My Great-Grandmother, Ingeborg, attended Housewife school in Norway in 1917 and whilst she was there she began writing a recipe book. The book is a record of everything a house wife needs to know about managing a household. This book has been passed down to my Father and he has kindly allowed me to borrow it. I am going to start testing the recipes each week and I will post recipes and pictures here on the blog.
The first recipe I am going to try is ‘Serinakaker’. I have chosen these biscuits because although typically a celebration recipe they are something my Grandma always had stored in an old ice cream tub.
I have scanned in the page of the recipe book for anyone out there who speaks/reads Norwegian, for everyone else my Dad has translated (Unfortunately I fall in the ‘everyone else’ category when it comes to the Norwegian language)!
Makes 24-30
250g Plain Flour
150g Butter
1 egg
125g Sugar
150g Ground Almonds
½ tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp Vanilla Sugar
There were no instructions on how to do this so I combined all the ingredients to form a soft dough, wrapped in a cling film sausage and chilled down in the fridge.
Once the dough was hard (I actually left it a couple of days) I sliced into biscuits around 5-7mm thick and placed on a greaseproof lined baking tray. Bake in a pre-heated oven for 12 mins at 180°C (my oven is not fan assisted).
You may notice my biscuits have some larger pieces of nut on the top, this was due to an almond grinding issue – I recommend you buy them pre-ground!
The finished product is best enjoyed with a nice cup of tea. The biscuits are sweet, nutty and crunchy with a taste of vanilla running through. Independent review from wife Katie was:
‘Nice, but they’re not the ones……’
Never fear: there are plenty more recipes in the book.
Next week I am planning to use the seasonal ingredients we have in Yorkshire, so I will make a cucumber salad (Agurksalat) and sweet and sour cabbage (Surkaal).
Ahhh, the old Walls ice cream tub. The first thing I used to do when getting to Grandmas was check what was in that tub, in fact I remember there were various tubs to check!
I am going to be making these biscuits this weekend!!!! I haven’t had them in ages, as i didn’t know how to make them!
Adele,
If you want more authentic look form dough into balls and then press down with your hand. More recipes to come!
Hello, I was searching for an English version of the classic Norwegian cookie recipe Serina kaker and came across your lovely blog. I am Norwegian and Serina kaker were the first cookies I learned to bake on my own as a young girl. Now I am teaching my little ones. We always used to roll the dough into balls, press the balls down with a fork and then gently brush them with some egg white before decorating with pearl sugar and roughly chopped almonds. I look forward to more recipes from your mom’s special book. What a lovely gift to leave behind.
Best wishes for a peaceful Christmas.
Thank you, I was looking for just this recipe. With hjortesalt, which is usualy used specially with sour milk, but also in these cakes. I am Norwegian, and from I was a child, we were allowed to help our mother in making small balls just a little more than an inch in diameter. Then we used whipped eggwhite and dipped a folk in this and pressed lightly on top of the cace, and made a pattern like diamond, then we put on very fine chopped almonds mixed with pearl sugar before cooking. And I will made some today. Merry Christmas