Scandinavian Rosette Cookies

It's that time of year where I'm looking for a few new things to add to my gift baskets for gifts from the kitchen. As promised here is one of the cookie recipes I tried out. Now I do have to point out these are one of the most frugal cookies I have come across. They are made from 5 low cost ingredients and despite this they look quite fancy. I really like foods that look like they took a lot of time to prepare when they really didn't!

Getting Ready

These cookies are not baked in the oven but rather fried in oil. Don't let that turn you off though as the are light and fluffy. They are also very versatile as to what topping you want to use and depending which orientation you want the cookies. Bottoms up and the cookies can be filled. Tops up and the cookies are nice simply topped.

Materials needed: deep fryer, rosette mold set, wooden skewer, paper towel lined cake cooling rack.

Scandinavian Rosette Cookies

1 c unbleached flour
1 c skim milk
½ tsp sea salt
3 tsp organic sugar
1 egg

Combine dry ingredients and mix in KitchenAid® stand mixer bowl. In a separate measuring cup combine the egg with the milk. Slowly mix into the dried ingredients then using the whisk attachment whisk until you have a smooth mixture. Heat the mold then dip into the batter into hot oil. Fry just to the point you can pop the cookie off the mold with a skewer. Fry until golden brown then turn to cook on the other side. Using your skewer, remove the cookie onto a paper towel lined cooling rack.

The Steps

When I first looked at all the steps to making these cookies I thought they were just too complicated but really they aren't once you get into a rhythm. First the mold is attached to the handle then the mold is heated for 15 seconds (1). Once the mold is heated it is dipped into the batter (2). I noticed there is always a sizzle sound when the properly heated mold hits the batter. The batter cannot come above the lip of the mold but a little jiggle helps coat the mold well. The coated mold is then placed into the hot oil (3). New molds will need a bit of encouragement to get the cookie to pop off but I really didn't find this to be a huge problem. After using the mold (4) for three or four times the cookie dropped off into the hot oil allowing a reload so I was able to get 3 to 4 cookies cooking at one time. The hot cookies went from the fryer to a paper towel lined cooling rack.

Cooling

There were 3 molds included with the kit I bought - a flower, a butterfly and poker oriented. I had to try all three. The flower one mold worked like a charm once I got the hang of it! The butterfly mold worked just as good but I simply could not get the poker mold to work. The mold was different in that there was more mold if that make sense. It was designed to create small cups shaped in spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds. Now this is really the one I wanted to work because it would fit in so well with our larger get togethers. Apparently I still have to practice!

Despite essentially frying one cookie at a time it took little time to get a nice plateful of rosette cookies. In the end with a little co-ordination I was able to get a nice rhythm going so there were 4 rosettes at a time in the fryer. I thought they looked rather pretty

Scandinavian Rosettes

When making Scandinavian rosette cookies you are supposed to give up a prayer to the Norse Gods dedicating the first batch to them. I tend to be on the frugal side so any mess-ups would get eaten anyway. At any rate and despite being my first attempt at making Scandinavian rosettes the Norse Gods would have got very little.

What is really a neat feature about the Scandinavian rosettes is you can really use them two ways. Turn them over and sprinkle with icing sugar and a chocolate/sugar/cinnamon mix (pictured) and well you just can't get much better! The shells are rich and crispy. However, reducing the amount of sugar added to the batter turns it into nice shells that could be paired with meat or savoury fillings. The shells when turned upside down hold a lot more so work nicely for dips as well.

The rosette cookies will keep at least 2 months frozen. Simply thaw then top or fill as desired. When it comes to gift baskets these cookies look amazing yet cost you very little to make.