TREATS FIT FOR A VIKING
Baking book documents classic and contemporary delights made today throughout the Nordic region
The Nordic Baking Book (Phaidon) is extraordinary in both its magnitude and meticulousness.
Along with its companion, The Nordic Cookbook (2015), it marks the end of a six-year project for renowned chef Magnus Nilsson of two-michelin-starred Swedish restaurant Fäviken.
Nilsson’s 450-recipe tome is also exceptional in its everydayness. In contrast to the exquisite fare served by the vanguard of New Nordic Cuisine (Nilsson included) and, at the other end of the spectrum, culinary stereotypes like herring and meatballs, this is what home bakers in the region actually make.
“I didn’t want this to be a historical document that’s unusable. That cooking has already been documented whilst the cooking we do now, today, has not been documented the same way,” says Nilsson.
“It’s being documented all the time on social media and in magazines and so on, but we haven’t produced, in any food culture, many books like these the last 30 years.
“And to me that was important to do.”
The following recipes are classic and contemporary holiday favourites from throughout the region: Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
As with all the recipes Nilsson highlights in the book, they offer a true taste of Nordic baking culture at this moment in time.
Recipes adapted from The Nordic Baking Book by Magnus Nilsson (Phaidon, $59.95, October 2018)