News — Estonian

Have you ever used onion skins to dye your Easter eggs? Easter is around the corner, so I’m sharing my grandmother’s recipe of the most beautiful, cheap, easy and natural egg dye: onion skins. Growing up my vanaema (Estonian for grandmother) always dyed her Easter eggs with onion skins. As a kid, I thought the patterns were cool but found the shades of orange and brown too "old school". Like many young kids, I preferred the vibrant colours that came from food colour and store-bought egg painting kits. But by the time I was a teenager old school became retro....

February 24th is Estonian Independence day, known in Estonian as Vabariigi aastapäeva. Around this time of year I find myself indulging in all the Estonian foods I grew up with, one of my favourites being kringel. A kringel is a sweet yeast bread, flavoured with cardamom and raisins, it's traditionally braided and pretzel shaped and is sometimes filled with cream or marzipan. It is usually topped with sliced almonds, powdered sugar or icing. Many Scandinavian and Northern European countries have their own version of the recipe with similar names, in Danish and Norwegian kringle, Swedish and Icelandic kringla, in Latvian kliņģeris...

Christmas Eve is the main event in many Scandinavian countries, so growing up we would always celebrate Christmas on the 24th. This is the evening we get together with family at home to have the main big dinner. After dinner "Jõuluvana" (Santa) would knock at the door and our family would sit around the christmas tree and recite poems or songs to Santa in exchange for our gift. After Santa left, we would exchange the rest of our gifts for the family.Another of my favourite Christmas memories is the fragrant smell of my parents' pot of glögg—a mulled wine made...

One of my favourite traditions growing up was baking pipparkoogid, Estonian gingersnaps. These traditional Scandinavian treats are less sweet and have a slightly more complex flavor than North American gingerbread cookies. In other Northern European countries they're called pepparkakor in Swedish and Icelandic, piparkakut in Finnish, piparkūkas in Latvian, and pepperkaker in Norwegian.********** This is my gingersnap recipe, which is my adaptation of my Ema's (my mom's) recipe. Enjoy!   Ingredients 1 cup (227g) butter 1 cup (200g) brown sugar 1 cup (200g) white sugar ¼ cup (100g) molasses ¼ cup (100g) corn syrup ½ tsp orange extract 1 tsp (g) salt 2...

Santa Lucia (or St Lucia Day) is celebrated in Scandinavian countries on the 13th of December, it's a festival of light that kicks the Christmas Season into high gear.Traditionally, the celebration involves a girl wearing a white gown and a crown of candles leading a procession of candle-bearing women singing songs about the saint. Prior to the 1700s (when calendar reforms shifted things around a little), Santa Lucia coincided with the winter solstice, hence the association with the coming of light.I tied up these tree cuttings to create the base of my candle crown. Unfortunately after I tied in the...