Julekake

Julekake is a sort of sweet and rich wheat bread, leavened with yeast. It is flavored with cardamom and often filled with dried and candied fruits. Julekake is traditionally served for Christmas in Norway with different toppings, which can be either sweet or savory.

A note about egg wash: I find that the best way of making egg wash is to crack an egg into what might seem an unnecessarily large bowl before adding about half a quantity (the egg is one quantity) of milk. The easiest way of doing this is simply to measure the milk using one half of the eggshell. It’s not very precise, but it doesn’t need to be. The next step is very important and the reason for the large bowl. Whisk the egg and milk mixture for a few minutes, making sure the mix is completely smooth and has no lumps at all. It will foam a bit, but if you leave the mix to rest for a few minutes before using it, this will disappear. Most people crack the egg into a cup and add liquid before whisking around with a brush or some piece of cutlery. This leads to lumpy and uneven egg wash. Apply your egg wash in a thin layer using a good pastry brush. One coating is enough, it just needs to glisten from egg to brown well, it doesn’t need to be soaking wet. For all leavened doughs, they need to be baked when the egg wash has just been applied and is still wet. If it dries up it will crack in the baking process.

This recipe was excerpted from ‘The Nordic Baking Book’ by Magnus Nilsson. Buy the full book on Amazon.