Seattle's Child: Full Plate: Holiday Recipes & Zebra Mix

December 2007

Full Plate: Holiday Recipes & Zebra Mix

These Are a Few of Our Favorite Things (to Make)

Both of these recipes are from Scandinavia. We have them every Christmas, and they came from my mom and grandma. Now I make the Vinarterta every year.

Vinarterta

Preparation:
You will need eight 9-inch cake pans and wax paper. Cut the wax paper into circles to match the bottom of the pans. Vinatera is prepared in three layers: cake, filling, and icing.

For the cake, you will need:
1 cup butter
1.5 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
4 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
One-quarter cup light cream or milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2 of the 9-inch cake pans. Line each with a round of wax paper. In large bowl, beat the butter until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating hard until mixture becomes light. Beat in eggs. Add vanilla. Blend in flour, baking powder, and salt alternately with light cream or milk.

Form the dough into eight equal-size balls. Press them into the baking pans evenly. Bake 10-12 minutes or until the edges are lightly brown. Cool.

Spread seven layers with one-half cup prune filling. Stack the layers. Cover the cake and let it stand 24 hours before icing.

For the filling, you will need:
2 lbs. dried prunes
3 cups water
1 cup sugar
One-half cup liquid from cooked prunes
One-quarter tsp. ground cardamom
One-quarter tsp. salt
One-quarter Tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Combine prunes and water in 3-quart sauce pan. Heat until mixture comes to a
boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes, or until prunes are very soft. Drain, reserving one-half cup liquid, and allow it to cool. Remove the pits, and grind the prunes very fine. Combine prunes, sugar, prune liquid, cardamom and salt in 2-quart sauce pan. Stirring constantly, cook uncovered for 10 minutes, until mixture has the consistency of thick jam. Stir in lemon juice and vanilla and allow to cool.

For the confectioner’s sugar icing, you will need:
1 cup sifted confectioner’s sugar
3.5 tsp. light cream or milk
One-quarter tsp. pure vanilla extract

Combine confectioner’s sugar, light cream and vanilla until smooth to make a
thin glaze frosting. (It will make one cup.) Spread on the top layer of the Vinatera.

Hjorti Takk

For the Hjorti Takk, you will need:
4 eggs
1.5 cups sugar
One-quarter pound butter, melted and cooled
One-half tsp. cardamom
1 tsp. baking powder
4 cups flour to handle
Peanut oil sufficient to fry dough

Beat eggs and sugar, and add the butter, cardamom, baking powder and flour. Take small amounts of dough, and roll in the shape of a pencil. Cut into about 3-inch lengths, cross the ends together and drop into hot peanut oil (like a doughnut). We always use peanut oil for our Christmas frying.

– Garit Reuble

Date Nut Bread

My Grandma made this every year for the holidays. She would often make it ahead and freeze it. She would wrap loaves in foil, add a bow and give them as gifts.

For the date nut bread, you will need:
1 cup dates
2 level tsp. baking soda
2 cups hot water (pour over fruit & soda) Set aside to cool
2 cups sugar (white or brown)
2 Tbsp. butter or margarine
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla (Grandma used a little more)
4 cups flour
One-half tsp. salt
1 cup ground nuts

Pour the hot water over the fruit and baking soda. Set aside to cool. When cool, mix
everything together well. Grease five #2 cans (or smaller) and fill half full.
Bake 45 minutes for small cans; bake one hour for larger cans at 350 degrees.
Turn out of cans and cool on rack.

Spoon Rolls

It was my job to make these for our holiday dinners when I was a teenager.

For the spoon rolls, you will need:
1 pkg. yeast
2 cups very warm water
1.5 sticks margarine, melted
One-quarter cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
4 cups self-rising flour

Dissolve yeast in warm water. Melt margarine and cream with sugar. Add beaten egg. Combine yeast and creamed mixture; add flour and stir until well blended. Place in air-tight bowl; store in refrigerator.

To bake: Drop by spoonfuls into well-greased muffin tins. Bake at 425 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Dough will keep for several days. Makes 2 dozen rolls.

Holiday Pretzel Treats

Salty pretzels combine with sweet chocolate for these fun treats that make a yummy gift.

For the Holiday Pretzels, you will need:
Bite-size, waffle-shaped pretzels
Hershey’s Kisses of Hershey’s Hugs
M&M’s candy
Parchment paper

Heat the oven to 170º. Set a number of bite-size, waffle-shaped pretzels (one for each treat) in a single layer on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, then top each pretzel with an unwrapped Hershey’s Kiss or Hershey’s Hug.

Bake for 4 to 6 minutes (the white chocolate will melt more quickly), until the chocolates feel soft when touched with a wooden spoon. Remove the cookie sheet from the oven and quickly press an M&M’s candy into the center of each Kiss.

Allow the treats to cool for a few minutes, then place them in the refrigerator to set, about 10 minutes. Place handfuls of the candies in clear plastic bags and tie on colorful ribbons.

– Janice McMorris

Pepparkakor
by Sonia Cole

Reprinted by popular demand from Seattle’s Child, December 1981.

In our family, the spicy odor of pepparkakor baking in the oven heralds the beginning of the holiday season. Pepparkahor (Scandinavian ginger cookies) not only taste wonderful but are also durable enough to decorate a Christmas tree or to be given as gifts, when shaped like ginger people, hearts, pigs or birds and decorated with white icing swirls and a red ribbon bow. While these are traditional shapes, I remember, there is no limit to the shapes they can take when you make your own cardboard cutout patterns. Trimming the tree with cranberries, popcorn, paper snowflakes and homemade cookies brings us back to an earlier era when life was simpler.

The following recipe was used by my aunt, Stina Hurlen, who is from Dalarna, Sweden and was well-known for her excellent Scandinavian cooking. It will yield enough cookies to trim a small tree and can be doubled successfully. The dough keeps well in the freezer.

Stina’s Pepparkakor
½ lb. butter or margarine
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup dark corn syrup
½ pint sour cream
1 tsp. allspice
2 T. cinnamon
1 T. ginger
1 T. cloves
1 tsp. baking soda
4-5 cups flour

Combine the butter, sugar and corn syrup in a saucepan. Stir over low heat until the butter is melted and the mixture comes to a slow simmer. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Blend in spices and sour cream.
Add soda and flour, a little at a time, until well-blended.
The dough will be soft. Shape into a roll, wrap well and refrigerate overnight or for as long as a week. Unused portions can be frozen.

To Shape the Cookies
With a floured rolling pin, start rolling portions of the chilled dough on a well-floured board, then transfer to an ungreased cookie sheet and with a floured rolling pin roll the dough directly onto the cookie sheet to 1/8-inch thick.
Cut with cookie cutters or with a sharp knife cut around cardboard patterns you and your children have made. Lift away dough between the cookies.
Bake in a 325 oven for 10-15 minutes or until browned. Cool on the pan before removing.

To Decorate
Typically, these cookies are decorated with a white icing such as Royal Icing or use your favorite decorating icing or buy decorating icing in tubes at the grocery. Press the icing through a decorating tube with a plain tip, making swirls, writing names, and designs on the cookies. Allow the frosting to dry before hanging or storing the gifts.

To Hang the Cookies
Use regular sewing thread and a fine needle. Support the cookie from behind and carefully insert the needle and thread through the cookie at least ½ to ¾ inch from the top center. Leave enough thread to form a loop large enough to fit over tree branches. Or for gift cookies, attach a small red satin or yarn bow to the top center of each cookie.

Zebra Mix Bakes up Fun for Kids

By Riki Mafune

What’s black and white and fun all over?

Zebra Mix do-it-yourself baking kits for kids. The kits come in several flavors: Chocolate Chip Cookies, Brownie Bites and Zebra Cupcakes. And, available for a limited time, the Decorate and Dazzle Cupcake Kits come complete with spatula, cupcake papers and decorations, all in a nifty reusable tote. The finished products make great holiday gifts.

Co-founders and Seattle parents Lisa Burgess and Brian Alm were inspired by their girls, 7-year-old Kellan and 5-year-old Haley, to develop Zebra Mix Baking Kits. “As our kids get older, it becomes harder to provide experiential learning where they can create and learn, maybe even fail, and that’s OK,” Burgess says. Why zebras? “Each zebra is unique – just like kids,” she adds.

As working parents, Burgess and Alm also recognize that parents may not have the time or the inclination to clean up after a kid bake-fest. Zebra Mix kits are designed so kids can take the creative lead and still have quick and easy clean-up. And better yet, Zebra Mix kits are made with organic, natural ingredients and no preservatives.

Each kit comes with a large, instructional “Safari Baking Map” that doubles as a disposable work surface. The brightly colored, double-sided map has two age levels (ages 4 to 9 and ages 9 and up) and is designed with visual cues, written instructions, science facts and other fun activities so kids can follow the directions independently. The results are yummy treats and the self confidence that a child gains through completing a project from start to finish.

My daughters, Chloe and Rachel, ages 10 and 13, baked up a batch of Zebra Mix Brownie Bites. “The instructions were easy to follow. I would recommend reading the whole map before your start,” reports Chloe. “The activities on the Safari Baking Map make you think, but they’re still really fun. I like the Spanish lessons.” And both girls agree, “The brownies are dee-lish!”

So what will Zebra Mix be whipping up next? Look for Zebra Mix Pretzel Kits coming this spring. Also, Burgess and Alm are working with a therapist to develop instructional flashcards for special-needs kids to accompany the baking kits. Parents will be able to download the PDF flashcards from the Zebra Mix Web site in February 2008. “We’d like to expand our interactive Web site to include a Zebra Mix Think Tank so kids can be part of product development and educational tools,” Burgess adds.

Zebra Mix Baking Kits are available at Whole Foods and many local independent food and specialty stores. For more product information and retail locations, online purchasing and other activities for kids, go to www.zebramix.com or call 206-547-2122.

Riki Mafune is a Seattle freelance writer and mother of two.

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