Baked Spinach Omelette Roulade with Goat Cheese

Baked Spinach Omelette Roulade with Goat Cheese

In my family we really like these baked omelettes, or “madpandekager" as we call them in danish. They are easy to make and you can fill them with whatever you like. I had been craving goat cheese for a few days, so I had to try a simple filling for the omelette, but I knew I needed to add some meat to the mix, to satisfy my husbands tastebuds. The crispy prosciutto did the trick, and it added some texture to the meal as well. 

Next time, I'll add some more vegetables to the roulade. 

Serves 3-4

Ingredients:

Omelette:

• 4 eggs
• 125 g all-purpose flour
• 400 g non-fat milk
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 360 g fresh baby spinach

Filling:

• 100 g Philadelphia light plain or with onions and chives
• 1 handful kalamati olives, pitted
• 3 tablespoons sun dried tomatoes, julienned
• 1 red onion in balsamic
• 150 g goat cheese
• 8-10 thin slices prosciutto

Direction:

Preheat oven to 400℉ (200℃).

In a very large pot heat a little olive oil sauté the spinach. Cook it for about 2 minutes, until all the spinach is wilted. Let the spinach cool for at few minutes.

Whisk together the rest of the omelet ingredients. Blend the batter with the spinach until smooth and green.

Line a large jelly roll pan with parchment paper, leaving an over hang of about 1 inch at each end. Grease the parchment paper. (I learned the hard way, that you can't use multiple sheets of parchment paper. You'll just end up with the parchment paper baked into the omelette.) 

Pour in egg mixture. Gently place it in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes. Remove, allow to cool for a few minutes. Flip the omelette onto another parchment paper, so it's upside down.

Using the same jelly roll pan and parchment paper, place the prosciutto on the pan and put them into the oven for 10-12 minutes to crisp up.

Dollop on the cream cheese and spread it evenly. Sprinkle on the filling, leaving about an inch with no filling. Place the prosciutto on top. Gently roll up length ways, pulling back the parchment paper as you go.

Slice in to 6-8 slices. Serve warm or room temperature, with a simple salad on the side. 

The omelette is great for lunch or dinner, just serve a simple salad on the side. It is very easy to change it up. It works great with fresh spinach, red pepper and smoked salmon. Or with taco-seasoned ground beef, jalapeño, tomato and corn. But why not serv it with yesterdays leftovers?

Enjoy!

Crisp bread with beer

Crisp bread with beer

I have been making crisp breads (knækbrød) for a long time now, but I wanted to change the flavor profile by adding beer and rye. The beer gives the breads a bitter note, that really pairs well with blue cheese or a cold beer.

Ingredients: 

• 150 g all-purpose flour
• 50 dark rye flour
• ½  cup (1 dl) oil, (sunflower- or rapeseed)
• ¾ cup (2 dl) stout, I used Mikkeller chipotle porter
• 50 g oats
• 50 g pumpkin seeds
• 50 g flax seeds
• 50 g sunflower seeds
• 50 g sesame seeds
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1,5 teaspoon salt + more for sprinkling

Directions:

Mix all the ingredients in a stand mixer until combined.  

Divide the dough in two. Roll the dough as thin as the pumpkin seeds allow, between to sheets of parchment paper. 

Carefully remove the top parchment paper and cut the dough in desired sizes with a knife, or use a cookie cutter to make different shapes. Slide the parchment paper with the dough unto a baking sheet. Sprinkle salt, puppy seeds or other seeds. You can brush the breads with a little bit of water before sprinkling.

Bake the breads for 20 - 25 minutes at 400°F.

When the crisp breads are done, remove from oven and let cool completely on a rack and store in an airtight container.

Deep Fried Camembert

Deep Fried Camembert

I don't know the story about this dish. It might be French, but nevertheless it is very decadent and rich.

Picnic.

My parents have made deep fried camembert for me and my brother a few times. Oddly enough my brother loved it, even though he hates cheese. Well, he likes warm cheese on pizza, lasagne and in deep fried camembert. He is very weird, if you ask me...

My trip to Tomales Bay brought me to Marin French Cheese, where they made camembert, and to my surprise, they made a petit version, perfect for deep frying. We bought a bunch of small cheeses to bring with us home.

By the end of the day we opted for at small picnic by our hotel, instead of going out for dinner. I had brought some of my homemade bread and it paired perfect with the cheeses. There is nothing better than a quiet picnic with your loved one at sunset.

Serves 4.

Ingredients:

• 2-4 small camembert, with the rind on (I used petit camembert  from Marin French Cheese)
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup breadcrumbs, fresh, panko or regular
• oil, for frying
• 4 slices good bread, toasted
• blackcurrant jam 

Directions:

Put the breadcrumbs in a shallow bowl. Crack the eggs into another shallow bowl and whisk them together.

Dip each camembert into the egg, making sure to get it covered all over. Coat the cheeses with the breadcrumbs. Repeat with the rest of the camembert.

Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan until hot.

Gently drop two of the cheeses and fry until golden brown, turning once. Place the cheeses onto a piece of kitchen towel to remove excess oil.

Serve immediately on a slice of toasted bread with blackcurrant jam.

Enjoy!

Brunsviger cake

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Brunsviger

Happy 1 year Sweet•Sour•Savory

It has been a year already, it went by so fast. Looking back, I felt very exposed when I posted my very first post, like all eyes in the world would be on me. The fear dissipated, when reality set in. Nobody knew I was here, I had to work on getting people to find my blog.

I am very grateful to all the people that stops by, I'm really happy that you like my blog, and I hope you get inspiration for cooking and baking. I try to keep to my Danish roots in my cooking style, while learning and trying a lot of different cuisines.

Thank you for stopping by on my 1 year anniversary with Sweet•Sour•Savory

- o -

This cake is a traditional cake known from the island of Funen, or Fyn. I was once told that people from Funen eat this cake on top of a morning roll with butter - whereas the rest of the country eat this cake as a pastry or as a regular cake. 

During my lifetime, I've seen many different takes on the Brunsviger. Some think it's a cinnamon cake, some cakes lack filling and taste. This cake is all about the filling, otherwise it's just some brioche bread.

This recipe is not the old original from way back when. It's adapted from the different recipes I made through the years. A friend of mine told me that the secret to the best brunsviger is to add syrup to the filling. And I have to agree with her. This is by far the best brunsviger I have had in my life. 

Ingredients:

Dough: 

• 500 g all-purose flour
• 200 g butter (salted and room temperature)
• 50 g live yeast (or 4 teaspoons dry Yeast)
• 2 dl non-fat milk
• 2 eggs
• 50 g sugar
• a pinch of salt

Filling: 

• 200 g butter (salted)
• 450 g dark brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons thick syrup

Directions: 

Dough:

Heat the milk till finger warm and combine it with the yeast and half of the sugar. Let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. 

In the meantime mix the flour and butter in a stand mixer, until the butter is fully mixed in. Add the sugar, milk/yeast mixture, salt and eggs to the flour. Mix until the dough is shiny and not to sticky. Add a little more flour if its necessary.

Place the dough in a buttered springform, I would use a bigger pan next time. The brunsviger came out to high for my taste. Let dough rise for 20 - 25 minutes. 

The dough

Ready for the oven.

Poke your fingers into the dough, to make holes for the filling to rest in. Make sure to make a lot of holes.

Filling:

Melt the butter in a saucepan add ⅔ of the brown sugar and the syrup, mix it well. Spread the filling over the dough, carefully not to get in between the dough and the pan. Sprinkle the rest of the brown sugar over the cake. 

Bake the cake for 20-25 minutes at 400°F.

Let the cake cool in the pan. 

Notes:

The brunsviger can be made in advance. It freezes well after adding the filling. Defrost in the counter and let it rise before baking.

If you like more filling make 1½ time the amount, for a more sticky cake.

 

Levain Bread

Levain Bread

Levain means wild yeast in French, but is also covers the use of sourdough. A bread kan be called a Levain if the amount of compressed yeast (live yeast) doesn't exceeds 0.2%

This Levain is more sour than the breads I normally bake, but I really like the sourness with the rye flour. This bread is a good bread for artisan cheeses or as a side for dinner.

This bread came about by mistake. I was making the leaven for the basic country bread a la Tartine, but I used rye flour instead of whole wheat flour by mistake. So instead of discarding the leaven, I came up with this bread.

Makes 2 breads

Ingredients:

Leaven:

• about 2 tablespoons sourdough (the starter you keep in the refrigerator and feed every other week) 
• 200 g water (78℉)
• 70 g all-purpose flour
• 65 g rye flour

Bread:

• 600 g water
• 10 g live yeast (¾ teaspoon dry yeast)
• 3½ dl (275 g) leaven 
• 3 dl (200 g) rye flour 
• 12 dl (840 g )all-purpose flour
• 1½ tablespoons salt

Directions:

Leaven:

Make the leaven the night before you want to bake the bread. If you like a more sour note to your bread, make the leaven in the morning, and after about 8 hours fermentation, put the leaven in the refrigerator until next morning.

Mix all the ingredients well in a bowl, and let the leaven rest covered on the counter for 8-10 hours. To test leaven's readiness, drop a spoonful into a bowl of room-temperature water. If it sinks, it is not ready and needs more time to ferment and ripen. If it floats, it's ready to use. As it develops, the smell will change from ripe and sour to sweet and pleasantly fermented.

This time I just used 275 g of the sourdough 8 hours after the feeding instead of making the leaven.

Bread:

Next morning:

In a large bowl, pour in the water, yeast, sourdough, and rye flour, mix it well. Add salt and  the all-purpose flour a little at a time, until you have a firm but slightly sticky dough. You might not need all the flour.

I always knead my doughs in my stand mixer, and I knead the dough for about 8-10 minutes until the dough is a bit shiny and elastic. 

Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and let the dough rise for about 4 hours.

Pour the dough out on a non-floured kitchen table, divide the dough in 2 and shape them into rounds.

Line 2 baskets with clean kitchen towels, generously dusted with flour. Transfer each round to a basket, smooth side down and let to rest, covered, at room temperature, about 3 hours before baking.

Baking the Bread:

Twenty minutes before you are ready to bake the bread, preheat oven and dutch/french oven to 500 degrees, with rack in lowest position.

Gently flip one bread into heated dutch/french oven. Score top twice using a razor blade matfer lame. Cover with lid. Return to oven, and reduce oven temperature to 450℉. Bake for 20 minutes.

Remove lid and continue to bake until crust is deep golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes more.

Transfer loaf to a wire rack, and let it cool completely.

To bake the second loaf, raise oven temperature to 500 degrees, wipe out dutch/french oven with a dry kitchen towel, and reheat with lid for 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

This post has been submitted to the Yeast Spotting Site.