Almond Specier - Håkonskager

Almond Species - Håkonskager

December 6th, and I finally started decoration the house for christmas, and the stress of getting gifts bought for the family is starting to get to me. A great cookie and a cop of coffee helps me stay grounded. 

My mom always baked cookies in december, so we would have homemade cookies for all the family gatherings during the holidays. Danes doesn't celebrate thanksgiving, so all the winter family get-together is around christmas and new years.

One of my favorite cookies was not on my moms list, but they should have been in my opinion. The cookies are called "Håkonskager" after a Danish prince (Carl), who became the King Haakon (Håkon) of Norway. 

You might know these cookies from the tin of Danish Butter Cookies, but the homemade kind is so much better than the store bought. 

This is my take on Håkon cookies.

Ingredients: 

• 200 g butter (salted and soft)
• 135 g confectionary sugar
• 80 g marzipan (grated)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste or seeds from 1/2 vanilla bean 
• 235 g all-purpose flour
• 1 egg
• raw cane sugar (coarse)

Direction: 

Cream the butter with the confectionary sugar and marzipan till it's light and fluffy in a stand mixer with a paddle. Add vanilla paste and flour. As soon as the dough comes together, stop the mixing. 

Divide the dough in to 2 pieces. Roll each part into a log (2 inch in diameter), wrap in glad wrap and refrigerate over night. Make sure to have a smooth surface to get an even look on the finished cookies.

Whip the egg and pour the raw cane sugar on a big plate. Brush or dip the logs in the egg wash and roll them in the sugar until completely coated. Wrap the logs in glad wrap again and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

Cut the logs into ¼-inch thick cookies and put them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Spacing about 1 inch apart. Bake until golden around the edges, about 12-15 minutes at 350°F. Cool cookies on the pan on wire racks. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks.

The Danish version:

Håkonskager

Ingredients: 

• 200 g blødt smør
• 135 g flormelis
• 80 g marcipan (revet)
• 1/2 tsk vanilla paste eller  kornene fra 1/2 vanillestang 
• 235 g hvedemel
• 1 æg
• perlesukker

Pisk smør og flormelis og revert marcipan til en luftig masse med en håndmikser eller røremaskine. Tilsæt mel og vanillesukker, og saml ingredienserne hurtigt til en smidig dej, pas på ikke at overmikse dejen.

Del dejen i 2 dele, og rul dem til stænger ca. 5 cm i diameter. Pak stængerne ind i plastfolie og opbevar dem i køleskabet til næste dag.

Pisk ægget i en skål, og kom perlesukker i en tallerken. Pensel stængerne med æg og rul dem i perlesukkeret.  Pak stængerne ind i plastfolien igen og lad dem ligge ca. 30 minutter i køleskabet.

Skær rullerne ud i 4-5 mm tykke skiver, læg dem på en bageplade beklædt med bagepapir. Læg ikke kagerne for tæt, da de flyder lidt ud. 

Bag kagerne midt i ovnen ved 175℃ i 12-15 minutter.  Afkøl kagerne på en bagerist og opbevar dem i en lufttæt kagedåse.

Danish Gingerbread Cookies - Brunkager

Danish Gingerbread Cookies

December 3rd. Another day another cookie.

The Danish Gingerbread cookies aka "Brunkager" has a very long history dating back to the late 1400s. The name stems from Peberkager or Pepper cookies, but pepper is not meaning the spice pepper, but more likely meaning strong flavored cookies. Traditionally the cookie contains the warm spices we all  use in  fall, like ginger, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom. 

The tradition of baking gingerbread cookies for christmas, became more common, when it became easier to control the temperature of the ovens, back in the mid 1800s.  

Most families have their own recipe for gingerbread cookies. I never got my parents recipe. I was sad to see that it wasn't in my mothers little black recipe book, when I got it a few years ago. I remember rolling out the doug and using cookie cutters to make small men, women, hearts, stars and Yule Goats. We rarely decorate the cookies with icing, I think my parents didn't like the mess and the cookies became to sweet.

So I had to find one that I liked. And this one is nothing like the one my mom baked.  I love Mette Blomsterberg, so of course I found one of her recipes. This is how I made the cookies:

Ingredients: 

• 250 g butter

• 125 g syrup I use "lys sirup" from dansukker*

• 250 g brown sugar

• 2 teaspoon Potassium carbonate K2CO3 (Potaske)**

• 1 tablespoons cold water

• 3 teaspoons cinnamon

• 1 teaspoon ground cloves

• 2 teaspoons ground ginger

• 1 teaspoon ground allspice

• 60 g candied orange peel

• 25 g raw pistachios

• 150 g Almonds

• 500 g All-purpose flour 

Directions: 

Melt butter, syrup and brown sugar in a saucepan on medium heat, until it reaches 160 ℉ (70 ℃). Remove saucepan from heat.

Mix allspice, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and flour and add orange zest, almonds and pistachios. 

Dissolve the Potassium carbonate (potasken) in the water and add it to the flour mixture. 

Mix it all together in a stand mixer, until the dough is uniform.

Dough pressed in the baking pan.

Put the batter in a baking pan lined with parchment paper.   Press well to fill the baking pan completely. Cover the dough with a piece of parchment paper. Let cool at room temperature until the next day. The dough should be about 1 inch high in the pan. 

Cut the dough into 3-5 logs with a sharp knife. Cut each log in thin slices and bake them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper at 355℉ (180℃) for 9-13 minutes.

Cool completely on a rack and store in an airtight container.

* You can get the syrup here

** You can replace potaske with baking soda, but the cookies won't be as crispy. You can get potaske here.

Chocolate Biscotti

Chocolate Biscotti

December 2nd, time for more cookies.

This recipe is an old family recipe from my husbands family.  I had never heard or seen these cookies before I met my husband. 

My husbands godmother had to find the recipe in her attic, so I could make it a merry christmas in little our home.

Ingredients:

• 250 g butter, room temperature

• 315 g all-purpose flour

• 250 g sugar

• 2½ eggs

• 1½ teaspoons ammonium carbonate (hjortetaksalt)

• 2½ tablespoons baking cocoa (a good one like Valrhona)

• 10 g cinnamon

• ½ teaspoon cloves ground

• ½ teaspoon cardamom ground

• 50 g Hazelnuts, chopped

Direction:

Preheat the oven to 360℉ (180℃).

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

Cream the butter with the sugar. Add one egg at a time, and mix well in between the eggs. 

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Pour the dry mix into the butter mixture a little at a time, and mix slowly to start with, otherwise you will have a flour/spice plume all over the counter. (Or so I've heard).

Divide the dough evenly into 2 equal mounds on the prepared baking sheet. With moist hands, space the dough evenly apart and form into 2 (9 by-3-inch) logs. 

Bake the logs for 25-30 minutes or until done, when a cake tester comes out clean. Cool the logs for 5-10 minutes on a wire rag. Using a serrated knife, cut the logs crosswise into 3/4-inch-thick slices. Arrange the biscotti cut side down on baking sheet. Bake them again until the cookies are crisp, about 25 minutes. Let cool completely.

Store the biscotti in an airtight container.

Vanilla Wreaths - Vanillekranse

Vanilla Wreaths - Vanillekranse

Today is thew start of december and I'll be posting a christmas related post every day until christmas. This is my way of making a Advent Calendar for you. I hope you will enjoy  this.

The vanilla wreath, or Vanillekranse, is a classic Danish cookie. You'll find them in tins with Danish Butter Cookies. If you like the Danish Butter Cookies, you have to make these. They are so much better. 

Every year I bake cookies for christmas, and vanillekranse is always a given. In my house it’s not christmas without vanillekranse. They are one of my favorite cookies. I'm pretty sure that you'll find vanillekranse in every danish home at christmas time. 

Thinking about it, I should have done my homework better, when I met my now husband. I should had made sure that my favorite christmas cookies was his too. It could have saved me from hours in the kitchen, baking ;0) Well we all have to make sacrifices, right?

I have been trough a lot of different recipes for vanillekranse, but after tasting Mette Blomsterbergs, the search was over. These are by far the best vanilekranse I have ever had. So this is Mette Blomsterbergs recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 vanilla pod (or half if it's a thick one)*

• 200 g butter (salted and room temperature)

• 180 g sugar

• 1 egg

• 250 g all-purpose flour

• 75 g blanched** almonds, ground into flour

Directions:

Spilt the vanilla pod lengthwise and scrape out the seed with the tip of a knife. Using the knife, mix the seeds with some sugar. This helps the seeds to distribute in the dough. You want an even distribution of seeds in the dough, like small black freckles.

Cream the sugar, vanilla seeds with the butter. Mix in the egg, finally mix in the ground almonds and flour. 

Put the dough into a decorationg bag with a star decorating tip. Pipe the dough in small circles approximately 2 inches (5 cm) in diameter, onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

The process

If you have a stand mixer, a meat grinder attachment and a vanillekrans attachment to make stings of star shaped dough; you can do this instead of piping the cakes:

Chill the dough in the refrigerator overnight. Add the cold dough to the feeder on the grinder, and push it into the grinder, and long strings of star shaped dough comes out of the grinder. I do this on medium to high speed. You can also use a cookie press.

Place the strings of dough on the table, an cut them into 4 inch pieces. Join the ends to form a wreath, and place the cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake at 356℉ (180℃) until lightly golden about 10-14 minutes. Cool the cookies on a wire rag. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.

* You can substitute the vanilla pods with 2 teaspoons vanilla paste.

** blanched is when the skin is removed from the almonds.

The danish Version:

Vanillekranse

Ingredienser:

• 1 vanillestang (eller en halv polynesisk)*

• 200 g smør (saltet og stuetemperatur)

• 180 g sukker

• 1 æg

• 250 g hvedemel

• 75 g smuttede** mandler, malet til mel

Vaniljestangen flækkes på den lange led og kornene skrabes ud med en lille kniv. Mas vaniljekornene og lidt af sukkeret sammen med en paletkniv, således at kornene skilles ad.

Vaniljesukker, sukker og det stuetempererede smør røres sammen. Rør ægget med i og tilsæt slutteligt mandelmel og hvedemel.

Dejen kommes i en stofsprøjtepose med en stjerne tyl & sprøjtes straks ud i "kranse" på bagepapir - diameter ca. 5 cm. Bages ved 200 grader til de er let gyldne - ca. 10 - 14 minutter.
Afkøles på bagerist og opbevares i tætsluttende dåse.

* Du kan erstatte vanillestangen med 2 tsk vanille pasta

** smuttede mandler, er mandler uden den brune hinde.

Lemon Scones

Lemon Scone

It's really hard to find really good scones. They have to be flaky and soft. One of the only places you can get these in Copenhagen is at Reinh van Haun bakery. Well you can probably get real scones in the UK.

Recently I had a really god and flakey scone at Tartine Bakery & Cafe in San Francisco, but it's not just around the corner from here, so I won't be hanging out there a lot. But if you're ever in San Francisco stop by Tartine, even if you have to wait in line, It's worth the wait.

I got this recipe at a cooking class in Sur La Table from Chef Nikki B. Frias. I'm sad to see that she's no longer at the Los Gatos Store - I miss you Nikki! 

Makes 10-15.

Ingredients: 

• 450 g all-purpose flour
• 85 g sugar
• 30 g baking powder
• 7 g  salt
• 115 g  cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 475 ml heavy whipping cream
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest

Topping:

• heavy wipping cream
• demerara sugar (raw cane sugar)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°F  (205°C) For a convection oven. Non-convection preheat oven to 425°F  (220°C) 

Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a bowl, by hand. Add the butter. I used a pastry cutter to incorporate the butter in the flour mixture. Mix until the the butter resembles small pebbles.

Getting ready for the oven.

Add in your cream and lemon zest and mix until it just comes together and resembles biscuit dough. This step is very important because if you over mix, the dough will become dense. If you use berries in the scones, add them now

Using an ice cream scoop, take the scones dough and place the dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet.
Brush the top with heavy whipping cream and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake for approximately 10-15 minutes, or until golden brown in the mottle of the oven.

Note: 

You can make the dough and set them on a baking sheet and then freeze them in advance. When you want fresh baked scones - just take the frozen scones out and brush the top with heavy whipping cream and sprinkle with sugar, and bake. No need for defrosting.

You can add fruit to the batter. Use about 115 g, but don't use strawberries, they contain to much water.