Scandinavian Christmas

I stumbled upon this wonderful book while doing some research on Scandinavian/ Swedish cooking. The owner of my restaurant is Swedish and was feeling a bit homesick so I wanted to bring in some Christmas cheer that she could relate to. What a wonderful book this turned out to be. The recipes are simple and straight-forward, without a lot of fuss and exotic ingredients but with a Scandinavian flavor (pun intended...) that made an unfamiliar American place a smile on a homesick Swede. From the appetizers to the beverages to the main courses and desserts, we found recipes that worked for us easily with ingredients found at the local market (actually all from my purveyors), the only issue we had was with the lingonberry sauce.....we needed large quantities of it because it's so good! The recipes are written in the European style, with measurements in grams (use a scale, they're pretty inexpensive to get now-days) and there's talk of castor sugar (granulated sugar), beetroot (beets), gravalax (cured salmon) and pickled herring. The use of specialized ingredients shouldn't scare you because you either have them in your cupboard or see them every day at the market - juniper berries, kale, celeriac, rye bread/crackers, fresh horseradish, Jerusalem artichokes - hey, really, these sound like ingredients for a super healthy diet! The author didn't go overboard on cream and butter - they are used with discretion. Some of our favorites so far have been the Salted cod and kale pesto on celeriac bruschetta (you'll find this an elegant appetizer), mini root vegetable cakes with horseradish cream (another yummy appetizer), apple sauce with crispy pork belly (you'll gobble this down!), turnip and bacon gratin (heaven in a baking dish!), roast pork with spices and crisp crackling.....especially good with the caramel potatoes, and then there's the spiced quince ham....and I haven't even started to name the desserts yet. Hungry? Really this book is a treasure trove of Christmas ideas. The pictures are gorgeous, the home-y family feeling is to die for and for a homesick Swede, the recipes in this book were a fabulous Christmas present. The author did a superb job and you will do no less than a great job cooking up anything from this book.

This book is an absolute joy, I’m just cruising through it! Very lovely, well written and varies in levels of difficulty. A few notes: Finding fresh yeast in the us is tough - I highly suggest checking recipes for yeast ahead of time. Ended up using Red Star and prepping it ahead of time. Some ingredients, like lingonberries, are also hard to find. If you have an IKEA nearby, they sometimes have frozen ones available! The menus are really lovely and I firmly believe they’re worth persuing as a whole event - she knows what she’s doing! The Vanilla Cookies are a gift from Trine and obviously the heavens, because whoa. Glogg is now a staple in our home - get ready for something truly delicious! Happy cooking, y’all!

I am ethically Swedish (by both heritage and choice), and this is a very inspiring book! However, I think the recipes were not adequately tested. For example, the recipe for pate that calls for 8 oz of pork liver- and 8 POUNDS of pork fat!- is clearly not right. That will not give you a pate. And that huge fail makes me look at the other recipes with suspicion. Especially when a bread recipe calls for "whole wheat rye" flour, when there is not such a thing; a mix of whole wheat and rye? 100% whole-grain rye? Which???? Nonetheless, it does have most of the recipes that seem that they will work. I would recommend caution and knowledge, especially if you re experimenting with something your are not familiar with making. It is a very pretty and inspirational cookbook, with a good combination of old-style and modern Scandinavian dishes. The photography is excellent. I look forward to trying some of the more sensible recipes, including the bread (for which I will use whole rye flour).

Last year I searched for a Scandinavian Christmas book and couldn't find anything that was worthwhile. I happened upon this book a few weeks ago while Christmas shopping. I bought it on a whim, and LOVE IT. Great pictures, tons of recipes, and just the right amount of Christmas cheer. My daughter and I had a great conversation about the nisse and Lucia day. We love this book!! I haven't tried all of the recipes or anything, so who knows how they will be (sorry)?! But reading the book is great so far. My girls have loved flipping through it and we have already started planning our christmas celebrations.

I have all three of Ms. Hahnemann's English language cookbooks (also including The Scandinavian Cookbook and The Nordic Diet), and they always seem particularly heartfelt guides to finding and celebrating well, the truly important things in life. They are filled with beautiful photography both of the Scandinavian landscape as well as of finished recipe products, which are uniformly unique and excellent. I can't recommend Trine Hahnemann's books more highly!

I love, love, love this cookbook. It brought me back home eating the foods made from the recipes of this cook book. It also made our Christmas more delightful for my family. I made beautiful memories cooking and baking with my 2 younger daughters. I will use this cookbook for years to come!

I found this book most enjoyable. The recipes are delicious looking, the text interesting and the photos gorgeous. The recipes for the pull bread and spiced cake were excellent. The recipes in the book are mostly Danish, so if you are looking for Swedish or Norwegian recipes, you'll have to learn about Danish Christmas foods, not a difficult task at all!

Loved the book as one of my grandmothers was Swedish. My daughter wants to continue some of her traditions.

I wanter to spend a ssandinavian inspired christmas, ... it is the perfect book, lovely recipes and picture ... I love to get back to it agai and again.

haven't tried any recipe so far. but recipes sound yum. this is my second book on Scandinavian cooking.

スェーデンのクリスマス。 ニッセケーキ、スェーデンのパンケーキ、ルイスブレッド、ライブレッド、そしてクリスマスパーティーの料理など。参考になる。

This cookbook is fantastic and full of recipes that my Danish mor (Mum) and, especially, my Danish mormor (Grandma) used to make. Pretty much all the traditional Danish favourites are included in the book - frikadeller (meatballs), rugbrød (rye bread), leverpostej (liver pate), pebernødder (pepper nuts) etc. My only criticism is that the Danish names aren't always stated with the recipe, just the English ones. Her rye bread recipe is brilliant, the bread was delicious and almost as good as the stuff you get in Denmark. Plus it was very simple to make with no kneading required, just lots of time! I can highly recommend this book.

Una grande delusione, sinceramente mi aspettavo di più. Molte ricette sono scritte in modo superficiale e non spiegano bene tutti i passaggi. In alcune ricette di lievitati (es. Christmas Danish Pastries) non solo le spiegazioni sono carenti, ma si usano quantità industriali di lievito di birra, ingiustificate dal tipo di ricetta (50 g di lievito di birra per 400 g di farina). Altre ricette sono carine e riescono, ma nel complesso non mi ha soddisfatta. Consigliabile solo per cuoche esperte che sappiano rettificare gli errori e le lacune del libro.