This weekend, the boyfriend and me made Knäck!
That sounds wrong. Let’s try again.
This weekend, the boyfriend and me made traditional Swedish Christmas caramels! I feel so Swedish now!
And it wasn’t even hard – surprising for anything that contains the words “caramel” and “candy”, Knäck is amazingly easy to prepare.
Knäck is a kind of Toffee, made with sugar, syrup, butter, cream and almonds. The consistency varies depending on local tastes, from fudge-y to stick-to-your-teeth hard. The longer you boil the candy, the harder it will become after pouring. Ideally, you should be able to stack them in a jar without them sticking together.
The candy comes in little paper cups that look like muffin cups but are thimble-sized! They are sold all over in Sweden during Christmas time and usually, the back of the packet contains the recipe.
Since we doubled it for our purposes, this recipe makes about two jars of Knäck. That is quite a lot!
The ingredients:
3 Tsp. butter
4 dl sugar
4 dl light syrup (Swedish “light syrup” seems to be best translated to inverted sugar syrup)
3 dl full fat cream (whipping cream is fine)
150g sweet almonds, peeled and chopped.
The Container:
Lots of those tiny little paper cups. We made about 120 with this recipe, which is half a packet.
The recipe?
Dump everything but the nuts together in a thick-bottomed pot. Boil for approx. 30 minutes.
When it reduces and becomes a darker shade, try dripping a spoon or so into a glass of cold water. If you can easily mold the caramel after fishing it out, without it crumbling apart, it’s done.
During the time it boils, prepare a lot of those small paper cups, best on a baking tray so that you can move them close to the pot for pouring. You should have them all set up and ready to be filled or you won’t manage!
Mix in the nuts and put a spoonful into each paper cup. Be careful to keep the pot over low heat in the meanwhile so the candy doesn’t harden in the bowl.
(Or, in the immortal words of my great-aunt: “And then we don’t throw away the pan…”)
Let cool at room temperature, then store. I had brought out my pretty Christmas-themed candy boxes, but the boyfriend said they looked best in glass jars.
And they do!
Those Knäck look delicious =)
Yum! I want some Knäck!
[…] Small box (background): couscous, carrot shaves and halloumi on lettuce, cherry tomatoes. Big box(foreground): More halloumi, Ajvar, cherry tomatoes, fried zucchini chips, baked potato wedges, and a piece of Knäck. […]
I am having trouble finding this light syrup or inverted sugar syrup of which you speak. All I can find is glucose syrup, which I think is the same thing as corn syrup (I’m in Australia). Can the sugar syrup be substituted for this?
I think the closest might be Golden Syrup. But as the commenter below says, corn syrup might work in a pinch :) (not a fan of the taste of HFCS myself though)
I use light or dark corn syrup and it works fine.
Hi there,
I’m an Australian living in Sweden and I made knäck for the first time last night. I used the recipe from Vår Kokbok and it tastes absolutely divine – there is just one problem…
The toffee sticks to the paper cases making it terribly difficult to eat. The thing is, I tried knäck at some markets last year and it was exactly the same!
I used a thermometer and removed the mixture from the heat at exactly 225 degrees – should I be heating it to a higher temperature?
Any advice or thoughts would be kindly appreciated =)
The temperature sounds about right but it really can depend on so much – I think the best idea is to grab a Swede who’s done it before and ask them to show you the glass-of-water test ;)
I had no problem peeling mine but I had to boil them for quite a lot longer than I thought was enough for the firm ball stage. Luckily my BF has more patience than me and knows how it’s supposed to feel.
Hi Jessica, You need to spray with PAM in order for them not to stick.
[…] candy in Sweden and I rarely make it this early, but why not? It is after all Advent Sunday today. Here is a translation of a traditional knäck recipe. It can easily be made vegan by substituting the […]
Proper translation of “sirap” would be treacle, with the golden syrup being the closest equivalent.
The knäck (meaning the “crack”-sound it makes when first chewed) sticking to the forms can be solved either by stiring down a tablespoon butter per decilitre of sugar once it’s reached the desired hardness (120°-140°C if using a thermometer) or by the tradintional Swedish method of simply sucking on the sweet until the saliva wets the form enough to make it come lose ;-)
Your measurement reference of “dl” is confusing. Please translate to terms we use in America.
Thanks,
Cindy
Good grief.. Just Google it and translate yourself from the terms the blogger uses in her country. Don’t be so elitist; you make the rest of us Americans look bad.