Christmas Baking with Urtekram

It’s 8 weeks left until Christmas but I’ve already done my first holiday baking of the year courtesy of organic wholesaler Urtekram! I was invited to an evening of Christmas baking with Urtekram last week, here’s what it was like.

It seems Christmas comes earlier every year. Which, if it was true, should mean it started some time in May this year.

I’ve always been one to get excited about Christmas, but I have my boundaries and don’t like to start the celebrations too early. Some time around the end of November is usually when I start feeling the urge do some Christmas baking.

Well, most years I don’t start until the end of November.

This year was different.

Along with a bunch of other foodie bloggers, I was invited to an evening of Christmas baking with the organic wholesaler Urtekram. When I arrived with my friend (who was awesome enough to drop everything and come running when I asked her to join me last minute), I was surprised to find out we would be baking!

We were all divided into teams and assigned a recipe each, under the direction of Johan Hedberg (famous as Matgeek on YouTube).

The kitchen quickly turned into a complete frenzy of busy bakers. Often, a crowded and somewhat disorganised situation like that would make me feel out of place and stressed. But I found myself feeling completely at ease and thoroughly enjoying myself despite all the commotion. Perhaps the friendly and helpful hosts, combined with the Christmas music pumping out of the speakers in the kitchen was what got everyone in such great spirits.

My friend and I were given the task of making a mandarine panacotta that would be topped with a crumble made by one of the other teams. Between measuring our ingredients and stirring our panacotta we got a chance to catch up with each other on the latest.

Keeping an eye on our panacotta so it doesn’t boil.

This funnel portioning thing was awesome!

Oh, and here’s me in action. Super focused, obviously.

The other team added their perfectly seasoned crumble to the little pots of mandarine panacotta.

When the baking was done, we all sat down to try each others creations. Our panacotta was delicious, and the mandarine flavour was more prominent than I had expected – in a good way. That little bit of crumble on top gave it the perfect finish too.

Clockwise from top: English fruit cake, chocolate fudge with shredded coconut, and lussebullar (saffron buns with raisins).

… and our panacotta with crumble!

My favorite of the four bake goods was – to my complete surprise – the English fruit cake. I’m not sure I’ve actually had English fruit cake before, the reason being that it’s honestly just not appealed to me in the slightest. I’ve always thought it looks so extremely dense and well, just not all that exciting.

This one was very different from the fruit cakes I’ve seen before. It was slightly under baked (everyone was in a little bit of a rush at the end), but to its advantage. It was so fluffy and the Christmas spices really came through. Of course, the excellent ingredients made all the difference too, it had real maraschino cherries (not the neon red ones) and organic spices.

The fudge was a favourite too although very heavy, and the pieces were quite big. And of course there were lussebullar too, can’t have a Swedish Christmas without lussebullar.