Yummy yummy Mocha Rounds
One of the more important things in Swedish culture is fika. Fika refers to several things. In the workplace, it's a coffee break. It's also what Clotilde refers to as "goûter" - a snack, sort of. Fika is something you can invite your friends over for if you don't feel like cooking real food. Or something you'll have in the afternoons, when you're feeling peckish.
Fika almost always includes something sweet, to go with your coffee or tea. Buns are considered fikabröd (fika-bread), cakes, cookies.. you name it. Sometimes sandwiches, too, but never JUST sandwiches. That'd be awfully boring. Anyway. I was invited to a large fika on Saturday, with a group of people I hang out with on the Internet. We're all cat aficionados, and hang out at a cat forum. Sometimes, someone decides that they want to meet up irl, and invite everyone for a fika. This time, we went to Marie who happened to have gorgeous five-week old kittens. Aww.
Everyone - we were almost 20 - brought something to eat. I decided to go with cookies, since most people seemed to find that a bit daunting to make. I love baking - and I had seen so many good recipes lately. I went with two different cookies - one a simple cut cookie that was flavored with chocolate, coffee and cinnamon, and one a delicious, extravagant merengue chocolate cookie. The first one came from Nic at Baking Sheet. It's called Mocha Rounds, and you can find the recipe here. I didn't bother with the dipping, thinking that it'd be nice to have a plain cookie to go with coffee. Oh yes. It was very good indeed, the flavors subtle but complementing each other.
The second cookie came from Deb at In My Kitchen. She said that she wasn't very successful with the texture. However, I gave it a try - and oh wow, they came out wonderfully fluffy and airy. The flavor - to die for. Very very chocolatey. Everyone loved these. I had some straight from the oven - do try that if you make them, that was the very best part. They're dead simple to make, but you do need to whip a lot - a Kitchen-Aid comes in VERY handy. The recipe is here. Oh, and next time - there will certainly be a next time - I think I'll add some finely chopped hazelnuts. That should go well.
So, were the cookies a hit? They were. And they went down well on Sunday, too, when I had another event for which I had promised to bring some fika. (Also cat-related - a seminar on breeding.)
Don't forget IMBB 13 - all about cupcakes! Personally, I'm not so sure what the difference is between a cupcake and a muffin, but I look forward to finding out.
3 comments:
I'm glad you liked the cookies, Anne! They're one of my new favorites since they're so easy and much more interesting than a plain butter cookie.
I really have to bake the Chocolate brownie cookies!!!! I seem to say that for all cakes that I read about.. :-) The recipe says 3 different kinds of chocolate, can I ask which ones you used? I usually only use the ordinary dark chocolate from Marabou, so I'm not sure which 3 sorts to use here.
Dagmar, I totally forgot to say that. I used Marabou Mörk too, it's my general standby and it hasn't failed so far. I used it instead of all the other three kinds. Good luck with them! They turned out SO good :)
Post a Comment