Hurray For Your Own Way

When one doesn't really have a good reason or a special motivation to make variations or change already existing recipes, one has a harder time thinking outside the box. In fact, I'd even like to argue that it seldom happens. Could an ingredient be used differently or be replaced? Could something maybe work even better? Are not questions that come up just like that. Most people are lazy by nature and rarely do things that aren't totally necessary. A recipe is followed religiously to every detail and one doesn't need to think.

Something that I always find amusing when cooking for friends and family is the way they get astonished by the time and energy I use for turning other's recipes to my own and adding my personal touch. For me the reason is basically three fold. First of all, I have to get rid of gluten and sugar which is always an inspiring challenge. Second of all, I can't fully take pride of the dish I serve if I've simply copied someone else's creation. My ego gets more a hit than a boost if I get admiration for something that hasn't got my signature on it. Thirdly, I absolutely love to come up with new combinations of tastes. If one doesn't try one'll never come up with anything new and surprising.

There are however dishes and recipes that are harder to manipulate than others and still get great results. One of these mission impossibles is pasta. Pasta in all its forms and shapes. High quality wheat flour is a must for the right consistency, the right chewiness, for the "right" taste. I've been in search for the perfect gluten-free pasta since three years now. I've both made my own from start to finish, I've tired buying different labels, I've tried rice pasta, corn pasta, potato pasta, buckwheat pasta, you name it! There's a corn pasta brand which is actually pretty decent and after you get used to it, you even forget that it isn't the real thing. But still, real pasta is real pasta and everything else is something else.

Three days ago I bought a butternut pumpkin at the market. I thought it was the cutest thing! Pastel orange, round, a bit deformed. It caught my eye immediately. The cutie sat in the middle of the kitchen table for three days, just looking at me. Every morning as I was sipping on my tea I thought of ways of turning it into a delicious dish. The American Thanksgiving pumpkin pie I tried for the first time last year was blocking the flow of ideas. Sure it was tasty, but it didn't tingle my taste buds enough. On the third morning my thoughts went to pasta. My boyfriend loves gnocchi so I thought maybe, maybe I could replace the potato with butternut pumpkin and the wheat with some gluten-free flour mixture. I suggested the idea to my better half and he was totally in.

The butternut pumpkin gnocchi turned out to be pretty common variation of the conventional recipe. However, the recipes that I we found were all done with wheat flour. There was challenge after all. I started going through my cupboards to evaluate the different possibilities. What I came up with was almond flour, corn flour and the magic ingredient in order to get the right texture: Vietnamese glutinous rice flour! Step by step the gnocchi dough started to get workable texture. Then followed the real handwork. Cooking always makes me feel good, but rolling gnocchi made out of the cutest butternut ever made me ecstatic.

The first portion of cooked gnocchi was good, but not perfect. The dough was surprisingly tasty, but an improvement was totally doable. For the next portion, I added some truffle oil to the dough and made the gnocchi much smaller. I also fried then quickly in some butter after cooking them. Definitely a step towards the right direction. The improvement was huge! When I only had a bit of dough left, I even added a pressed garlic clove and squeezed on some lemon juice and topped it all with grayed Parmiggiano for serving. Explosions! Explosions of divine tastes! It was amazing. You could really taste the subtlety of all flavors. An experience of culinary handwork at its finest.

I'll make an exception and share this recipe with you. It would be a crime not to. Buon appetito cari amici!

Gluten free Butternut Pumpkin Gnocchi

(for about 4 portions)

1 butternut pumpkin
1 potato
1 egg
salt
3 table spoons olive oil
1 dl almond flour
1/2-1 dl corn flour
about 300 g glutinous rice flour
(truffle oil, garlic, sage, butter)

Cut the butternut pumpkin in half and bake in the oven for 1h (or until it starts to bubble) in 200°c. Take them out and let them rest for a bit. Grate the potato and cook it for 5min in a frying pan. Add water not to make it too crispy.

Scrape off the flesh of the butternut pumpkin into a bowl. Add the boiled potato mass, the egg, the salt and the flours until you get a workable dough. Mix well.

Form pinky finger thick gnocchi balls. Use rice flour when working. Finally, use a fork to give them their right appearance.

Boil the gnocchi in a big pan. Wait until the water boils heavily. Make sure to boil them a little longer then normal gnocchi, even though they pop up to the surface. After boiling the gnocchi, you can fry them in a pan with some butter to get an even firmer texture and a nice crispy surface.

If you think the gnocchi lack in taste, give them some flavor by adding truffle oil and/or garlic into the dough or by adding sage to the butter in the frying pan.

And most importantly: Do your own variations!

Cook It Away

A dear friend whom I'll call the Fellow Rat just to make her smile, posted a picture on my facebook wall last week. The picture fit my personality to the point and inspired me to share something silly with You, dear readers. I want to tell you about my very own anger management technic! Food related, of course, no surprise there.

According to my Mother, ever since I was a little girl, I've always been one of those who eat when getting upset. When ever I've had a bad day, didn't pass an important exam, had a fight with someone or simply felt royally shitty, I indulged myself with some guilty pleasures. Something mouthwatering and lip-smacking, something rare and overpriced, otherwise it wouldn't do the trick. In any case, along the years I've become very talented in talking myself into spending a lot of money on yummy treats when I feel like the whole world is against me. ”Just this once”, ”you so deserve it”, ”it'll make you feel so much better” and it goes on and on. Sounds pretty silly, it does. Especially, when I know for a fact that in most cases, I'll end up feeling worse afterwards. I either eat way too much or end up broke. Maybe these are the kinds of bad habits you simply agree to live with and leave it at that. Or maybe not?

Since a few years back, I've progressively started trying to take advantage of my aggression and turn it into something useful and pleasant instead. It's always healthy to canalize strong emotions, I said to myself. At first, I guess I did it unaware of what I was doing. And then it came to me: What could be better than chopping meat or veggies, when the only thing you want to do is chop someone's head off? It's perfect. At least I get to chop something off. And no one gets hurt. The process of cooking is energy consuming and you can really act on your inspiration in anger. When I'm upset, my mind and body are in a fast forward mode, everything is boiling over and all the extra energy needs to come out one way or another. No wonder I always do the best and most surprising dishes when I'm nervous, under pressure or upset! Of course it's not always the case, I can tell you that, but when it works in this way, cooking is the best anger management technic ever. At least for me.

The results are great! I get rid of my aggressions, I save money and I'm treating my poor body and stomach so much better. But best of all, the people around me, my flatmates, my loved ones get to eat up the fruits of my bad mood, destroying it it as they chew. All's well that end well.

Sweet On Sugar Free

Who said pastries, desserts and sweets have to contain sugar in order to taste delicious? Most people probably, but I object! Sure, coming from someone with three years worth of experience of a life without sugar, makes it a pretty subjective argument. Of course my taste buds are used to unsweetened desserts by now, however, let me assure you, it hasn't always been a walk in the park.

Remember my post “In Bed With Baklava”? Remember what happens to me if I give in to temptation? Not a fun experience, so most of the time I far prefer fighting an extremely tough battle against my sugar cravings. Sometimes I'm even grateful of having my sugar handicap, like last weekend for instance.

Me and some friends decided to go to an apple fair in the small town of Kivik, located on the West coast of Skåne Region, in Southern Sweden. I was very excited and had high expectations of never ending stands with different kinds of apple delicacies. During the two hour journey to Kivik, I thought of all possible ways of using apples and mostly I thought about how great it'll be for me to be able to enjoy the natural, sugar free products.

Shortly after arriving my hopes were crushed. Apple sorbet, apple ice cream, apple cakes, apple pies, apple jam, apple donuts... Everything contained added sugar! Luckily, I'm used to these kinds of disappointments by now so I settled for chewing on the different apple species available. My strategy was working well until one of my friends bought this amazing, golden brown bread loaf made with apples and sirup. I'd had it! I looked at the piece of apple I had in my hand and thought why on earth do all these people need to add sugar to this! Ridiculous! I swear, it was the sweetest piece of apple I'd ever tasted. In my frustration I started walking towards the exit.

I felt tired and really needed to sit down for a cup of coffee. I remembered reading that Kivik was one of the towns on the South-Western coast famous for its biological and ecological shops and cafés. Perfect! Just what I needed. Kivik is tiny, so I found what I was looking for in a blink of an eye. I stepped into to the cosy and welcoming café called Lilla Råa (The Little Raw). I got an instant kick of enthusiasm and positive energy. Not only were there yummy looking sugar and gluten free pastry, everything there was Raw Food! Home (un)sweet Home! I heard my friends behind me: “This is an Edith kind of place”. It truly was. I'd only heard about the Raw Food concept, but never tried it. The level of excitement was sky high.

After queuing for what seemed like an eternity, it was finally my turn at the counter. “One piece of everything you've got” I said. Yes, it was very very greedy of me and I certainly had eyes way bigger than the belly, but I simply couldn't help myself. Slowly and gently my tray was filled by a slice of raspberry cheesecake, a chocolate-cachew-ficon-coconut ball, a chocolate-apple ball and freshly grounded fair trade coffee. The smell was divine! All fragrances were so fresh and so strong. Nothing was processed, nothing was cooked, all ingredients had their natural characteristics. Nothing external or alien added. And believe me, it made a huge difference. In slow motion, with birds singing in the background, I grabbed my tray and walked the two meters out the door towards the terrace. Heaven! As I sat down by the little table in the autumn sun, I only had eyes for the treat I was about to sink my teeth in. What followed was almost perverse. There are no words. 

Everything tasted amazing. Actually 'amazing' doesn't even describe it! In thirty minutes I went from not having any clue of what this food genre could possibly taste like to feeling an overwhelming admiration and appreciation for a whole new approach on preparation with relish and care. If You still haven't heard or if You've been hesitant when it comes to Raw Food, change that! It's really something.

    Why Eat Together

I'm sure that especially all of you Mediterranean Taste This! -readers can relate to what I'll talk about in this piece. Sorry for generalizing and categorizing, I usually try to avoid falling in stereotypical traps, but sometimes it's fun, especially when they are highlighting positive features of a country or culture.

To state the obvious: Cultures differ in their culinary habits. These uplifting differences are very often the source of my inspiration and excitement when cooking. Just to make it clear, I'm not in any way referring to those Erasmus “Let's all get together, bring a dish representing your country, get wasted and hook up with the warmblooded Spaniard getting friendlier and friendlier as the Calimocho goes down his throat” - types of events the European youth of 2000s are very familiar with. No. I'm talking culture kitchen – a concept constantly occupying my thoughts when cooking.

Going back to the essential I wanted to talk about this time. In the Nordic countries in general families aren't as tightly bound together by food and shared time around the table as the Mediterraneans for instance (from a Finnish perspective, Frenchmen are considered Mediterranean by the way). I actually regret being that awful teen who took her microwave pizza back to the darkness of her room, affronting her Mum's efforts of spending quality time around the table. If I had been a French or an Italian teen, I would've probably been as troubled and fucked-up as I was as a Finnish teen, but maybe I still would've dragged my ass downstairs and valued the family gathering in the dining room. Come to think of it, some people's homes didn't even have a dining room, let alone a proper dining table... What a pity. I'm guessing the situation today isn't any better (?) Luckily, at some point chewing on the same nasty microwave pizza, I saw the light and finally understood the value of cooking with heaps of love and sharing a real homemade meal with the ones you care for the most. In an effort of turning things around and catching up with lost times, after getting acquainted with other countries' eating habits, I started pulling my family together by organizing frequently recurring gatherings in No Man's Land, nowadays also known as the Dining Room.

This might the most banal thing for You coming from one of the Mediterranean countries or You who has plenty of food related family gatherings all the time, but for me it's very special. In my family we never really had any food related traditions, so as soon as I got a taste of the French and the Italian everyday eating habits, I was sold! The ones of You dear readers whom I've made acquaintance with in post-adolescent times, who know how I'm all the time twisting people's arms to get them to take part in the many food related occasions I host, might have trouble believing that I once upon a time couldn't have cared less about dinners and time spent together eating and drinking. Yet, these are the facts. Traditions are important in many aspects, but when it comes to cooking, they certainly are priceless.

At this point You're probably asking Yourself what Sunday Yam Yam is. I'm hoping the title of this piece caught Your attention. Sunday Yam Yam is one of my newest projects that I've started up since moving to Malmö (Sweden) in the beginning of September. Nothing new, nothing mind blowing, but oh so important and wonderful. It was about time that I started creating my own culinary traditions. So I did. What I've done now, four Sundays in a row is inviting friends over for a Mediterranean style Sunday lunch, the ones that start a bit later and go on for three hours or so. I'm kind of known for being a bit of a dictator in the kitchen, so Sunday Yam Yam is a way for me to relax more by diving tasks. So far no one has left our flat unhappy on a Sunday. It has been a fantastic way of getting together, having some quality time. Lazy Sundays suddenly get a special content, something I hope that everyone invited can look forward to during the week. It's a ridiculously small step for humanity, but a huge step for my “family” – the circle of precious people I've had the privilege to share my life with. No photos or clips yet, I'm afraid, but I'm on it.

P.S. While doing some research for this piece, I got absorbed by the variety of advice, concern and information related to this topic. I'm very lucky to be able to read in many languages and in this way be able to get an insight on what the different countries(and also the different nutrition corporations) want to highlight in their articles on the need of more shared time in the kitchen. If You're bored, try googling “eat together” in all languages you know. It's pretty fun comparing. Not all of the links are of high quality or something I fully agree with, but anyway bellow You can find some examples.

In English:

• The Importance of Family Dinners IV
  http://www.casacolumbia.org/articlefiles/380-Importance%20of%20Family%20Dinners%20IV.pdf

• Our Fresh, Homemade, Local, Delicious, Healthy $5 Challenge
  http://www.slowfoodsanfrancisco.com/blog/uncategorized/our-fresh-homemade-local-delicious-healthy-5-challeng/

En français:

• Pourquoi faut-il manger ensemble?
  http://www.serpsy.org/piste_recherche/hopital/repas.html

• Manger ensemble : Le rituel du repas familial
  http://www.vifamily.ca/media/node/297/attachments/manger_ensemble_le_rituel_du_repas_familial.pdf

In italiano:

• Cenare in famiglia
  http://www.paginemamma.it/it/576/il-bimbo-da-3-a-6-anni/vivere-in-famiglia/detail_159669_cenare-in-famiglia.aspx?c1=80&c3=8482

• I piaceri del cibo
  http://www.nestlebaby.com/it/parenting/family_life/eating_together/

(I'm not a Nestlé fan at all, but it's interesting to see how these things are formulated)

Suomeksi:

• Nauto ruuasta
  http://opetus.ruokatieto.fi/WebRoot/1043190/sisaltosivu.aspx?id=1089321

• Sikke Sumari: Perheen pitäisi syödä yhdessä
  http://www.iltasanomat.fi/viihde/sikke-sumari-perheen-pitaisi-syoda-yhdessa/art-1288350160261.html

På svenska:

• Äta tillsammans
  http://kyrkkaffe.libris.se/?p=1481

• Gemenskap bekräftas med mat
  http://www.dn.se/insidan/insidan-hem/gemenskap-bekraftas-med-mat

I Found Gold

A scary truth that very often consumes my thoughts while grocery shopping in huge sterile supermarkets is that many people today, especially kids hardly recognize real fruits, real vegetables, real meat or correctly identify their original source any longer. Can you blame them though? I'm saying, that if the only source for tomato sauce for example, is a glass jar with a fancy label on or if one only has seen meat is nicely cut cubes, no wonder people get confused by the real thing and the process behind the end result. Just to mention one of my absolute favorites, the ready pressed frozen garlic that comes in these little plastic moulds! Moving on...no need to get bitter.

Any way, I always thought that I was someone who knows the real, original source of things I put in my mouth, or at least I always try to be as aware of it as possible. Turns out, it's not always like that. Coming from a country like Finland famous for its forests, I'm even a bit ashamed of admitting the following. Regardless of my love for different sorts of mushrooms, it hit me that I've actually never intentionally went to the forest for gathering mushrooms. Of course I more or less know in what type of forests mushrooms grow and what time of year they grow, but never have I got fully equipped for a mushroom hunt. 

A few weeks ago I changed this unfortunate fact. With a little wooden basket on my arm and a little knife with a special brush on the other end, I went into the wild (meaning the forest next door, it's all relative). What an adventure, what a wonderful way of getting in contact with the nature, to not even mention the enormous amount of learning a stroll of a couple of hour can entail. I was completely mesmerized by the unspeakable variety of smells and colors a forest in autumn had to offer. Greens, yellows, reds, browns, the spectrum was breathtaking. After the first stock of nature I managed to concentrate on the essential – the mushrooms. Big ones, small ones, round ones, oval ones, hairy ones, slippery ones, you name it. And to think that some of them could kill a man instantly!  I'm sure my face shifting between confusion and exhilaration must have been an amusing sight! I bet locals would've loved seeing me right there and then, the joke of the week probably with my old school rubber boots, my thick rain coat and my azure blue beanie. I guess I'm a city girl after all.

After half an hour of stumbling and slipping between the trees and the stones, my little wooden basket remained empty. Suddenly the forest didn't feel that amazing at all. I mean there were tons of mushrooms everywhere, but none of them were the right ones. Yes, I was in search of a special kind, the Chanterelles, the gold of the Nordic forest. You know the breathtaking colors I wrote about a few lines earlier? Well these freaking different shades of yellow were making me go mad only an hour after I fell in love with them. Typical. How on earth would I ever distinguish the Chanterelles from the yellow leaves? Impossible, I thought. Challenging my mood even further, the mosquitos got a sudden craving for my blood. Great! Slapping and slipping, I decisively continued my hunt for gold. Must find Chanterelles! Must find Chanterelles! Only to turn the knife in the wound, as we say in Finland, somewhere in the background I could hear my Dad shouting: “I've found so many already!” God damn it! The man is colorblind for Heaven's sake! The funniest family joke is the story of my Dad picking the green leaves instead of red lingonberries on a date with Mum! Now, suddenly he's the master of Chanterelles! I really had to step it up, otherwise I'd forever be the laughing stock of the family.

With the warm sunrays shyly peeking in through the fir trees, I kept on walking. Like a big baby, I was ready to throw myself on the ground and cry. I had zero patience left and I couldn't believe I was admitting defeat. In my state of adolescent anxiety and frustration, I kicked a few poisonous mushrooms off the ground and turned around to walk towards my cheering old man with his basket filled with mushrooms. As soon as I gave up, something caught my eye. I found gold! A yellow, golden yellow, shiny yellow Chanterelle family just sitting there, under fallen Burk branches. I was totally and utterly captivated by their beauty. Never had I seen such golden Chanterelles in my life. It felt almost wrong to pick them out of the ground, but I did. It felt so pure, so true. I found them, I picked them, the way it was meant to be. It was amazing how I immediately appreciated this Nordic delicatess that much more. As I was returning back home holding a Chanterelle in my hand, I really hoped that school kids still today get to go on adventures to the forests with their teachers like I did.

Easy Does It 

After a rather depressive dry period food-wise, I got back up on the saddle and decided to indulge myself and my loved ones with a delicious time consuming treat. I've always been a loyal supporter and a great fan of slow food. For me, preparing dishes with time, love and care all the way from scratch is art and the purest of pleasures. It pains me to notice that people are more and more reluctant to wait, take it easy and let cooking take the time it needs. How infuriating to find recipes that jump over crucial twists in preparation only to save a couple of minutes! No, no, that stuff isn't for me. There are no shortcuts in my kitchen. My philosophy is: East does it. Once you do it – you do it right.

As it had been a while since my previous cooking endeavour and as I really wanted to remedy my culinary withdrawal symptoms with a heavy dose of cooking, I specifically searched for a challenging recipe that I hadn't already done all the way from the beginning to the final end result. On top of that, I also had to empty my freezer before moving out from my flat, so I decided to work with what I've got. 500 grams of minced meat guided my choice of dish: Moussaka! Perfect! My expectation were sky high because the first and only moussaka I've ever had is my Brother's to-die-for, super tasty, rich and moist moussaka that I ate many years ago. How to top that? Tough one. I was delighted to rise to the challenge.

What I love about recipes like this one is that you actually have to plan the cooking in several stages and divid it onto several days. Like all dishes prepared in the oven, also the moussaka only gets better if you let it be for one to two days. Knowing this, even though it was 11PM of a Saturday night and too late to go to the supermarket for all ingredients, I decided to begin my project. I had the meat and crushed tomatoes. I even decided to sacrifice a splash of the red wine that I was romantically sipping, watching old Sex In The City episodes in bed. I have to say that I was pretty amused by finding myself right there, like that, on a Saturday night and honestly being happy about it. I mean why not, what's better than staying in with moussaka on your mind! By midnight my minced meat filling was filling the apartment with a heavenly smell. Damn th egreeks were smart when they thought of using cinnamon with meat. Efharistó! I let the thick sauce cool down, I brushed my teeth, washed my faced and crawled in bed with a content little smile on my face.

The next day intimidated due to the gluten-free béchamel I had to make among other things, I couldn't help but call out for back-up. My adorable food loving boyfriend wasn't hard to convince, he came right over to offer me his help. Also my flatmate was lured into the kitchen. The pressure was on and many things had to be done simultaneously. I have to admit that it was pretty hard to delegate as I'm quite of a kitchen control freak. I think I did a good job though. Cooking not only gives my enormous pleasure but also develops my people skills!

After a couple of hours the kitchen was a mess and there was béchamel everywhere. At least the task list was under control:

• Heating up and finalizing the seasoning of the meat filling: check

• Pealing and draining the eggplants: check

• Gluten-free béchamel: check

• Grating the cheese: check

• Coating the eggplants with egg and breadcrumbs and pre-baking them: check

The assembling of the moussaka was up next. Layer for layer it started to resemble the real thing. With my mouth watering, it was almost painful to know that the dish still had to go into the oven for one hour or so... Patience, Edith, patience. I resisted the temptation and was left with a feeling of immense joy that the process had given me. The satisfaction only grew when I thought that the best was yet to come. Absolutely fantastic! An important rule is to let the moussaka (or any other oven dish for that matter) rest for at least 30 minutes after you take it out from the oven before serving it. Again, don't hurry! Otherwise it won't be as good as it could be.

One and a half hours later, the delight was crispy, golden brown and ready to be eaten. Greasy as hell, but oh so divine!

Whipped Cream, Melted Sugar & My Little Helper

Whenever I get my groove on in the kitchen, the place turns into a battlefield. Used instruments, ingredients and ripped up packages everywhere. When it comes to baking the result is even worse, flour, sugar, eggs always create the biggest mess. Actually, I like to call it “taking advantage of the full space”, but that's just me.

I'm a pretty talented mess maker all by my own, but this time the huge mess was definitely guaranteed thanks to a line of disastrous mistakes. Thanks to my little helper, the nine year-old Linnea from next door I didn't or couldn't give up. Linnea's step mother was going have her birthday the next day and Linnea was worried over not having a birthday gift for her. I thought the best present would be a huge, home made creamy layer cake made with love. Linnea agreed.

The next day, on the day of her step mother's birthday, I asked Linnea to come over at 3 p.m. Like clockwork she knocked on the door and we headed to the supermarket. Linnea and I exchanged ideas and visions and finally came up with the perfect compromise: three layers, white chocolate, bananas, raspberries, cape gooseberries and loads of whipped cream.

Turns out, easier said than done! After the nearly fatal endeavour of making a perfect home layer cake, I sure have a great deal of respect and admiration for pastry chefs.

It all started very well. Planning, action, result. The dough for the basic sugar cake, the main component, was super easy to make. The good old “one glass of everything” -recipe (eggs, flour and sugar) that I learned when I was a kid worked like a charm. Even Linnea thought it was fun and easy. What an enormous pleasure it was seeing Linnea's excitement as the cake grew bigger and bigger in the oven. Just like me at her age, she kept asking “How much longer Edith? How much longer?”. Funny how the roles were suddenly switched. If only she knew how much she gave to me in return by looking at me with her big eyes filled with delight... At that very moment, little did I know about the first mistake I was about to make.

The last time I made a layer cake from scratch was at least two years ago. Safe to say that my skills were pretty rusty. Still, I felt quite confident. I took the cake out from the oven and couldn't for the hell of it remember whether you should wait for it to cool down or try to remove it from the mould as fast as possible while it's still hot. Both Linnea and I were very eager to start building the cake, so I went for option number two. Wrong! Totally wrong. “Oh no!” Linnea cried, “Poor little cake! Don't worry, we'll fix you”. The cake suffered some serious damage alright. All that buttering of the mould, in vain. The cake was stuck onto the mould like glue. Luckily, it was real thick and solid so I was easily able to repair it.

With mistake number one fixed and forgotten, we were ready to continue. Because I decided it was best to let the cake cool down before starting the filling of the three layers, I thought I'd tackle the decoration instead. I wanted to make pretty and delicate sugar decorations with melted sugar, just like the ones you see on professional pastry. Melting the sugar, no problem, as long as you keep it from burning. Even Linnea had done it before and knew how extremely hot the liquid sugar gets. When the sugar was golden and melted, I wanted to put it outside for a minute to cool down and thicken up faster. “Linnea, remember at all times when melting sugar to be very very careful because the liquid is like burning hot glue...” And BANG! Mistake number two. I dropped the pan and the melted sugar nicely spread all over the kitchen floor. Panic-stricken, I took a wet towel and tried to get it off. Too late, the kitchen floor had a lovely golden brown sugar icing. Great, just great. My only thought was that Linnea probably thinks that I'm the biggest looser of a layer cake maker there is. After half an hour of wiping and scratching, there was no melted sugar in sight. What a relief! I did the procedure all over again and this time I got it right. Linnea was very impressed by the lovely shaped sugar decorations I made.

After a little tasting of the decoration (one has to make sure it tastes right, right?) we were all set to start building the cake. First layer: white chocolate mousse and raspberries. Roger that. White chocolate mousse – can't be any different from a normal dark chocolate mousse, I though. When the butter was burning hot, I added the white chocolate and kept it on pretty high heat. Mistake number three. The white chocolate, as it actually is a dairy product, reacted badly to the high heat. God damn it! I had no white chocolate to lose so I went to slight panic again. I took the pan of the heat and poured away some of the butter that had divided itself away from the mixture. I added a yoke and the thing finally started to resemble a mousse. As it cooled down, it looked delicious and tasted so too. I poured it on the first layer and sprinkled some raspberries on it. Done.

The second layer couldn't go wrong in any ways, so I thought. Whipping cream and slicing bananas – child's play, so I put Linnea to work. She took her task seriously and made sure that all the banana slices were equally thick. Good girl. When she was done with the bananas, I handed her the blender to whip the cream. She looked at me with confused eyes. Oh yea, maybe it would be a good thing to actually show her how to operate it. As I turned around after giving her the instructions, I heard the noise from the blender and thought that she had got it under control. “Just make sure you don't make butter of it!” I warned her over my shoulder. When I then turned around to see how she was doing, I almost choked on the banana slice I was eating: there was cream everywhere! Linnea made a gesture that her hands were getting tired, so I could easily take over without making her feel like she had done something wrong. I smiled and tried to wipe up the biggest splashes of cream with my sleeve. I hit the power button on the blender and the cream splattered all over my face. Apparently, something was wrong with the blender. Just my luck... At this point the kitchen resembled a Jackson Pollock painting, so did my face. At least Linnea was laughing. I just hoped no one would come in and witness art work we had created.

Layer two, after a little cream bath, turned out fabulous; moist, creamy and sweet. Layer three would be a bit trickier, white chocolate icing, plus the decorations. Luckily, I had already made the mistake of heating the white chocolate too much so this time I'd rock. I did everything according to the recipe and the icing looked and tasted delicious. I was kind of worried though, because it seemed a bit too liquid. The last thing I wanted was for the icing to flow down the sides of the cake, so I decided to let it cool down a bit. That would do the trick. After fifteen minutes, the icing was still liquid but better than before, so I went for it. Slowly I poured on the icing. Linnea was barely breathing, I had stopped breathing long tim ago. The icing wouldn't stop flowing. Stop! Stop! STOP! Linnea tried to stop the flow with her hands. Fridge! Now! I thought. We need it to get cold, yes, that's it! Fast as lightning, I took out some stuff from the fridge and made space for the huge layer cake. As I was about to place the cake into the fridge, I realized that it wouldn't fit. I could hear Linnea yelling: “Faster Edith, faster, it's dripping”. Turned out, with a little twist, I managed to make it fit.

Fifteen minutes later I opened the fridge and almost had a heart attack! The icing was nowhere in sight! It had disappeared. Where did it go? Apparently three layers of cake sucks up pretty much anything. At that point I was ready to throw in the towel and admit defeat. If it hadn't been for sweet little Linnea I think that had been exactly what I would've done. I knew I couldn't let her down, so I had no choice than to come up with a plan B, plan C, plan D... whatever, I had lost the count. I decided to cover the ruined white chocolate icing with more whipped cream. Fortunately, I hadn't cleaned up the previous cream mess yet... Blender vs. Edith, round two. The cream just sprayed from the plastic container like lava from a volcano. I didn't even care anymore, I'd deal with it later. When the cream was nice and solid, I started the covering up. I worked my way around the cake and it looked pretty good. Once again Linnea was impressed. “Good job!” she said and clapped her hands. I stopped for a few minutes to give her a hug and when I returned to the cake, I saw something that didn't please one single bit. The cream was slowly oozing down on the sides. I took a look at the tetra pack and realized that it was lactose-free cream, something very common in Scandinavia. The thing with lactose free cream is that it doesn't stay whipped, it gets liquified after a while. NO WAY! There was nothing to be done, absolutely nothing. I tried to keep a cool head and finish off the creaming and decorating. Meanwhile, I asked Linnea to run back home and prepare the surprise.

Twenty minutes later the cake looked amazing, beautiful, exquisite! I was so proud of myself. Even the lactose-free whipped cream had somehow stopped making my life difficult. Picture time. I took tons of photos, just in case it would look horrible when the time came to cut it in front of Linnea's step mother. At least I had evidence of my hard work and the magnificent result. Come on now Linnea, where are you. It seemed like she was gone forever. Nervously, I glanced at my creation every ten seconds. Finally, I heard Linnea come in. I could only hope that I wouldn't fall flat on my face as I had to carry the cake to Linnea's house. I didn't. It would've been quite funny though.

At Linnea's house, everything was set for the surprise. My heart was racing. Linnea's step mother came in and saw the cake. Her eyes watered and so did mine. She cut the first piece and gave it to Linnea. I looked at her intensively, waiting for the judgement. She didn't say anything, she just took another spoon full of the cake. Finally, I was able to breathe out. The action spoke louder than words. Soon after started the compliments from Linnea's step mother and all the other people around the coffee table. After a while, even I got the a little piece of the cake. I can assure you my friends, the cake tasted as amazing as it looked. Mission accomplished and many lessons learned. Another win-win culinary rollercoaster ride.