Icelandic cooking, recipes and food

My paternal grandmother always makes these for Christmas. 500 g flour 250 g sugar 200 g margarine ½ tsp hartshorn powder 1 tsp baking powder 1 egg 100 ml (2/5 cup) milk Cardamom essence to taste Rhubarb or other jam Mix together sugar, baking powder, hartshorn powder and flour. Add soft butter and mix until crumbly. Add egg, milk and cardamom essesnce and knead until smooth. Store in a refrigerator until cold through (overnight is usual). Flatten with a rolling pin and cut out cookies with a glass or circular cookie cutter. Put about a teaspoonful of jam in the center of each cookie, fold cookies in half and press edges together with a fork. Arrange on a lightly floured baking sheet and bake at 200°C for 7-10 minutes, or until golden.

I don't particularly care for these, as I don't like raisins in food and the currants remind me of them, but my grandmother loves them. 375 g butter, softened 375 g sugar 7 eggs, yolks and whites separated a few drops of lemon essence 500 g flour For decoration: Currants, chopped blanched almonds, extra sugar (no amounts are given in the original recipe) Cream sugar and butter, then add the egg yolks one by one, mixing well in between. Gradually add the flour, then the lemon essence. Whip the whites separately until stiff and fold into the dough. Put the doughonto a baking sheet and spread evenly over the sheet, using a spatula. Sprinkle a mixture of currants, almonds and sugar on top. Bake at about 180°C until golden and cut into squares while still warm.

My mother used to make these every Christmas when I was little. They have a buttery, coconutty taste and are great with tea or cold milk. 200 g flour 200 g dessicated coconut 150 g sugar 200 g butter, softened 1 egg Mix flour, coconut and sugar. Fold in the egg and butter and knead. Run through a cookie press, taking lengths of about 8 cm. and forming them into circles. Put on a baking sheet and bake at about 180°C for about 8 minutes, or until they are a light golden colour.

While technically they are everyday pastries, I think kleinur deserve to be included in the Christmas fare. I have added a second recipe for those who do not have access to hartshorn powder. In many homes in Iceland a large cooking pot lurks in a kitchen cupboard. Its sides are black with burnt-in fat, and a guest might wonder what the monster is used for. Occasionally, in some homes as often as once a week, this pot will be pulled out from its hiding place and put to good use for frying doughnuts in. It is not unusual for a doughnut-maker to make a double or even triple recipe in one session. Twisted doughnuts are not a specifically Icelandic phenomenon, but neither are they as common in other countries. Making these delicacies is time consuming and hard work, and therefore the batches are usually large to save time and effort. Don't try this if you have never deep-fried anything before, as the frying fat must be very hot, and certain precautions must be taken to avoid ...

I don’t know who Siggi is or was, but the recipe is for dry chocolate chip cookies that can be stored for several months. It is one of three types cookies my mother always makes for Christmas. They are excellent dipped in coffee. 1/2 cup margarine or butter (softened at room temperature for no more than 40 minutes, or the cookies will spread too much) 6 tbs sugar 6 tbs brown sugar 1 egg 1 1/4 cup flour 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 cup chopped nuts. My mother uses hazelnuts, but I bet it would also be good to use cashews, peanuts or macadamias. 1/2 cup (100 g) chopped chocolate or chocolate chips (dark, semi-sweet is best) 1/2 tsp vanilla essence Dash of lukewarm water, if needed Cream the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and mix well. Mix together flour, baking soda and salt and add gradually to the batter. Fold in nuts and chocolate, adding a little water if the dough gets too thick to stir easily. Drop teaspoonfuls of dough on a bakin...

It has been months since I last posted here, for several reasons that I will not go into. Because Christmas is getting nearer, I will be posting some Christmas recipes (mostly for cookies) in the weeks leading up to the holidays, and also bringing back to the top some (or all) of the Christmas recipes I have already posted. The poll I posted about having ads on the site showed that most of my visitors do not object to the milder forms of online advertising, but in the end I decided that since I would not have full control over the kind of ads that would appear here, I am not going to have any ads at all.