For anyone who has been following this blog for a while, you might remember that January is a special month in our home (at the very least, you may remember me being absent for a few months around this time last year 🙃). As this was the month our daughter, Bee, was born!
So of course we had to celebrate her first birthday in style and landed on the theme of her favorite book: The Very Hungry Caterpillar (at least, it was her favorite book back in September when I ordered everything… now it’s “Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?” But hey, at least that’s the same author 🙃).
Now, I am not claiming this party was anywhere near Pinterest-worthy, but I put a lot of fun and effort into it, so I wanted to share it all in this January post! But also this is about the cherry grottor I made for the party (will be explained later 😊).
This party was mostly for close adult family and friends (unfortunately her two cousins her age got really sick and couldn’t make it), but I still wanted there to be some activities for Bee.
One was playing with these adorable Eric Carle themed stacking blocks I found on Amazon.
Another was putting play fruit in this cardboard caterpillar mouth (ya… he’s a bit creepy but I did my best 😂).
And finally, we brought out the ball pit (aka balls in a pack-n-play) that we got her for Christmas (and has been a BIG hit!).
One of my favorite “activities” I put out for the adults was to write a message to Bee in this caterpillar-themed Love book… each page has a different adorable saying (like, “you are the Bees knees” and “you make my heart flutter”… it’s really the cutest book ever). Each person wrote her a note on a different page and it is so special 💗.
Of course, the Hungry Caterpillar theme wouldn’t be complete without the food… after all, the book is basically a food journal for a HUNGRY caterpillar. And I was so excited when I found these perfect FREE labels that show everything the caterpillar ate (if you use these, note: chocolate is spelled wrong…)
A lot of the food is straight forward, like the fruit or lollipops or cupcakes! For the “chocolate cake” I made homemade chocolate cupcakes, but also made white “funfetti” ones (which Bee enjoyed smashing into after we sang Happy Birthday in English and Swedish 🙃). And side note: I learned that you can actually whip store bought frosting on high until it doubles to make a lighter and more delicious frosting for half the work of making it from scratch 👍.
For some of the food I had to get more creative. Like ice cream cones, for example. There was no way I was going to worry about scooping ice cream (and who really wants ice cream in January?), so I decided to fill the cones with a mix of chocolate covered fruit and nuts.
Another food item that I twisted a bit was the cherry pie… with all the other prep to do, I wasn’t super interested in the idea of making a full cherry pie. I’ve been meaning to try and make a Swedish classic called hallongrottor (translate: raspberry caves) ever since we discovered they are our favorite treat at the local bakery… so I decided to take this opportunity to make my own twist… cherry grottor (ya ya, not that different but still a delicious idea in my opinion)!
My in-laws brought these super cute cupcake liners… and the little ones were perfect for my grottor!
Now I have to admit, I made these multiple times, and still can’t seem to get them to look as perfect as our local bakery… but I promise they taste (almost) as delicious! They are buttery and soft (I prefer them slightly under-baked for this texture), which match perfectly with the tart but sweet oozing cherry goo in the middle. I personally think these are supposed to be more “deep” than “wide” when it comes to the hole for the jam (or marmalade in this case), as the name grottor or “cave” would suggest… but that’s just me.
While I love my classic hallongrottor, I REALLY liked this cherry version (dare I say, I may prefer it? 😬)… and I bet there are even more creative and delicious fillings for these buttery shortbread cookies… so whether you go classic, cherry, or something else entirely, I hope you give these Swedish cookies a chance!
Cherry Grottor
One thing to keep in mind is the dough is like a shortbread – so its important for the butter to be cold. It also means the dough will feel too crumbly at first, but I promise it will come together! Another tip is that these look much neater if you really roll the dough into perfectly round and smooth balls… if not, they may come out looking a bit lumpy. Finally, I had a hard time finding cherry jelly or jam, but found cherry marmelade in the cheese/chacuterie section of our local store – use whatever you can find!
Ingredients
- 2 cups flour / 4.5dl vetemjöl
- 6 tablespoons sugar / 1dl socker
- 1 teaspoon baking powder / bakpulver
- 2 teaspoons vanilla sugar / vaniljsocker
- 14 tablespoons butter / 200g smör
- cherry marmelade / körsbärsmarmelad
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 200°C / 400°F
- In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients.
- Using a pastry cutter (or two forks) cut in chunks of cold butter until the mixture is crumbly.
- Use your hands to help squeeze the dough together until it is a solid mass.
- Roll ping-pong size balls of dough and place in mini-cupcake liners on a baking tray.
- Using your finger, poke a deep hole in the center of each ball (but not going all the way through).
- Spoon in cherry marmelade into each hole, careful not to overfill.
- Bake in a preheated oven for 8-9 minutes (underdone is better than overdone).
- Wait for the cookies to cool, then enjoy!
Half & Halv 
