Spelt puff chocolates - Spelttisuklaat

The 80s were modest times in Finland and treats were always something special. We didn't always have chocolate, sweets or crisps around, so we had to get creative when the snacking hunger got ahold of us. Of course then homemade sweets had to be made and one of the absolute classics are these rice crispie chocolate cups. My grandmother made them quite often and they were so tasty. I think that most of the time just cocoa powder was used and not chocolate. The classic way is to make them in muffin cups, as it's so easy, but I'm considering making them as a bar as well.

I had a look for old rice crispie chocolate recipes online, but Fazer's one got my attention taking this treat straight to the 21st century. They didn't use spelt puffs, which were my own addition. I have made these with both dark and milk chocolate and both were very good, possibly the milk chocolate ones were slightly tastier. These had a hint of coconut flavour due to the oil and weren't too sweet, so they were just perfect for me. Here however are the dark chocolate ones with a hint of coconut depicted.

This recipe makes about 10-12 small spelt puff chocolate cups

Ingredients

150 g dark baking chocolate

2 tbsp coconut oil

1 tsp icing sugar

8 dl spelt puffs

Method

Melt the chocolate and coconut oil in a water bath.

Then mix the sugar in followed by the spelt puffs. Mix thoroughly so that the chocolate covers the puffs.

Put the mixture into muffin cases and let rest in the fridge for at least an hour.

Enjoy as small snacks in between or as a dessert.

Your VegHog

Gooseberry crumble

Gooseberries are very peculiar sharp tasting berries, but I like them. I just couldn't resist them in the shop when I saw that some regional ones had arrived. I decided to make a gooseberry crumble again, as it's quite a nice and easy dessert or summer treat to make. I loved it how the red gooseberries baked into a sharp and sour, almost jam like texture covered by crispy, sweet and buttery oats. I ate the crumble warm just on its own, but it can also be served with some vanilla ice-cream or whipped cream on the side.

I followed my gooseberry crumble recipe from last year, which you can find through the link. I only happened to have some Finnish lingonberry sugar around, so I used that instead of regular sugar to add an extra punch.

Your VegHog

Delightful brandy snap baskets with vanilla ice-cream and strawberries

Okay, the title says it all this time, there's not much to add to that. It's July and it's time to enjoy fresh local berries with ice-cream. As you may know, I'm generally not very great with desserts and somehow over the years my sweet tooth has basically left me. However in the summer it's so nice to have ice-cream with fresh berries and now I even have my own strawberries to taste. I also found these brandy snap baskets, which are quite cute and tasty as well, so they were perfect to be used in these desserts.

What are your favourite summer desserts?

Your VegHog

Coffee and chocolate cake

This sort of chocolate and coffee cake (mokkapalat) was often served in Finland in my youth. I'm fearing that it's less popular these days, as I haven't seen it around for a long time. This is a very easy cake to make, as you may know how bad I am at baking, so this is a perfect one that even I can manage. I really love coffee, so its flavour on a chocolate cake is a really nice combination. For this one I followed a recipe by Valio, but have translated it to you below. You can find the original recipe here. Most ingredient amounts are in desilitres, which makes the baking even easier, if you happen to own a desilitre measuring cup as is usual in Finnish households.

Ingredients

Cake dough

4 eggs

2 ½ dl sugar

200 g butter

2 dl milk

5 dl wheat flour

½ dl cocoa powder

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tbsp vanilla sugar

Topping

75 g butter

¾ dl strong coffee

4 dl icing sugar

½ dl cocoa powder

2 tsp vanilla sugar

Decoration

Fruity confetti

Method

Make the cake dough first. Whisk the eggs and sugar into foamy texture. Melt the butter and add the cold milk to it. Combine the dry ingredients. Add the butter and milk mix into the egg and sugar mix and also add the dry ingredients through a sieve. Mix carefully. Pour the dough onto baking paper on a baking sheet and bake at 200 C for about 15 minutes.

Make the topping by melting the butter and adding the coffee to it. Add the other ingredients through a sieve and mix on the hot hob. Pour the topping onto the cake while it's still hot (the cake can be either cooled down or also hot). Put some confetti on the top as decoration and let cool.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Blood orange sorbet

Just look at those colours, how delightful they are, especially now that Easter is fast approaching! I probably won't be able to post that many Easter dishes, as I will be visiting my family in Finland, but this one I made a little bit in advance, a vibrant blood orange sorbet.

I have been hoarding the seasonal blood oranges and bumped into Felicity Cloake's article How to make the perfect blood orange sorbet. So I decided to follow it and the results are in the picture. Of course the quantity was much more than depicted in that one portion and I still have some left. The taste of the sorbet is extremely fresh and strong. I would really urge you to try this recipe, if only you can obtain some blood oranges that seem to disappear from the shops as soon as they come in!

Have a lovely Easter everyone! I try to post something from Finland and Denmark, at least on social media. Otherwise I will share my travel photos later also on the blog.

Your VegHog

Blueberry muffins

“These are the best blueberry muffins ever. Leave the mix to rest for as long as your willpower can bear…” This sounded like a promising description of a recipe to me and I decided to go with this one out of all the blueberry muffin recipes that are available online. It is by Paul Hollywood, published on the BBC Food page and you can find it here. I am not going to repeat the recipe here, as I followed it exactly (apart from enjoying the ready product with double cream). I even left the dough rest overnight. I think that it was a very nice dough, just right to my taste. 

After tasting these muffins, I totally agree that these indeed can be the best blueberry muffins ever! Try this recipe out, if you don't believe me. It's a simple one to follow and I actually found the overnight wait convenient. What if you have a party the next day and enough to prepare in the morning. Wouldn't it be great, if the dough would've been made on the previous night?

So here I present my muffins in a pink pony party setting, just because pink pony parties are fun!

Your VegHog

Blueberry and strawberry dessert

I have been doing my share of foraging during this holiday, and as blueberries are in season, off to the forest I went. I love forest walks, especially in Finland, and it's only a nice extra to get some edible goodies while you're at it. This year is very good for blueberries, which is nice.

I made this simple dessert for my family, and it's quite Finnish style. Fresh local berries are the best part about this and you will only need these ingredients.

100 g blueberries
100 g strawberries
200 ml whipping cream
250 ml quark
2-4 tbsp sugar

Cut the strawberries into slices.

Whip the cream with the added sugar and fold the quark carefully into it. Add the berries and mix.

Taste, and add more sugar if needed.

And it's all done, enjoy!

Your VegHog

Raspberry Eton Mess

Guess what? I'm leaving to Finland today! I'm so happy about the start of my summer holiday and I will post something from there for sure. I don't have many plans for the trip, only to eat well and relax. So here's a post to get into the holiday mood.

I too rarely make desserts. I just love savoury food so much that I mostly even forget about sweet dishes. However my partner has a bit of a sweet tooth and always appreciates little cakes or desserts. So now I made this raspberry Eton Mess from the lovely new season raspberries. It was very yummy I must say and doesn't require much preparation. I served the raspberries in two consistencies, as fresh and whole and as a cooked sauce.

Ingredients

300 ml double cream

2 tbsp sugar

400 g raspberries

6 small meringue nests

Method

Add one tablespoon of sugar to the double cream and whip it into whipped cream.

Take about a third of the raspberries and combine them with one tablespoon of sugar in a small saucepan. Gently cook the mix until the raspberries have become more liquid. Pour the sauce through a sieve in order to remove the raspberry seeds and let it cool.

Break the meringue nests into pieces. I used a half of a nest per glass.

Layer the components into serving glasses and enjoy!

Your VegHog

Gooseberry crumble

Here's another summer recipe coming right up, now that we have fully entered the season here in England as well. I only rarely post desserts, but this is one of them.

Gooseberry crumble is something that I have neither tried before nor heard of before. Nevertheless I decided to make one the other night. The idea started mainly due to the fact that I had some fresh local gooseberries lying around without a plan. As a child I loved picking gooseberries from the bushes and then pulling a face, as I mainly took the raw ones. Now I really like these quaint berries.

Here is my simple gooseberry crumble recipe (it basically makes itself in the oven).

200 g gooseberries

50 g butter

2 dl oat flakes

1 dl sugar

Vanilla ice-cream for serving

Cut the gooseberries in halves.

Melt the butter gently in a pan and add the oat flakes and sugar to it. Mix it all together.

Put the gooseberries onto the bottom of an oven dish and cover them up with the oats.

Bake at 200 C for about 30 minutes until the gooseberries have softened and the oat topping is crispy.

Serve with nice vanilla ice-cream and enjoy!

Your VegHog

Gingerbread woodland animals diorama

Gingerbread cookies always belong to Christmas, but this year I wanted to make something different. Instead of plain cookies or a gingerbread house, I made a small woodland animal diorama. In my plans it was much more spectacular than how it actually turned out, but never mind, I was happy with it. Maybe next year I can spend more time with such a project, as it was great fun! It reminded me a little bit of the huge horse head gingerbread cookies that I used to bake for my horse and pony friends at Christmas – those were the days! Have you made any creative work with gingerbread?

So, this is a photo post of my creation. The woodland animals are mainly hedgehogs of course, but if you look very closely, you might spot one or the other different species as well.