I’m heading to Sweden tomorrow to cover the Vårgårda World Cups. It will be another country ticked off the list – to say that I’m excited would be an understatement. I’ve known Emma Johansson ever since working as a press officer for Orica-AIS, and the 12-time Swedish national champion always gushes about her birth country (and neighboring Norway – where she and her husband live for most of the year).
When I started to plan this Sweden trip, I added in one extra day to hopefully do a bit of exploring. While the travel associated with the job may sound glamourous, it really isn’t. And the places I visit for work usually end up on my ever-growing list of places I want to visit on my own time. Most travel for races leaves little time to do more than work. Not that I’m complaining. I’ll take non-glamourous work travel over an office any day, but this time, I knew I wanted to fit in a bit of fun, too.
Naturally, I reached out to Emma and asked if she had any suggestions about how I should spend my “bonus day” in Sweden. Rather than respond with things I should do, she responded by telling me things I should eat – kanelbulle, kladdkaka, blåbärs paj, chokladboll and morots kaka. “They’re all typically Swedish, and they’re all really, really good,” she told me.
When I told her I was actually looking for things to do, she explained that I would have go to the cafés – and when I go to the cafés, these are things I would need to eat.
I can’t argue with that.
In honour of the upcoming Swedish World Cups and Emma’s recommendations, I have been pouring over chokladboll recipes – which I have decided will most definitely be the first of the Swedish treats that I will sample. You may not be in Sweden this weekend, but with this choklaboll recipe, you can bring a little Sweden to your kitchen with this recipe.
The original recipe came from xoxocooks – and they even had this video to go along with the written instructions:
Ingredients
Makes 30
- 2 cups old fashioned oats
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup cocoa powder
- 1/2 cup butter, cut into pieces
- 2 tablespoons coffee
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 30 grams dark chocolate, melted
- 1/2 cup coconut flakes
Preparation
- Blend the oats, sugar, cocoa powder and butter in a food processor. If you don’t have a food processor, you can use an immersion blender to chop to oats and then mix the rest together by hand.
- Add the vanilla and coffee. Blend or mix some more.
- Add the melted chocolate. Continue to blend or mix. At this point, your consistency should be pie-crust like.
- Roll the mixture into small balls.
- Pour coconut into a big bowl or on a plate. Roll each bowl in the coconut until fully coated.
- Refrigerate for an hour – and then enjoy!