Passionfruit Petit Four

Passionfruit petit four

Passion fruit is the best fruit in the world. The tiny fruit has a big, bold tropical flavor. It is the taste of vacation.

I just found passionfruits in my local store I had to make these small dessert cakes (petit four) from chocolat.dk, that I have been wanting to make for the longest time.

It's a no-bake dessert with chocolate, with flavors that burst in your mouth.

4 small cakes.

Ingredients:

Crust:

• 30 g hazelnuts

• 70 g good milk chokolate

• 30 g pop rock candy (without flavor)

Filling:

• 40 g good white chocolate

• 25 g cream

• 2-3 passionfruits

Directions:

Crust:

Roast the nuts in the oven at 400°F (200°C) and grind them to a flour.

Melt the chocolate over a water bath, let the chocolate cool to 90°F (32℃), then mix in the pop rock candy and hazelnut flour.

Put the "dough" in the mini tart mold, don't make the crust to thick. Let the crust cool in the refrigerator.

Filling:

Chop the chocolate finely, and put it in a bowl, and set aside.

Cut open the passion fruits and scoop out the flesh/juice and strain out the seeds, set aside.

Bring the cream and passionfruit juice to a boil and pour it over the chocolate. Stir until all the chocolate is melted. Let the filling cool before pouring into the crusts. 

Keep the cakes in the refrigerator until you serve them. Decorate with freeze-dried passionfriut or shaved chocolate.

Serve the cakes with berries and a good vanilla ice cream.

Smørkage - Danish Butter Cake

Smørkage - Danish Butter Cake

Smørkage, or butter cake is another traditional Danish pastry. We have this cake in two versions, one made with real pastry dough and this one made with a sweet yeast dough, resembling the American cinnamon rolls.

This recipe is by far easier than making real pastry, and the taste is still really good. My cake turned out a bit darker than I expected.

Makes one 9 to 11 inch cake.

Ingredients:

Dough:

• 40 g yeast
• 100 ml milk
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon cardamom
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 stick (114 g) butter, salted & room temperature
• 350 g all-purpose flour

Remonce:

• 100 g sugar
• 100 g butter, salted & room temperature
• 50 g marzipan (almond paste), grated
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon

Custard:

• 2 egg yolks
• 1 teaspoons vanilla paste
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1½ tablespoons cornstarch 
• 300 ml (≃1⅓ cups) milk

Directions:

Custard:

Beat the egg yolks and sugar until pale in color. Whisk in the cornstarch and vanilla paste.

Heat the milk to a slow boil, set aside. 

While whisking vigorously drizzle the warm milk into the egg yolk mixture, just a tiny bit at a time at first. Once you’ve added about ¼ of the milk, you can add the rest in a thin stream, whisking constantly.

Pour the mixture back in the saucepan and reheat it over medium heat. Whisk constantly until it thickens, and let it get to a boil. Remove from heat and chill the custard in a bowl in the refrigerator. Sprinkle with sugar or press a film of plastic wrap against custard so it doesn’t form a pudding skin.

Remonce:

Mix the ingredients to a brown paste, set aside.

Dough:

Dissolve the yeast in the finger-warm milk, add the sugar and let it sit for a few minutes. Add the eggs. Mix flour salt, cardamom and pour into the yeast-mixture with the butter. Knead the dough until it's elastic and shinny. Let the dough rest in a bowl covered with a tea towel for about 30 minutes.

Butter a 9 or 11 inch springform and set aside.

Take about ⅓ of the dough and roll it out in a circle 9 or 11 inch in diameter. Lay it in the bottom of the springform, and spread remonce and custard on top.

Roll the rest of the dough into a rectangle 8x12 inch (20x30 cm). Spread the rest of the remonce and custard on top. Roll up the dough spread like a roulade. Cut the roulade in 8 pieces and place them on top of the dough in the springform, cut side up.  

Let the cake rise for about 30 minutes. Preheat oven for 400℉ (210℃).

Brush with egg-wash and sprinkle with slivered almonds. Bake for about 15-18 minutes, cover cake with a piece of aluminum foil, and bake for another 18-20 minutes.

Take the cake out of the springform, and let the cake cool completely, before you decorate with white icing (hot water and confectionary sugar).

Enjoy.

Apple Cake with Hazelnuts and Apple Syrup

Apple Cake with Hazelnuts and Apple Syrup

Normally you would make apple pie or apple cake in the autumn, when the apples are in season. But frankly I can eat this cake anytime of the year. The crunch from the hazelnuts with the sweet apples is a perfect match.

Makes a 9" cake feeding 8-10 people.

Ingredients:

• 3-5 apples, I used jonagold, peeled, cored, halved, and sliced
• 1⅓ cup (3 dl) apple juice
• ⅔ cup (1½ dl) apple cider 
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon vanilla paste

The dough:

• 375 g sugar
• 225 g (2 sticks) butter, salted and room temperatur
• 375 g hazelnuts
• 3 eggs
• 1 egg white
• 75 g all-purpose flour

Directions:

Mix cider, juice, honey and vanilla, and set aside.

Peel, core and slice the apples. Put the apple slices in the cider mixture to marinate for about 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350℉ (175℃).

In the meantime, make the dough, cream the butter with the sugar and add the eggs (and egg white) one at a time.

Grind the hazelnuts to a flour, mix it with the all-purpose flour and add it to the butter. 

Spray the springform with vegetable oil and spread the dough in it.

Drain the apple slices, save the marinade, and put the slices on top of the dough. Press the apple slices into the dough. 

Bake cake for 60-90 minutes, and let cool completely before removing from the pan. 

Pour the cider mixture into a saucepan, and reduce it, until you have a sirup. Brush the sirup on the cake.

Serve the cake room temperature with some light whipped cream, creme fraiche or a good vanilla ice cream.

The cake will be very soft in the middle, the day you bake it, but the pectin in the apples will make the cake more firm as it sits. I usual bake it a day in advance.

Enjoy.

Source: Claus Meyer.

Kanelstænger - Cinnamon Danish

Kanelstænger - Cinnamon Danish

Kanelstænger, or Cinnamon danish, is one of the more common pastries in Denmark. They are kinda like a large cinnamon roll cut up. Compared with real pastry, where you roll layers of butter into a dough, this recipe is really easy to make. The worst part is the custard, and when you have made that a few times, its easy too.

Ingredients:

Custard:

• 3 Egg Yolks
• 3 tablespoons Sugar
• 2 tablespoon Cornstarch
• 5 dl (2 cups) Milk
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Paste

Dough:

• 40 g live yeast or 3½ teaspoons dry yeast
• 1¾ dl (¾ cup) water
• 35 g sugar
• 4 g salt
• 4 g cardamom
• 1 egg
• 35 g butter, salted & room temperature 
• 400 g all-purpose flour

Remonce:

• 200 g butter, salted & room temperature 
• 200 g sugar
• 35 g cinnamon

Directions:

Custard:

Beat the egg yolks and sugar until pale in color. Whisk in the cornstarch and vanilla paste.

Heat the milk to a slow boil, set aside. 

While whisking vigorously drizzle the warm milk into the egg yolk mixture, just a tiny bit at a time at first. Once you’ve added about ¼ of the milk, you can add the rest in a thin stream, whisking constantly.

Pour the mixture back in the saucepan and reheat it over medium heat. Whisk constantly until it thickens. Remove from heat an chill the custard in a bowl in the refrigerator. Sprinkle with sugar or press a film of plastic wrap against custard so it doesn’t form a pudding skin.

Remonce:

Mix the ingredients to a brown paste, set aside.

Dough:

Dissolve the yeast in the finger-warm water, add the sugar and let it sit for a few minutes. Add the egg. Mix flour salt, cardamom and pour it into the yeast-mixture with the butter. Knead the dough until it's elastic and shinny. Let the dough rest in a bowl covered with a tea towel for about 30 minutes.

Divide the dough into 3 pieces, and roll them to 15x25 cm (6x8 inch) rectangles.

Spread ⅓ of the remonce on the dough, leave a little piece along the long side clear.  Put ⅓ of the custard in a line on top of the remonce covered long side. Fold the dough over the custard and roll the rest like you would a cinnamon roll. Place the roll on a parchment lined baking sheet. 

Using a scissor cut slits at an angle almost all the way through with 2 cm (¾ inch) apart. Flip the dough pieces to the side. The first right the other left, alternating all the way to the end.

Repeat with the last two pieces of dough.

Let the pastry sit to rise for about 45 minutes. Brush with egg-wash and sprinkle with chopped almonds and raw sugar. Bake for about 15-18 minutes at 400℉ (210℃).

If you want to freeze some of the kanelstænger, do that after making the slits in the dough, and freeze them on a baking sheet and wrap them in when frozen.

Source: Lagkagehuset.

Braided Nutella Bread

Braided Nutella Bread

This bread is everywhere, and now it's here too. In all the commercials for Nutella, they tell you it's a healthy option at breakfast. This makes this bread ultra healthy, with the three layers of Nutella!

The bread is really fun to make and look awesome at a party. The Nutella bread reminds me of the cinnamon bread we had as children. At lunch time we'd go to the bakers shop and buy half a cinnamon bread to eat instead of the healthy lunch we brought from home. Well, fortunately it didn't happen that often.

I'll think you could make the bread with a cinnamon remonce in stead of the nutella.

Makes one 25 cm/10 inch bread.

Ingredients:

• 450 g all-purpose flour
• 70 g sugar
• 35 g live yeast or 2 teaspoons dry yeast
• 180 ml milk
• 30 g butter,
• 2 egg yolks, save the whites for brushing
• 1 cup (240 ml) Nutella

Directions:

Combine flour and sugar in a bowl, and set aside.

Heat the milk in a saucepan until it’s warm, add the butter, and take the mixture of the heat, and let the butter melt in the milk. You want the milk/butter mixture to be finger-warm. Let the yeast dissolve in the milk.

Add the yeast mixture and the egg yolks to the flour, and mix until its combined. If using a stand mixer, keep mixing for 4-5 minutes on medium speed to get the dough elastic and soft. If kneading by hand, keep kneading for 10-12 minutes.

Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap, and place in a warm place, and sit to rise for about 2 hours, or until doubled in size.

Knead the dough to deflate, and divide the dough in 4 pieces, and form them to balls. 

On a lightly floured surface roll each dough ball to a 10 inch/25 cm discs. Place one dish on a parchment lined baking sheet, and use a plate to outline where to put the Nutella. Heat the Nutella for a few seconds in the microwave to make it easier to spread.

The dough braided.

Spread a thin layer of Nutella on the dough. Put another disc on top, and repeat outlining and spreading Nutella. Add third dough disc and repeat with the Nutella. Put the last dough disc on top. Place the plate on top, and cut of any excess dough round the plate with a sharp knife. Remove the plate.

Place  a small cup in the middle of the dough, to mark the center. Cut the dough at 3, 6 9 and 12 o’clock and cut each quarter into 4 pieces, so you end up with 16 slices connected to the center circle.

Take 2 neighboring slices and twist them two times away from each other, connect the two in the end, and pinch them together forming a point. Do this with all the slices, and now you have a star flower formed bread.

Cover dough loosely with a damp tea towel and let rest for 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Brush surface of the bread with the egg whites. Bake bread for 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned.