It's a double header!

Well, it's been a heck of a long while since I baked anything, but then I did go away to Korea for a large chunk of the summer, and it's been a manic term since I got back. But that doesn't really matter, what matters is I'm baking again! I've been wanting to try making skolebrød since we went to Oslo back in 2016, and today's finally the day. "What's skolebrød?" I hear you ask - it's a lovely sweet cardamom bread, filled with custard and topped with desiccated coconut, and it was delicious. Of course, making custard means that I need egg yolks, which leaves the eternal dilemma of what to do with the leftover egg whites. I don't particularly like eating meringue, and nor is it fun to make, so I thought I'd finally make some macarons (up until now, I've always been a little scared of them, but I've realised that as long as you don't want picture perfect ones with beautiful feet, they're actually really quite simple). I used this skolebrød recipe, and the macaron recipe comes from Leith's Cookery Bible (I also note that the first edition is available super-cheaply).

Skolebrød
Ingredients
For the dough

• 2 level tsp Cardamom pods
• 650g Strong white flour
• 2 sachets Dried yeast
• 1tsp Salt
• 160g Caster sugar
• 80g Butter
• 300ml Milk
• 125ml Water

For the custard

• 2 Egg yolks
• 60g Caster sugar
• 1tsp Vanilla extract
• 175ml Double cream
• 75ml Milk
• ~2tsp Cornflour

For the topping

• Icing sugar
• Water
• Desiccated coconut

Method

1. Shell the cardamom and grind the seeds using a pestle and mortar.
2. Mix the cardamom, flour, yeast and salt together in a large mixing bowl.
3. Place the sugar, butter, milk and water in a pan and heat gently until the sugar is dissolved, butter is melted and the mixture is warm.
4. Add to the dry ingredients and form a dough. Knead the dough until smooth(er).
5. Return the dough to the mixing bowl and wrap in a bin bag. Leave to rise for an hour.
6. Knead the dough again and divide into 12 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and leave to prove, covered.
7. Make the custard. Whisk the egg yolks, sugar and vanilla extract together.
8. Heat the cream and milk together, then pour slowly into the egg yolk mixture while whisking continuously.
9. Return the custard to a low heat and whisk in cornflour as needed to thicken the mixture slightly.
10. Poke a well into the centre of each ball of dough and fill with custard.
11. Bake at 200C for 30 mins.
12. Mix some icing sugar with a little cold water to make a loose icing and brush onto the bread, then sprinkle with desiccated coconut.

Here's the dough before it's first prove. Looks just like any other enriched dough to me. Incidentally, the red thing that you see in shot is a silicone scraper, and is the best tool for dough handling that I've come across. I don't know how I coped with handling wet doughs before I got one (actually, that's a lie, I do know - not well!).

There's something really pleasing about dough that's been portioned out into small balls. I don't know what it is, but it's definitely pleasing. These are the individual dough balls just before proving.

Unfortunately, this is after leaving them to prove for about 1hr30. I read somewhere that the final rise is called proofing, because you are proving that the yeast is active. This sounds like a made up fact to me, but I think in this case, I've actually proved that the yeast I used (last two sachets in quite an old pack) was dead. These might be a bit dense...

Forming decent sized wells is harder than you might think. I guess the lack of rise might have made this harder, but you're also fighting the elasticity of the dough. This is the best that I could do...

Which meant that there's a pathetic amount of custard in each skolebrød. I used about 1/4 of the custard that I made, though I also harbour deep, deep suspicions about the custard recipe.

They don't look bad out of the oven!

I really should not have followed the recipe quite so closely. You need the icing to be moist for the coconut to stick, so you should probably sprinkle each one with coconut as soon as it's been brushed with the icing - I brushed all of them with icing first, and by the time I was done, so much moisture had dried/been absorbed that I couldn't really get the coconut to stick very well.

Looks (and smells) gorgeous!

But minor disaster! It's raw around the custard well. It's still edible, but defintitely needed longer in the oven. I wonder if I should have made sure that the custard was piping hot before pouring it in to the skolebrød - that might have helped.

In an effort to save matters, I put them back in a low oven (~150C) for as long as I dared, given that it was already iced. It definitely helped - still distinctly undercooked in the middle, but at least now it's undercooked rather than completely raw!

Macarons
Ingredients

• 110g Ground almonds
• 170g Caster sugar
• 1tsp Plain flour
• 2 Egg whites
• 2 drops Vanilla extract
• Whole blanched almonds

Method

1. Mix the almonds, sugar and flour together in a mixing bowl.
2. Add the egg whites and vanilla extract, then beat thoroughly.
3. Leave to stand for 5 minutes.
4. Beat well for a further minute.
5. Spoon onto trays lined with baking paper and top with a blanched almond.
6. Bake at 180C for 20 minutes.
7. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Here's the mixture post beating. Nothing special here...

And you can see how little care I took while spooning the mixture out. As I said, they're not supposed to be picture perfect!

I really need to clean the oven glass. But look through the murk, and you can see how satisfyingly round and plump these guys look!

Ooops. I took my eye off the ball and they got a little singed. They're just the right side of edible, but definitely are a little burnt.

Despite the slight amount of burning that happened, I'm actually pretty pleased with these!