Christmas baking! Including The Seven Kinds!

Last year we didn't get to do much Christmas baking as we had to leave for Norway last minute, so this year I made sure I did LOTS! Including a gingerbread house, seven kinds of Norwegian biscuits, accidental chilli sachertorte, failed croquembouche, gingerbread tree and festive chocolates.

First I'll start with the gingerbread house, I tried to make one last year but I made the dough too soft and it all fell to pieces in a slow but spectacular fashion, this year we made far better one - it stood up and everything.  Because of last year's epic failure I was given a gingerbread house cutter set which made getting even side much easier. We went very much for the old Hansel and Gretel theme with the front and sides decorated with piping icing, candy canes and heart windows. the roof was decorated with piped tiles, mini smarties and a Norwegian and Union Jack flag. We then sat it on a lawn of snow (icing sugar), edged with smaries and placed one of my sprakly gingerbread candy candles on the snow because it looked pretty :) Fact.

Now for the seven kinds, every Christmas every house must make seven kinds of Christmas biscuits apparently it used be to show that you weren't poor so you could afford to make so many kinds. Now we do it because we're greedy and want to put as many in our faces as we can at any given time over the festive period...as fast as we can, or is that just us? There are loads of different kinds you can choose from so our seven were: pepperkaker (gingerbread), krumkaker (crispy cones), sirupsnipper (syrup snaps), serinakaker, goro (rich man cookies), berlinerkranser (Berlin wreaths) and sandkaker (sand cakes). The krumkaker and goro you need a special iron to make them with, lucky for us we have them and this was the first time we made goro, it wasn't my favourite but it looks so nice! My favourite has to be krumkaker and serinkaker which is a gorgeous short biscuits covered in nuts and pearl sugar...actually the berlinerkanser were also very short, buttery and covered in sugar - always a winner! We gave them out to family for Christmas as we made so many which was a nice extra gift to give and still have enough left over for work tomorrow, bonus!

Left to right:
Krumkaker, sirupsnipper, goro and pepperkaker
The pigs say 'God Jul' which is Merry Christmas in Norwegian,
printed with a biscuit stamp I was sent by the lovely Sew White

Berlinerkranser

 Left to right:
Sandkaker, serinakaker and berlinerkranser

decorated Pepperkaker

Now the sachertorte, my sister-in-laws parents have been asking me to make them one for ages, about a year and I keep forgetting so I thought this would be a lovely gift, unfortunately without realising I put in chilli chocolate instead of dark...and didn't realise until after..but..BUT apparently it baked out and you couldn't taste it (we didn't tell them what I did and my brother reported back!)

Failed croquembouche..now I have actually successfully made one before so I was quite gutted it all went to .... sugar. We've had a new oven fitted and in short, I hate it. I hate baking in it which is why my posts have been a bit thin on the ground recently. But we're moving soon so hopefully the cooker there will be much better :). The profiteroles just didn't dry out properly inside and I should have compensated by adding more caramel for structural support, but I didn't - and it all fell apart before my eyes. So in the end it ended up as a profiterole pile covered in chocolate, spun sugar, snowflakes, gold balls and gold leaf. We had this on Christmas even as this is when we celebrate Christmas being vikings and while it didn't end up looking how I wanted, it still tasted great.

You've seen the gingerbread tree before but here's another picture, it was visually great and tasted really nice, I'll definitely be making one next year!

And last but not least the festive chocolates. I made some to give away which included glittery Christmas puddings (mould bought from Sew White) and some patterned after dinner mints. These were basically mint flavoured chocolates spread over snowflake chocolate transfers and just before they set I just them out into cute shapes such as moose, heart and snowflakes. These were great after a heavy made and looked great too.

I still have lots of Christmas baking stuff I didn't get a chance to use so hopefully I'll get round to it next year! I will also be putting up a photo post from Christmas :)

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Halvorsens Conditori, Oslo - The Best Place In Oslo

It's been a busy week with coming to Norway, Christmas, visiting my nan everyday. But one morning when we weren't able to go visiting we thought we'd go to our favourite place while we had the time.

Halvorsens Conditori, it's my nan's and mum's tradition that I was let in on a couple of years ago, a sandwich will easily set you back £9.00 but they are worth it, and everything does actually cost more here so when you live here it isn't so horrific. They also have the best coffee in town so my mum was happy.

While coffee doesn't interest me at all, you all know cake does! It's standard to have a sandwich, a pot of coffee and a slice of amazing cake. It all costs what you would spend on a regular dinner out, not exactly a Boot's meal deal, but as we only get to do it once or twice a year it's so justifiable.

The cake choice is pretty big, Norwegians love their slices of cake and I have to say for me they are the best in the world, nothing has beaten it yet. The place itself is gorgeous. Huge windows, chandeliers the lot it really does feel special.

I also love that you can buy larger cakes their for most occasions. You get your standard Blødtkake (below, the ones on top shelf) which is basically a national cake. But not for me as it's covered in marzipan which they are crazy for here but I hate it, so while I wouldn't buy a slice if there's some at a party I'll happily just peel that layer off and eat the three/four layers of cake and cream.

You could also buy Kransekaker which is an almond cake made up of rings they famously have on their national day and at any celebration. At this time of year they're usually decorated in mini Norwegian flags and small crackers.

I love the cakes at the top, the dress cakes. Although instead of using Barbie doll tops like most these are made like Victorian ladies, I actually love them I wish I had a reason to need to buy one! They're so pretty I must have looked like a crazy lady taking pictures constantly.

As we were leaving I noticed the window display which puts any gingerbread house I have ever made to shame and makes me want to camp out there until they teach me their ways. One day, I WILL make something like this!

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Gingerbread House Failure!

I know we don't like to show them off too often, but cake fails are important to remember, they happen to all of us and can often be quite funny. I do need to make a whole post dedicated to them because sometimes, things just go wrong.

Last year I made the gingerbread house below. I loved it, we make one every year and was looking forward to getting more creative with one this year, stain-glass windows, maybe a porch...that sort of thing. With last year's one I even made the board a little festive with sifted icing sugar and chocolate Matchsticks with a dollop of icing on top for effect.

The one I tried to make is slightly different...basically it fell apart! We tried to all of the gingerbread in a bit of a rush and it shows, some bits were too soft, some too brittle...a shambles basically which is odd as we've never failed at one before. The stain-glass windows were brilliant, made with smashed up Fox's Glacier Mints...but the fruit ones. I used heart cut out windows as I thought that would be cute and stole the idea of framing them with mini candy candy canes from a fellow blogger. I even cut a whole out the back of one of the sides so I could slip in a tea light to shine through the 'glass'. As you can see I usually prop them up until dry with whatever household objects I can find that fit.

I covered the roof in giant Milkybar buttons to look like tiles, this look amazing...but was pretty heavy! This didn't help really when it came to it. Soft gingerbread + heavy chocolate = destruction. It actually stood completely fine until I came to finishing the decoration, I could have decorated the sides first but wasn't really sure how I wanted to do it so I'm glad I didn't waste any time doing that! :).  So I went to move it to a different table, that's when I notices it started to sink....this is when I went to support it only to realise that there was no way at all I could save it, for as soon  as I were to let go it would slowly die....and it did. In the end I just had to let it happen, I was annoyed I have to admit, but as we're away all of Christmas I suppose it doesn't matter, alas it just wasn't meant to be.

But there is a sliver lining, I said how much I hated that the edges of my gingerbread house never end up completely straight and wished you could get cutters. Of course Norway is the land of gingerbread and we were my second cousin's house today where she happened to have two sets! So I got given them both, heaven! I will give it another go, Christmas or not I shall find a reason, so stand by for gingerbread house take 2. Pin It Now!