Spy greatly approved of, as he has experienced years of similarly heated discussions regarding the proper density of Christmas Pudding, not to mention near full-blown family feuds over the proper proportion of candied peel and glace cherries that should be included in a Christmas Cake.

Soup. Dumpling. Carrot. Sorted.

The Seder plate, complete with bitter herbs, salt water with celery dunked in it, a picture of a lamb shank and a baked egg (the Spy ate the egg afterwards, for research purposes you understand. He does not recommend you do the same, for he burped eggily for at least an hour afterwards. He also ate the salt-watered celery, thus exceeding his recommended daily salt allowance by several thousand percent.)

Seder plate during its formation.

The Charoset (pictured in the bottom-right bowl in the top picture) representing the bricks made by the Jews in slavery, a mixture of chopped apple, chopped walnuts, cinnamon and fortified wine. The Spy troughed it like he has never troughed a brick before, spreading it on top of Matzoh bread, naturally.

Matzoh. Great topped with bricks.

The PLAGUE PLATE, with a drop of wine representing each of the ten plagues. The Spy’s was considered to be the best plague plate on the table. Another dinner guest was ticked off soundly on account of his inferior plague plate. Some people just don’t make the effort on these occasions…

The most beautiful plague plate in the world. Note the exquisite detail on 'frogs' and 'boils'.

By this point, the Spy was terribly over-excited, and could only be placated by the dessert macaroons (chosen on account of their lack of leavening agents). The Spy cannot bear the guilt any longer, and must confess that he ate six. SIX. In fact, these little beauties were so fantastic and so simple that the recipe appears below for posterity (it’s basically from Nigella Lawson’s Feast). In the spirit of the occasion it is also in American measurements...

Nobody else touch the macaroons! They all belong to the Spy! All of them!

Passover macaroons:

2 egg whites

200g / 1 cup ground almonds

200g / 1 to 1-and-a-half cups sugar (icing sugar for preference, but any will do, so experiment)

Vanilla extract (optional)  

Preheat oven to 150C / 400 F and line baking tray with parchment or foil

Mix dry ingredients (almonds and sugar) and add egg whites, stirring to combine until it is a sticky mixture

Fill a bowl with cold water and a few drops of vanilla extract, dip your hands to wet them, then roll the mixture into little walnut-sized balls, keeping your hands wet all the time

Put the balls on the baking tray about 3cm apart, squash down slightly and bake for 10-12 minutes

They will harden as they cool, so take them out when still a bit squishy. Nice warm or cold, but they shouldn’t really be peeled off the paper until cold or you will lose bits. The Spy couldn’t wait.

(You can get creative, using orange or rose water or adding extras to the mixture such as 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder, or a teaspoon of ground cardamom, or putting a flaked almond on top of each macaroon. Knock yourself out.)

A final note: the Spy knew his culinary adventure was at an end when he went into his bag to get the page of instructions written for him so that he might get back home to the fenlands. Alas, the rain had got in, and tragically washed them all away. But he still made it home (cunningly, of course) - he's not called a Spy for nothing.