Snöbollar - Snowballs

These confections are a hybrid of something baked and a sweet and are often called "chokladbullar" = Chocolate Rolls. But in my grandmother's recipe book they are named Snow Balls, a much more poetic name. I prefer her old fashioned recipe which produces a lovely chocolate- coffee- vanilla taste.

This is perhaps the most common treat for Swedish children as they are incredibly fast and easy to make and require no oven. The kids can even whip these up by themselves and with ingredients that are usually in the pantry. In Sweden you will find variations of this treat in gas stations as well as the fanciest of bakeries.

When I was little and craved a treat my mother or I would make these in less time than it would have taken us to go to the shop and buy sweets. My kids have also grown up with these, and dare I say so have most Swedish children!

I will always associete these treats with a petrifying occurence in first or second grade. Us kids took turns bringing something in for "class hour", a weekly scheduled time to play games, tell jokes and have show and tell. I had promised to bring Snowballs, as my grandmother's recipe had been a great success at my birthday party. After all the skits and sing-alongs it was finally time to wrap it up with cordial and sweets. The honor fell to me to carry the tin around and serve out the little treats. After passing it round to all my class mates I turned to our teacher who was smiling expectantly and sweetly. But alas! The tin was empty! Horror! Her face fell and my heart sank in agony! I didn't know how to handle the situation and wanted to sink through the floor. How could this have happened? Had I sampled the goods on my way to school, assuming that mother had chosen to err on the safe side? Surely not..?

The recipe uses an old fashioned measurement; kkp (coffee cups). One kkp = 1.5 dl

Ingredients:

4 kkp rolled oats
just under 2 kkp sugar
100 g softened butter
2-3 tbsp cocoa powder
4-5 tsp vanilla sugar
6-8 tbsp strong cold coffee

coconut flakes or sprinkles to decorate

Method:

Mix butter and sugar in a bowl until fluffy.

Mix cocoa powder and vanilla sugar and sift into the bowl and stir in. Mix in the sugar.

Pour in oats and combine, then add coffee.

Mix together thoroughly, until the oats start to fall apart a little and the mixture forms a soft sticky dough. Taste, and adjust amounts of cocoa, vanilla and coffee if needed.

If the batter is too loose to form into balls, put it in the fridge until it sets a little and try again. Alternatively you can add some more oats.

Roll into walnut sized balls (or make tiny, or giant ones!) and roll them in the coconut or sprinkles until covered. I sometimes place them into tiny paper cups to make them look festive for an occasion. Store in the fridge in an air tight container. Best eaten within a couple days (not that they have ever survived being gobbled up any longer than that!).