Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Christmas Candy: Crisp Bread Knäck

knackeknack

The night before christmas! (Christmas is always celebrated on the 24th here.) I have to share one more christmas candy recipe with you. I've posted about Swedish knäck before, our special sort of toffee that almost everyone makes for the holidays. You can play around with it in many different ways and a few months ago it occurred to me that you might be able to switch the almonds for something else that's crunchy.. like crisp bread!

I know that it sounds awfully weird, but it actually turned out really well. I've had a lot of guests try it by now and everyone really liked it - even though they all looked extremely sceptical before trying. You have to have crisp bread for this, obviously, and it can be quite hard to find in some countries. IKEA is generally a safe bet, though.

Now, I'm off to have a slice of just-cooked Christmas ham... on crisp bread. Of course.

Crisp Bread Knäck
makes about 40

100 ml sugar
100 ml golden syrup
100 ml cream (heavy, double or whatever it's called in your country - the fattest kind you can find)
2 crushed slices of rye crisp bread (I use a kind called Rågi)(shake the crumbs in a colander to get rid of any "dust".)

Mix cream, sugar and syrup in a suitable container. This means something that can take a lot of heat, go into the microwave, and still have high sides so the whole thing doesn't boil over. I have a quart-sized Pyrex glass pitcher that's absolutely perfect. Put it the microwave on the highest setting, for exactly 7 minutes. (You might need to try this a couple of times - if it doesn't boil for long enough, it'll be very soft and chewy. If it's boiled too long, it'll be rock hard.)

Remove very carefully - it's super hot - and gently fold in the crushed crisp bread. Pour into tiny paper cups very fast, if it cools down it'll be a lot harder to pour. Place in the fridge until they're set. Keeps well in an air-tight container.

Recipe in Swedish:
Knäcke-Knäck

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

God Jul Anne! Jag kommenterar inte ofta men ville gärna säga hej just idag, och vad goda dina pepparkakor ser ut :)

Anna

Anonymous said...

That desert is great^^
It seems very delicious. I want to eat it.

Jessica said...

rice crispies blir bra också. Annars har jag lite svårt för knäck (lite för sött.

Greg said...

Oh! I found almost this exact recipe last year except it had almonds instead of rye bread. Was that your recipe? I love the flavor. I made some last night using the almonds. Even though I cooked it for only 6.5 min it was still hard. I couldn't get them out of the paper so I just spread it out on a cookie sheet and then broke it up once it was cooled. The flavor is GREAT!

Jessica said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anne said...

Greg, it might have been - I have one just like this up on the site already. Almonds is the traditional addition (if any at all), but I love to play around with it :)

Jessica said...

Isn't the traditional version of knäck supposed to be hard like well knäck? You can use rice crispies in them too.

Anne said...

I definitely want my knäck to be hard - just soft enough to bite after a few moments :)

Johanna said...

does the bread stay crisp? Doesn´t it soften in the knäckbatter? if not, i love the idea. I usually add unsweetened cornflakes to all christmas candy.

Anne said...

Johanna, I was afraid of that too, but the bread actually does stay crisp.

Jeanne said...

Adding crispbread to toffees is not something I would ever have thought of... but I guess I would add Rice Krispies or cornflakes, so why not? And besides, I'm a huge fan of a touch of savoury in sweet things :)