Today was not one of my best. Very high levels of extra pain-relief on top of what I normally take has exhausted me this week. I spent almost all day in bed - slept until 1430h and then read the interweb on my phone (because I finally can again!) until 1800h, at which point I was craving coffee and remembered I had mömmudraumur from last night in the fridge to have with it! Obviously too late to go to get coffee - even from Notte Street Coffee, to whom I have recently grown hooked. I've thankfully got my trusty Tassimo in my bedroom - it's been a bedroom fixture for about 4 years now - and is perfect for days like today, in which normal movements like walking or opening a window are enough to pull the relevant joints completely out of place and as I sit here, my shoulders are all over the place. I just got up to open the window as I feel too hot yet too cold at the same time and that tells me that the dysautomnia and POTS end of the Ehlers-Danlos symptombank have kicked in. There's not a lot I can do other than plenty of fluids and salt - so I'm having a big bag of Doritos and one of their over-salted sour cream dips with it to try and help. I can remember when Doritos were "new" in the UK - I remember it was a summer holiday and every day mother would stop working at her sewing machine (she sewed dry-suits from home, piece-work, awful workload and awful pay and she was doing it to feed and clothe me though of course I never really appreciated it until many years later) and send me to the shops to get some crisps, a can of coke each and she would make sandwiches - I remember thinking Doritos and Dr Pepper - both of which were new that summer I think - were the height of sophistication as of course they were "American" and to me, growing up dirt-poor in a UK backwater, anything "American" was "posh" somehow. So I always get a pang of nostalgia when I eat them even 20 odd years later.
The mömmudraumur is just delicious - I've eaten 1/4 of it already...! It's a nice texture and the súkkulaðismjörkrem is superior to English buttercream, that's for sure! I don't think I'd normally say strawberries and chocolate was one of my favourite combinations but in this cake, it just works, hands down.
I took the piparkökur dough out of the fridge and decided not to roll it as it was very, very hard and I was not going to manage it without dislocating my wrists. I instead rolled it with my hands (still in the clingfilm) on the granite slab until it was a rough sausage-shape and then cut it into rounds with my vegetable knife (the kind with air-pockets on the blade so things don't stick to it). I then cut them in half and realised I had about 40 biscuits-worth of dough...! So, I put half of them into the freezer raw to have at a later date - they only take "5-8 minutes", so says Nanna Rögnvaldardóttir in her book, but I found they took longer - I put the oven to 160°C (180°C for non-fan-ovens) and put them in on a baking tray - 20 or so on one tray - and baked them for a total of about 15 minutes - I took them out after 10 minutes but they were too squishy so they went back in.
They've been cooling since but I've had one of them - very, very spicy and fragrant and I may not glaze them after all but if I do, here's the recipe:
Piparkökur Gljáa (Pepper Cookie Glaze - this is actually my variation of a soft lebkuchen glaze)
1/2 cup golden caster sugar
1/4 cup hot water
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp amaretto (Disaronno is perfect for this as it's quite fruity)
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 star of star anise
Boil the caster sugar, water and star anise for 2 minutes and then remove from the heat and remove the anise. Add the vanilla extract and amaretto with stirring and then add the icing sugar, stirring until it has dissolved completely (heat slightly if need be).
Paint onto biscuits/lebkuchen and leave to set at room temperature overnight.
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