Homemade liquorice vodka

Salmiakki, salty liquorice, is a very popular flavour among the Finns and Scandinavians, so it's no surprise that even alcoholic drinks with this flavour have been created. Salmiakkikoskenkorva is a drink containing salty liquorice and Koskenkorva, a clear spirit. Now that I live in England I can't just simply go and buy Salmiakkikoskenkorva in the shops, so I've started making my own ”Salmari” of Tyrkisk Peber sweets (or extract) and vodka. I have to say that nowadays I prefer my own version to the original and hardly ever buy the ready made drink in Finland anymore.

Tyrkisk Peber sweets can be purchased in some speciality Finnish or Scandinavian shops in the United Kingdom and all over the world, and also ordered online from several suppliers. Apart from the actual sweets you can also use the Tyrkisk Peber extract or a regular liquorice extract to make this drink.

These are all the ingredients you'll need:

70 cl Vodka (whichever is your favourite)

150 g Tyrkisk Peber Original sweets

2 tbsp Water

½ dl Sugar

Heat the water in a pan and add the Tyrkisk Peber sweets in there. Stir constantly as the sweets get very sticky while they melt. When the sweets are fairly soft, add the sugar to it, let it dissolve and stir into an even syrup.

Mix this syrup with the vodka and pour it back to the bottle. Now you might need two bottles as you have slightly more liquid than what you started with.

Shake the mixture well in the bottles and let cool in the fridge by occasionally shaking in case not all of the Tyrkisk Peber has dissolved into the vodka.

The taste of this drink gets a little better when it rests a week or so, but if you simply can't wait, it's drinkable straight away once chilled. Serve it cold as a shot or sip it from a grog glass.

Let me know how you like the drink in case you try to make it, but remember that Salmiakki isn't for the faint-hearted! It tastes surprisingly smooth for a vodka drink, but it has a punchy salty liquorice flavour to it. That is just the thing I like and also the fact that I can normally shock my British friends with this one.

And if you got interested in the subject, here are other liquorice posts of mine:

Tyrkisk Peber Sunday sundae

Tyrkisk Peber muffins

Vegan liquorice panna cotta

Your VegHog

Vegan liquorice panna cotta

If you have read my blog before, you might already have seen my praises for liquorice, especially for salty liquorice salmiak. I absolutely adore these spicy sweets and frequently make desserts and alcoholic beverages with them.

Today I combine salmiak with smooth and creamy panna cotta, which makes a perfect combination for a nice dessert. And this is not all, my dear readers, this dessert is vegan as I substituted cream with oat cream! Panna cotta is one of my favourite puddings, but I have never had it quite like this.

50ml liquorice extraxt (+ little more for the topping)

500ml oat cream

1dl jelly sugar, sugar containing pectin

1tsp vanilla sugar

Tyrkisk Peber crush or other liquorice crush (optional)

Mix the oat cream, jelly sugar, vanilla sugar and the liquorice extract and quickly boil the ingredients for about 30 seconds. 

If you don't have jelly sugar, you can try this also with regular sugar and vege gel, vegetarian gelatine, combination. Prepare the veggie gelatine according to the instructions on the packet and add it to the mix before setting.

Pour the mixture into serving bowls of your choice and let them set for at least 3 hours in the fridge.

When the panna cotta has set, pour little bit liquorice extract, or liquorice extract with icing sugar, on the top and sprinkle Tyrkisk Peber crush on the desserts.

Then enjoy the party in your mouth!

Your VegHog

Tyrkisk Peber muffins – Turkinpippurimuffinssit

Let's make weird black muffins! One day I had this insane baking idea of making Tyrkisk Peber muffins. Tyrkisk Peber is basically Finnish salty liquorice "salmiak" and very popular among Finns and Scandinavians but other people sometimes find it slightly peculiar. I wonder why that is when it has been described as "tongue-numbing"and "almost-stinging"? Well I for one am obsessed with salmiak and I sometimes try to put it where it doesn't necessarily have any business being in.

These muffins are quite sweet although they have the slight spiciness of the liquorice. I tried not to overdo it with the Tyrkisk Peber but it still can be clearly tasted. You could also use other Tyrkisk Peber variations than the original. I could imagine that the Hot&Sour product would work out well in this. I think even some other salmiak or liquorice products would do as it can be hard to get the originals outside of Finland.

This recipe will make about 15 muffins.

For the muffin dough:

2 Eggs

150ml Milk

100ml Liquid salmiak extract

300g Wheat flour

100ml Butter

85g Sugar

3tsp Baking powder

10 Crushed Tyrkisk Peber sweets

For the icing:

50g Icing sugar

Few table spoons of liquid salmiak extract

15 Whole Tyrkisk Peber sweets

Some Tyrkisk Peber crush

Preparations are fairly simple. First preheat the oven to 180-200C.

Crush the Tyrkisk Peber sweets: put them into a bag and hammer away. I prefer a hammer for the job but also a ready crushed Tyrkisk Peber product for baking can be obtained at least in Finland.

Mix ingredients for the muffin dough: first mix the eggs, sugar, milk and salmiak extract into a smooth mixture. Then add the flour, baking powder and Tyrkisk Peber crush. Save some of the crush for the icing. Mix these until you have an even dough.

Put the dough into muffin cases, fill them up to the middle. Bake about 25-30 minutes until the muffins are baked throughout and let the muffins cool down afterwards.

In the meanwhile prepare the icing by mixing the icing sugar with some salmiak extract. You need to have a really tough texture that the icing isn't too runny.

Squirt the icing with an icing gun on the muffins, sprinkle Tyrkisk Peber crush on the top and place a whole Tyrkisk Peber sweet on each muffin.

Serve to your puzzled friends and enjoy!

If you got curious also check out my previous Tyrkisk Peber recipe, a cool sundae. 

Your VegHog

Tyrkisk Peber sunday sundae

Tyrkisk Peber is a sort of Finnish salty liquorice. Generally salty liquorice is very popular in Finland and sweets, alcoholic beverages and all sorts of baking are often flavoured with it. You can already guess that there will be many more VegHog posts to this subject in the future but be patient, this is only the beginning!

You can obtain this particular Tyrkisk Peber brand made by Fazer even outside of Finland and Scandinavia at least through this online shop. Also in big cities all over the world there are some kind of Finnish or Scandinavian shops where you can buy these or similar products. But I'm sure also other liquorice products would work in a sundae. Be bold and experiment!

For this sundae you only need a few Tyrkisk Pebers and some vanilla ice-cream. I used 8 sweets and some scoops of ice-cream for two portions.

Put Tyrkisk Peber sweets into two plastic bags and make sure they're sealed and folded over the sweets in several layers. Take out your hammer or baseball bat, put the bag on the floor and crush the sweets with your weapon.

Put the crushed Tyrkisk Pebers into a mixing bowl with vanilla ice-cream and mix with a hand mixer into an even sundae. Decorate with crushed or whole Tyrkisk Peber and serve ice cold.

Enjoy the juxtaposition of the flavours and the explosion in your mouth!

Your VegHog