SCANDINAVIAN Baking is the sort of book home cooks love. Lushly presented with clear, crisp photography, it makes the reader want to preheat the oven and start whisking sugar and eggs together.
Subtitled "loving baking at home," it is a book to encourage reluctant home bakers and inspire those with more than a passing interest in creating cakes, tarts and muffins from scratch.
Author Trine Hahnemann writes in the preface that "Scandi" people begin celebrations with a cake: Midsummer and Christmas are synonymous with rich and decadent cakes. As she says: "Baking forces us to take time out from our busy lives and, in doing so, reminds us why that is necessary. Home baking can't be rushed."
For a knock-out cake to impress, the Jens Jorgen Thorsen meringue is hard to beat: named after a Danish painter the meringue cake, complete with abstract chocolate splurged atop fresh figs, is a decadent creation.
Cinnamon buns are synonymous with Sweden and the author includes a recipe for perfect examples of this delicacy.
Bread is an important part of repertoire for home bakers and this book includes recipes for a variety of Scandi breads: Finnish rye, grain, buttermilk bread with berries.
It was the Nordic cheese bread that caught my eye: Using fresh yeast the bread combines pepper and cheese to form a ring-shaped dough that would be perfect for a picnic or lunch.
This book would make a perfect Christmas gift for the curious baker in your life.
Hardie Grant Books, $49.95.
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