Month: March 2015

unbaked loaf of sugar bread

Frisian Sugar Bread for Easter & Beyond!

Published by Kathy Hunt

I may have visited the Netherlands twice, roamed around the Dutch-influenced areas of Belgium as many times and even have Dutch friends but, until recently, I’d never tried Dutch Frisian sugar bread. A specialty of the northern Dutch province of Friesland, suikerbrood or sugarbread features spices and a generous amount of the large, coarse, stark white sugar known as pearl sugar. As you might expect from a food with “sugar” in its name, this is a sweet bread. Yet, I wouldn’t call it overly saccharine. Eaten at breakfast in the Netherlands, it has a warm, honeyed flavor on par with Danish pastries and cinnamon rolls. When I compare it to such cloying breakfast staples as syrup-soaked pancakes, waffles and French toast, I find this bread to be mild and pleasantly sweet. Although not part of the pantheon of European Easter breads, Frisian sugar bread would be a fitting addition to any Easter brunch. For those abstaining from sweets or baked goods during Lent, it will be a delicious way to break these fasts. For everyone …

Double Chocolate S’mores Cookies

Published by Kathy Hunt

On the whole I don’t find supermarket baked goods all that enticing. The breads usually seem too airy, the cookies too bland, the cakes too slathered with artificially flavored frosting. However, last week, before the most recent, and hopefully last, snow of the season, I grabbed a cookie from my local market’s bakery section. Rather than satisfy my ever-present craving for sweets, it drove me to dig out my measuring cups, electric mixer, pen and notebook and create my own take on a s’more cookie. What made this particular cookie so special, so inspiring? Sweet without being cloying, chocolaty without being too rich, it struck the perfect flavor balance. Dotted with chunks of graham cracker, chocolate and marshmallow, the cocoa-enriched dough was far more complex and appealing than the usual double chocolate chip cookie. As with its campfire namesake, this cookie was so good that it left me hankering for “some more.” (Yep, that’s how s’mores got their name. You can’t just eat one graham cracker-chocolate bar-toasted marshmallow combo. You always want “s’more.”) As the …

Snegl, Kannelbullar, Schnecken: Amazing Cinnamon Rolls

Published by Kathy Hunt

Snegl, kannelbullar, schnecken, skillingsboller or just plain old cinnamon roll. Almost every country has its own take on this pastry and it seems to have become my mission in life to sample each one. Yeah, it’s one tough mission. The variations are small but compelling. Denmark tops its snegl, which means “snail” and is an apt description of this swirled roll, with a thick layer of icing. Made from confectioner’s sugar, its sweetness balances out the heady cinnamon and adds beauty and succulence to the bun. Norway’s skillingsboller bears a strong resemblance to the Danish snegl. Most Norwegian bakers use a little less icing than their Danish counterparts. However, the result is just as delightful. Cardamom transforms the Swedish kannelbullar from a standard cinnamon roll to something far more complex and ethereal. Capped off with a sprinkling of pearl sugar, it, too, is a delight to see and eat. Some countries add raisins to their rolls. In fact, that’s how my mission got started; I thought that I’d purchased a pain au raisin for breakfast …