Greetings from cold Sweden! It just wouldn’t be right if my first ever recipe post from my new country wasn’t something Swedish, so I present to you a (yet another) Swedish baked good. This time it’s something which some of you may already be familiar with thanks to that global giant IKEA. In some countries, they sell giant boxes filled with “havreflarn”, although I think they call them “dubbel havreflarn”, since it’s actually two, sandwiched together with chocolate. Actually, a brief search on the internet tells me that in some countries they even sell “plain” havreflarn, so there you go. Now you can make them yourself. Goodness knows they’re better that way, although you might not want to make them too often, since they have a nasty habit of finding their way into your mouth and a plateful of the things seems to disappear rather swiftly.
So what actually are these things you might be wondering, if you’ve never had the good fortune of trying them? Well, think of an oat cookie, except it’s light and crisp, and it all spreads out in the oven to be thin, oaty and delicious. I had a few problems with the sizing of them. Ideally they should be a bit smaller and preferably all evenly sized. Mine were all over the place but such is life. The proof of the pudding is in the eating they say and these were fantastic. The entire batch lasted only a few hours!
Something else to enjoy with your Swedish coffee break, or “fika“, which I spoke about in an earlier post! If you wanted to go full-IKEA then you could probably sandwich these together with melted chocolate too, although they’re perfectly wonderful just on their own.
In other news things are coming along well here. I’m gradually adapting to my new life. The cold will take some getting used to, as will the darkness. I went out the other day and it was “night” by around 3pm – yikes! In case you wondered, my son seems to be adapting to things very well, although we’ve had a job finding him winter shoes. Let’s just say that his ankles are… ahem… not on the small side, so while we’ve found plenty of shoes which would normally be perfect, as well as being lovely and warm, trying to stuff his feet and ankles into them didn’t turn out so well.
We do have a pair now, and went out for a walk today. Poor guy isn’t really used to the concept of the floor being covered in snow and ice so kept sliding about. Makes me look forward to pushing him about on a sled and building snowmen with him when he’s a bit older though (not to mention having some snowball fights!).
Enjoy the havreflarn folks, I’ll be back soon with something new!
Havreflarn
Ingredients
- 100 g Butter
- 100 g Rolled Oats
- 150 g Caster Sugar
- 1 Egg
- 1 tbsp Plain Flour
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
Instructions
- Start off by preheating your oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Melt the butter and then mix together with the oats.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg and sugar until pale. Add the oat and butter mixture in to the egg and sugar along with the flour and baking powder. Mix well until completely combined.
- On baking sheets lined with baking paper, place teaspoonfuls of the mixture - you should end up making about 30 in total - allowing ample room between the batter for spreading during baking.
- Place into the oven and bake for about 6 to 7 minutes until well spread and starting to turn golden brown.
- Remove and allow to cool on the tray before removing from the baking paper and serving.
Love that you found a photo of poor Willy which shows the chubby ankles! 🙂 And I can confirm that the havreflarn only lasted half a day…
<3
Oh my goodness Charles, look at how big your boy is!!! I’m away from the IE’s kitchen for a while but wanted to drop in to welcome you home. William is gorgeous and so are your crispy oat cookies…they excite me!
Thanks Kelly – hope to see you back on your blog soon too! 🙂
Hi Charles, I’m so glad to hear that you’re settling into the new location well. Darkness at 3pm would be a difficult one for me to swallow; I suggest you get one of those sunshine lights, we had one at work and I can tell you it really worked—just 15 minutes and it really elevates your mood!
These cookies remind me of the Australian Anzac biscuits, they look wonderful and I bet they were incredibly tasty. Well, they sure must have been to disappear in a few hours! It’s no wonder little William has such thick ankles, his Daddy is such an incredible cook! In North America, thick calves are a huge problem and the boot manufacturers are now making ladies boots with elastic calves and really generous sized calves, which makes it difficult for people like me who have what I have coined as ‘bird legs’ a trait I inherited from my dear Mom. I can almost fit two of my calves into some of the boots they are selling.
I’m going to start my Christmas baking list and these beauties will definitely have to get on it this year. I’m not sure where I’ll find the time though, this food styling assisting is sure taking off…I’m already booked for 8 days in December and then I’ve offered to assist one of the stylists for their portfolio, but that’s only for experience, not pay. It’s working with one of the premiere food photographers in the city, so it’s exciting all around. Plus, there probably isn’t any real work the week before Christmas.
Hi Eva, not sure if I need a fancy lamp – at the moment I’m going to the gym for an hour each day or so and that’s doing wonders to lift my mood when I’m feeling grouchy. Will see how it goes – coming to a place with so much less daylight right now is certainly a big adjustment.
I’d almost forgotten about your epic Christmas bake-sessions! I hope we will be able to hear about it on your blog. I look forward to seeing what you decide to make this year! 🙂
Good luck with the work in December – keep us posted on how it goes too!
Hi Charles..Your baby looks so cute and I was looking for a good oat cookie recipe..These look thinner than what I had in mind but I already have an idea on how to use them..
Have you moved to Sweden now for good? I just moved to London for what seems to be our final destination..Missing Germany a lot though 🙁
Hi Nada, if you’re after an oat cookie then can I recommend these:
https://homesweetsweden.com/index.php/2013/05/awesome-oat-cookies/
They’re more cookie-like and they rock (seriously!). Since you’re in England now you’ll be able to easily get Golden Syrup too.
These are really nice but they’re more like a crisp instead of a cookie :).
I have moved to Sweden for good now, yes. Well, that’s the plan at least. One never knows what life has in store but we plan to settle down permanently here now :).
I just want to hug your little boy and the chubby ankles are not a deterrent in any way. 🙂
Your havreflarn are similar (no egg) to a recipe for florentines I ran across … it was too healthy for serious consideration since it replaced the ground nuts with whole or chopped rolled oats. I don’t know why you said they weren’t uneven in size, the stack in your picture looks good to me.
Thanks A_ – I had to laugh at your description of the recipe you found… “too healthy for serious consideration”. lol… you only live once after all, right?! 😀
I love havreflarn. I think they’re best not sandwiched, butbeaten and savoured one by one. GGGLAMOROUS
That should, of course be eaten, not beaten, one by one! Autocorrect! GG
Hi GG, I quite agree, although I wouldn’t say no to a sandwiched one if it was going begging 😀
Oh William is so cute! I want to give him a big cuddle, cutie pie! I hope his tootsies keep warm.
So glad you are feeling at home now, even if the sun sets at 3! And here I was thinking 4.30 was early in Colorado.
These cookies look delectable, I’m going to add them to my Swedish tea time list 🙂 They’re so easy to make too and I love that.
Looking forward to more Swedish recipes from your new Swedish kitchen.
Nazneen
Hi Nazneen, I think my son “runs hot”. He seems to be incapable of feeling cold and gets furious when you try to wrap him up. At night he will wake up from sleep if he detects a blanket has been placed on him and proceed to kick it off!
Naturally he tries to disrobe himself of gloves, socks, hats, at every opportunity too. Talk about a battle! 😀
Charles, I made these this week and they were wonderful! They didn’t last long either. I took a photo and was going to post it in your FB page, just got busy with cooking for Thanksgiving. Thanks for the recipe, they were great.
Nazneen
Hoorway, thanks for letting me know Nazneen – glad they turned out well! 🙂
Charles, another little Swedish cookie I’m going to have to try! I’ve never been to Ikea (I knooow–unheard of!), so they are new to me. Your little guy has the exact opposite problem that I have–I have AAAA-width feet and the appropriate sized ankles to go with them!
Hi Jean! I used to go to IKEA in France for the food store alone, but then they changed it and started stocking “IKEA brand” stuff only which was, by and large, terrible. Not sure if they changed it now but now I’m in Sweden anyway so no need to go shopping for food at IKEA, lol :D.
I love those! they look yummy!
Thank you Dina 🙂
Greetings from Barcelona 🙂 You’re right, IKEA is my source of Swedish food. Ups.
Mm, I loved that they used to sell crayfish in August, Christmas hams in December… they don’t seem to do that anymore. Really sad 🙁
Perfect way to greet us from your new home country. I did taste these at IKEA (they put now small pieces of many products and I was really surprised how their “instant” dark bread was good!). I loved them! They were however much too sweet for my taste, so I’m glad I now have a recipe and can add as much sugar as I wish!
Darkness might be difficult to get used to, but I am sure you find lots of positive sides in your new life. I suppose William be the quickest one to adapt to a new life!
As for the ankles… I agree with Eva: you are such a great cook, no wonder he has appetite and chubby ankles 😉 Lucky guy: he is still at the age when chubbiness is considered cute…
Hi Sissi, I’m curious, do you mean the instant dark bread which you bake yourself, using that carton of… liquid dough stuff, or do you mean their ready-baked stuff?
By the way, I’m wondering if you had a chance to see my previous post? I’m not expecting you to comment or anything, but I put some nice photos there which I thought you might like. Just wanted to make sure you’d seen them maybe, if you were interested 🙂
Hi Charles, now I have realised I haven’t seen your previous post. Otherwise I would have commented of course. I haven’t heard from you for such a long time (a month? or more?), I somehow missed it and thought it was your first post from Sweden. I will go and see it now!
I meant the powdered bread mixture in a carton (it wasn’t not liquid). They advertised it leaving small bits of bread they have baked from this mixture. It was surprisingly good, though I would have to make a tiny batch I guess. I am the only one at home eating dark bread and I am not able to have it every day… but I like it a lot occasionally.
By the way, I have just come back from Paris… pity it was too late to meet…
Aaah, it’s too bad! Right after I leave 🙁 I hope we can meet in Sweden some time :).
I think I do know the bread. I thought it was liquid (well, dough-like), but I guess I can’t properly remember it so it must be powder. I tried to make it a couple of times. I never had good luck with it. It was always inedibly hard and dense, but I’m glad you enjoy it!
Oooh I love these crispy little treats. I have never made them though so I am pleased you shared the recipe and it seems fairly straightforward 🙂 So glad to hear you are settling in. Night time at 3pm? And Winter is not really upon you yet! Good luck and keep warm my friend xx
Thanks Anneli – I bought a fantastic coat the other day. Stood outside for 30 minutes in the night taking photos and didn’t even feel the cold… nice!
I would have forgotten: I don’t know if it’s still the same, but until recently Swedes were the biggest consumers of coffee in whole Europe! Not Italians. Nor the French. I was really surprised to hear it, but I thought that cold weather, short days make people sleepy, so it does have an explanation.
I’ve heard the same and I’m not surprised. My mother for example drinks maybe 12-15 cups of coffee per day — and those are big cups too — and she downs the last one just before going to bed.
Wow! It sounds even more than my mum drinks! (And I have always considered her a big coffee drinker… I drink no more than three coffees a day). My mum is also able to drink a strong cup of coffee and go to sleep instantly.
Hi Sissi, I had actually heard this, yes, although I think I read that Finland is actually first in the world, with Sweden second, but checking Wikipedia now it says that as of 2008 Sweden is actually only in 6th place, although Finland is still at the top. Surprisingly, Netherlands is ahead of Sweden. All the Scandinavian countries are in the top 6 which is absolutely fascinating.
Fascinating, indeed. Must be the climate and also habits I guess.
I think he’s got cute ankles and I’m glad he’s got new shoes. When mine were little and toilet trained it was dressing them all up for the cold, go outside only to hear, “I have to pee.” yay.
I’d need several of these havreflarn for the undressing and re-dressing. 🙂 They look fantastic.
Haha, it’s like a mini-mission to get Wills ready for going out in the snow. So many things to put on. Imagine if you had 2 or 3 young kids?!
The cookies look very good and I think these would be very moorish in the cold weather. I’ve never been exposed to those sorts of temperatures where the ground is covered in ice and snow and where darkness falls at 3pm. How do people get their Vitamin D? I had the opposite issue with buying shoes for my children; their ankles were so thin I couldn’t get the shoes to stay on their feet! xx
Hi Charlie, you made me curious and I found this:
“some studies have found that between five and 30 minutes of sun exposure to your unprotected face, arms, legs or back between the hours of 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. two to three times every week is enough for your body to produce all the D3 it needs”
Good to know! 😀 Maybe we store it up in the summer months too when it hardly gets dark, lol 😀
I can never resist an oat cookie, these look scrumptious and just the thing to help pass the long winter evenings (though I’d struggle with night arriving at 3 pm!). Cute photo of William too!
Thanks Laura! Give it another month and night will fall at 2pm instead, yikes!
Ohh thanks to IKEA I know what are you talking about! 🙂 We love these! Either sandwich or not, I love the texture of the cookies! Night time by 3pm? You need some fun “night” time activities (definitely not shooting photography in such darkness). 😉 So glad to hear all is well with your family!
Hi Nami, give it another month and it will be night around 2pm, lol. Happy days.
I’ll tell you a true statistic: births in Sweden often peak in the summer, around July usually. Conveniently 9 months after the dark and cold months 😀
Oh Charles, thanks so much for sharing how little William is handling the snow and ice and your search for a pair of boots. He is SO CUTE! Your story reminds me of a video I saw the other day. I have to find it and send it to you. Now for the cookies. Oh how I love thin crispy cookies!!! They are my favorite. Bobby likes the thick chewy kinds so I’ll have to make a batch just for me. 🙂
Thanks for the video MJ – it was so cute :). My son almost does the same. If he falls over he just kind of lies there, like he’s smelling the snow :D. I think he finds it a bit hard to move with all the outside clothes! 😀
Greetings from a freezing East Coast of US Charles! Your son is just adorable!! It does look like a recipe easy enough to try, and looks delicious. I must check these out when I visit Ikea next time.
Thanks Minnie – do try and get some (or just make some even!). They sell them in huge boxes, although they don’t last long, lol!
William is just getting more and more handsome Charles. His eyes are just dazzling and bright. Such a cutie! I have a feeling that these little cookies would disappear very quickly here. Any cookie with oats is a winner with all four of us. Perhaps will give them a go this holiday and bring a little bit of Sweden to our home. 🙂
Thanks Kristy – he said his first “proper” word today, i.e. not “Dada”, or “Mama”. The word was: “Butter”, lol!
These look really good. Something different to “lacy cookies” which can get very fatty/buttery in the mouth. It took me a long time to accept oats in cookies but I’m actually liking them 🙂 looking forward to giving them a go when I buy new cookie pans 🙂
I’m sure you’ll settle in quickly.. Your boy is a beaut! Wishing him many happy days ahead 🙂
Oh, oats in cookies are the best! I think the basis of all good cookies should be oats! 😀
I’m not a good cook so I’m thankful to be able to get these from our local IKEA. They are my absolute favorite. Just the right hint of sweetness and fantastic with a cup of tea. 🙂