Ebelskiver - Æbleskiver version 2.

Ebelskiver in the making.

December the 8th, I always think back on my maternal grandmother, it was her Birthday, she would have turned 114 this year. We always gathered at my Grandma's at her birthday and had gløgg and æbleskiver (ebelskiver). 

I posted my moms recipe for æbleskiver, but this year I tweaked them a tiny bit, adding some cream into the mix, and they are still really really good.

Makes about 25-30

Ingredients:

• 250 g all-purpose flour
• 125 g butter (salted and melted)
• 250 ml milk (little over 1 cups)
• 125 ml heavy whipping cream (little over ½ cup)
• 2½ g salt (just under ½ teaspoon)
• 4 eggs
• ½ teaspoon cardamom
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 large lemon, the zest of

Directions:

Mix milk with flour, cardamom and baking powder till there's no lumps. Add the melted butter, egg yolks, salt and lemon zest. Let the batter rest for about 5 minutes. 

Separate the egg yolks from the whites. Whisk whites with a mixer until stiff peaks form. 

Gently fold in the egg whites, do not over mix the batter, but you don't want spots of egg whites in the batter.

Turning æbleskiver.

Heat the ebelskive pan. Fill the holes little over ¾.  As soon as the batter starts to bubble around the edge, turn* them halfway. When you have turned all halfway turn the ebelskiver all the way, so you end up with a perfect ball. Continue cooking, turning the ball to keep it from burning.

Serve the ebelskiver with confectionary sugar and a good quality jam.

* I use a knitting needle to turn the ebelskiver, but you can use a small fork.

Enjoy!

Brownie Batter Dip

Brownie Batter Dip

Brownie Batter Dip, I kid you not, there is such a thing. A delicious, creamy, chocolaty dip perfect for all chocoholics out there. It's extremely easy to make, and a sinful way to eat apple and pretzels. Like you need an excuse to eat apples and pretzels.

Ingredients:

• 110 g (1 stick) butter, salted and melted
• 150g sugar
• 65 g all-purpose flour
• 30 g cocoa powder (I used Valrhona)
• 125 ml plain non-fat yogurt 
• 1 pinch salt
• ½ teaspoon vanilla paste
• 1 tablespoon cold, strong brewed coffee
• colorful sprinkles

Directions:

Whisk the melted butter with sugar, and vanilla until combined. Add cocoa, flour, salt and coffee, mix until combined. Mix in yogurt, whipping it in with a hand mixer, for a creamy and soft dip. 

Put the sprinkles on top and serve the dip with sliced apples and pretzels. 

Enjoy!

Overnight Bread

Overnight Bread

Bread will always be my kryptonite. After a long pause in my bread baking, I started up again with this simple overnight bread. 

Great tasting bread with a good crispy crust. An easier take on a sourdough bread, when you don't have time to bake a Basic Country bread a la Tartine. 

Makes 2 small round loafs.

Ingredients:

• 150 g whole wheat flour
• 500 g all-purpose flour
• 500 ml water
• 5 g live yeast (about ½ teaspoon dry yeast)
• 50 ml sourdough (leaven)
• 15 g salt

Directions:

Leaven:

Feed your sourdough or leaven the night(about 8-10 hours) before you want to start making the dough. 

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.

Bread:

Mix water, yeast, sourdough and whole wheat flour in a stand mixer. Add all-purpose flour and salt, and knead the dough for 10-12 minutes, to build up the gluten in the dough.

Grease a dough-rising bucket  with a thin coat of olive oil. Let the dough rise in the prepared bucket, lid on, for about 90 minutes at room temperature. Place the dough overnight in the refrigerator.

Next take out the dough, and pour the dough 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 1 hour before baking. Meanwhile preheat oven with the dutch oven to 500℉ (260℃).

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℉(235℃). 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℉ (260℃), wipe out dutch/french oven with a dry kitchen towel, and reheat with lid for 10 minutes. Repeat the bake.

Enjoy!

Baileys French Toast

Bailey's French Toas 

Normally I like savory food  for breakfast, but sometimes I just have to have pancakes or french toast. 

We all know that Facebook is filled with videos with recipes, and this Baileys french toast is adapted from one of those videos, made by Taste. This was one recipe I had to try.
I tweaked the recipe a bit, and added the fresh berries. You need something healthy to at least try to balance the meal a bit.  

Serves 3-4. 

Ingredients:

Bailey's Whipped Cream:

• 100 ml heavy whipping cream
• 2 tablespoons Baileys 

French Toast:

• 100 ml heavy whipping cream
• 100 ml  Baileys 
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
• 1 teaspoon powdered sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• 4-6 slices brioche bread, sliced thick

Topping:

• raspberries
• grated chocolate

Directions:

Baileys Whipped Cream:

Whip the cream and Baileys in a bowl until medium stiff peaks, set aside

French Toast:

Mix eggs, cream, Baileys sugar, salt and vanilla in a shallow flat bowl.

Heat butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Give the brioche slices a quick dip in the in the egg-mixture. Fry the brioche until golden brown, then flip to cook the other side. Serve with Baileys whipped cream, fresh berries and a sprinkle of chocolate shavings.

Enjoy!

Ninja Turtle Cakes

Ninja Turtle Cakes - Ninja Kajkager

These cakes have been on my to-do list for the longest time. Normally they are made without the ninja bandana, and are called Kaj cakes. The name Kaj is the name of a puppet from a Danish children's program "Kaj og Andrea" I grew up with in the 1970's. The cake is a spongecake with a strawberry buttercream and marzipan.

This time Kaj went undercover or mutated into Teenage Ninja Turtles. 

Makes 8 cakes.

Ingredients:

Cake:

• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 150 g sugar
• 110 g all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla paste or the seeds from 1 vanilla pod

Strawberry Buttercream:

• 2 tablespoons pasteurized egg whites
• 125 g confectionary sugar
• 150 g butter, salted and room temperature
• 6 tablespoons cooled strawberry pure (Pure:400 g strawberries boiled with 25 g sugar, blended and strained)
• Red food color, optional

Decorating:

• Strawberry jam
• 200 g Marcipan
• green food color (orange, puple, red and blue for the bandana's)
• dark chocolate, small flakes for the eyes

Directions:

Cake: 

Preheat oven to 350℉ (180℃).

Spray three 9-inch (22 cm) baking pans. Place a piece of parchment paper in the bottom of each and spray this too. Set aside. 

Whisk the eggs light and foamy with the sugar, it takes about 5 minutes to get maximum foaming when whisking on a stand mixer.

Mix and sift flour and baking powder together, and set aside. 

Very gently fold the flour, vanilla and milk in the foamy eggs. Be very careful not to deflate the egg mixture to much.

Pour the batter onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet

Bake the cake for about 8-10 minutes, until light brown.

Set aside to cool.

You only need about a third of the cake for the 8 cakes.

Strawberry Buttercream:

Mix egg whites, butter, sugar in a bowl, and whip the buttercream until thick and fluffy over a double boiler. I used a saucepan with very hot water, and placed my bowl on top of that. I didn't have it on the stove. It takes some time to get the buttercream nice and fluffy. Save 1-2 tablespoons of this white buttercream for decorating. Mix in the strawberry pure. Put buttercream into a piping bag, with a large round tip.

Marzipan:

Color most of the marzipan with green color. Color small amounts marzipan with blue, purple, orange and red for the bandanas.

Assembly:

Ninjas in the making.

Using a cookie cutter cut out 8 circles about 2-inch (5 cm) in diameter. Divide each disk horizontally. Spread a thin layer of jam between the two thin disk of cake. Pipe a nice top onto the disk. 

Roll the green marzipan out very thin. I did it a little at a time between two pieces of plastic wrap.   Wrap the marzipan on top of the buttercream, trying to seal the marzipan close to the cake disk. This way you end up with a green bobble.

Cut a large slid into the cake in about a 45 degree angle, press a little on each side to open the cut. This will be the mouth. 

Roll out the colored marzipan and cut a ribbon for the bandana. Pipe white buttercream dots on top of the bandana, for the eyes, place a small chocolate flake on top for the pupil. 

Serve the cake with a cup of tea or coffee. 

Enjoy!