Icelandic cooking, recipes and food

Here you will find some information about the traditional Icelandic foods eaten at the Þorri feasts or Þorrablót . The links will take you to recipes or instructions for making some of these foods. Note: I can‘t find some of the photos I have of these foods and will add them as and when I either find them or am able to take new ones. Þorri is one of the old Icelandic lunar months. It begins on the first Friday of the 13th week of winter, which is usually between January 19th and 25th, but can occasionally begin on January 26th. It then ends ends on a Saturday between the 18th and 24th of February. The first day of Þorri is called Bóndadagur (Husband's Day/Farmer's Day - bóndi can mean either), and is dedicated to men (formerly only farmers). Since this is the coldest time of the winter, it is no surprise that Þorri has become a personification of King Winter. He is usually portrayed as an old man, tall and grizzled, who is as cruel to those who disrespect him as he is...

Click to enlarge This used to be my brother's favourite cake, but is now in second place after a confection called a Dream Cake. Here is the recipe: The way my mother makes this cake is actually a marriage of two recipes: for a sponge cake and for something called a Sunshine Cake with caramel topping . The caramel topping from the Sunshine Cake goes on top of the sponge cake.  The caramel in the recipe is enough for one sponge base, baked in a 24 cm flan tin, the type that has a raised centre and a deeper trench along the rim, so that when the cake is turned out top-to-bottom there will be a raised rim along the edge. Since the two recipes were not made to be used together there may be a bit of sponge batter left over when you have poured it into the tin, depending on how deep the tin is. If you are using the recipe below and a shallow tin, I therefore recommend using small eggs and short measures of flour and sugar. (You can, of course, just use your own preferred sponge c...

I finally got round to making those coconut balls, and here are the results. I only made half a recipe, which was enough for seven balls, about the size of golf balls. + (I have also added a second photo to the original recipe). I was contacted by Freyja (if you know Icelandic you can read her comments), who tried the recipe and wrote back to say that the cookies tasted a bit too much of raw oatmeal. She also suggests using icing sugar instead of regular sugar, which I agree with, since there isn't really enough moisture in the dough to dissolve the sugar grains. The balls came out looking just like bakery made ones, but neither the taste nor the texture was enough like the coconut balls you can buy from bakeries. Bakery coconut balls are chewier and the texture is similar to thick cookie dough. These are harder, the sugar has not melted properly (as Freyja commented) and the oatmeal taste is too raw. Rum or sherry drops could help with the raw taste, as could reducing the oatmeal ...

One of the things I got frequent requests for back before I closed my public e-mail account because of spam overload was Kókoskúlur or Coconut Balls. These are candies or no-bake cookies sold in most Icelandic bakeries. I was unable to find a recipe and no bakers were willing to part with one, so I had to give up. Now I have finally found a recipe. I don’t know if it is the right one, as I haven’t tested it, but I plan to make it on the weekend and do a taste comparison with a bakery-bought specimen. I can tell you right away that there is one ingredient missing that some (but not all) bakeries put in their coconut balls: rum essence. Here is what they look like: Ingredients 75 g (1/3 cup + 1 tsp) butter, soft 100 ml (2/5 cup) sugar 1 tbs vanilla sugar 300 ml (1 1/3 cups) oatmeal, the quick-cooking kind. Do not use instant as these have added salt. 175 g (6.3 oz) chocolate 2 tbs milk, at room temperature 100 ml (2/5 cup) desiccated coconut (small flakes) Melt the chocolate in a bowl ov...