Gingerbread House

Gingerbread House

December 17 th.

Nothing says Christmas like a homemade gingerbread house.

Template for large gingerbreadhouse.

The recipe is from a Danish Weekly magazine

Ingredients:

• 125 g butter

• 200 g dark syrup or molasses

• 150 g brown sugar

• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper

• 1 teaspoon ground ginger

• 1 teaspoon ground cardamom

• 3 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• ¼ teaspoon ground all-spice

• ¼ teaspoon ground cloves

• 2 teaspoons baking soda

• 1 egg

• 500 g all-purpose flour

Directions:

Melt butter, syrup/molasses and brown sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat, and stir in baking soda and spices. Let the syrup cool down for a bit, before you add egg and flour. 

Add syrup to a stand mixer, and mix in the egg and flour and keep mixing until you have a smooth and shiny dough. 

Let the dough rest in a ziplock bag in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours, before rolling out.

Preheat the oven to 355 ℉ (180℃).

Roll out the dough on a floured surface. The dough needs to be about 0.1-0.2-inch (3-5 mm) thick. Cut out the small and large house and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. If you want other shapes than gingerbread houses, use cookie cutters to cut them out.

Bake the cookies for about 5 minutes for cookies, and 10-12 minutes for the larger pieces for the houses.

For houses with candy windows. Bake the house-parts for 5-7 minutes, remove from the oven and fill the windows with crushed Jolly Ranchers hard candy. Bake the house for another 5 minutes until it's baked and the candy is melted and filled out the window frame. Glue the house together with royal icing or hot melted sugar. And go crazy with the decorating.

For cookies - decorate your heart out with color and sprinkles.

The Danish version:

Peberkagehus

Skabelon til et stort peberkagehus.

Opskriften er fra: Familie Journal.

Ingredienser:

• 125 g smør

• 200 g mørk sirup

• 150 g brun farin

• 1 tsk stødt sort peber

• 1 tsk stødt ingefær

• 1 tsk stødt kardemomme

• 3 tsk stødt kanel

• ¼ tsk stødt allehånde

• ¼ tsk stødt nelliker

• 2 tsk natron

• 1 æg

• 500 g hvedemel

Fremgangsmåde:

Smelt smør, sirup og farin i en tykbundet gryde. Når det er smeltet, tag gryden af varmen, rør natron og krydderier i. Lad massen køle lidt af og kom den i en stor røreskål. Tilsæt æg og mel, og bland dejen indtil den er glat. Lad dejen hvile tildækket i køleskabet, i mindst 4 timer inden den rulles ud. 

Rul dejen ud til den er ca. 4-5 mm tyk. Skær både de små og store huse ud.

Dejen bages ved 180°C fra 5 minutter til 10-12 minutter - alt afhængig af om det er små kager eller større flader til peberkagehuse.

For huse med "glasvinduer" bages husdelen først 5-6 minutte, tag dem ud af ovnen og fyld vinduesrammen ud med knust bolche. Bag husdelen videre i 5 minutter, indtil bolchet er smeltet ud i vinduesrammen og kagen er gennembagt. Lim huset sammen med royal icing og dekorer som du lyster. 

Kager dekoreres med glasur og sprinkles.

Peppermint Candy Cane Cookies

Peppermint Candy Cane Cookies

December 11.

This is the classic milk and cookies dressed up for christmas.

The peppermint cookies are nice and minty, but still crispy and delicate like real candy canes.

Makes 36 candy cane cookies.

Cooking time: 13-15 minutes.

Temperature: 325℉ (165℃)

Prep. time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

• 160 g all-purpose flour
• 113 g (1 stick) butter, salted and room temperature
• 75 g sugar + more for springle
• 30 g confectionary sugar /powdered sugar
•  egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon peppermint extract
• ¼ teaspoon vanilla bean paste
• red food coloring, I used 2 pea sized drop red gel food color

Directions:

Cream the butter with both sugars until pale and fluffy. Add the egg yolk, mix well. Add vanilla and peppermint extract. Slowly add the flour and mix until just combined.

Divide the dough into two, add the food coloring to one part, and mix until fully incorporated. Form each half into squares, and let them rest, wrapped in plastic wrap, in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 325℉ (165℃), and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Roll each dough to a 9x9 inch (23x23 cm) square, and stack them on top of each other. Roll to seal them together. Cut the dough down the center and refrigerate both until firm about 15 minutes.Take out one halves and start cutting short strips that are about ¼ inch (¾ cm) thick. Gently twist the strip to lengthen it a bit and even out the edges. Roll the strips in granulated sugar and put them on the baking sheet in the shape of a candy cane. If your kitchen is warm you need to work fast or only take out a quarter of the dough, so the dough won't be to soft.

Bake the cakes for 13-15 minutes until just slightly brown round the edges. Let the cookies cool for about 5 minutes on the baking sheet, before transferring to a wire rack. 

Store in a separate airtight container at room temperature.

Enjoy!

Christmas cookies 2013 a recap

December 10th.

Last year I made some of my family favorite christmas cookies, and I want to revisit them with this recap.

Vanilla wreaths aka valillekranse a crisp, sweet and buttery cookie with a lot of real vanilla.

Almond specier aka Håkonskager s sweet cookie with almond paste.

Chocolate biscotti, spicy chocolate cookie. 

Danish gingerbread cookies aka brunkager. A perfectly crisp cookie containing nuts.

Jødekager, Jewish Cookies

Jødekager, Jewish Cookies

December 7th.

Jødekager, aka Jewish cookies, is another classic Danish christmas cookie. It might seem weird that jødekager is a christmas cookie, but this type of cookies you would find at the jewish bakers in the 1700's in Denmark. 

Jødekager has always been a family favorite, and I can't see that changing.

Makes about 60 cookies

Ingredients:

• 325 g all-purpose flour
• 250 g butter
• 175 g sugar
• 2 egg yolks

Topping:

• 1 egg white
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon 
• 30-40 blanched almonds

Directions:

Mix flour and butter. I use a pastry cutter to incorporate the butter in the flour mixture. Mix until the butter/flour mixture resembles wet sand. Mix in sugar and egg yolks. Be careful not to overwork the dough. 

Let the dough cool for 30-45 minutes before rolling it out on a floured surface. It needs to be about 0.1-0.2-inch (3-5 mm) thick. Cut out the cookies with a 2-inch cookie cutter, and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. Brusk each cookie with egg white, and sprinkle with a mixture of sugar and cinnamon. Place a half almond on top.

Bake the cakes for 5-7 minuters until the edges gets light golden in color.

Cool the cookies on a wire rack and store them in an airtight container at room temperature.

Enjoy!

Liquorice Wreaths - Lakridskranse

Liquorice Wreaths - Lakridskranse

Dansk version

December 3.

One of the classic Danish christmas cookies is vanillekranse, a crispy, sweet, buttery cookie with the distinctive vanilla flavor. These cookies have always been one of my favorite. 

What can you do with a perfect cookie to make it more Danish or Nordic? In this day and age - you have to add liquorice, and so I did. 

Liquorice wreaths is a new take on vanillekranse, the traditional christmas cookie in Denmark. The liquorice taste is subtle and is perfect in this classic crispy cookie.

Ingredients:

• 200 g butter
• 150 g sugar
• 1 egg
• 250 g all-purpose flour
• 100 g liquorice marzipan
• 3 teaspoons raw liquorice powder

Directions:

Cream the sugar and liquorice marzipan with the butter. Mix in the egg, and finally mix in the liquorice powder and flour. 

The attachment and process 

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

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

If using a stand mixer, 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. 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℃) 12-15 minutes, until browned on the edges. It's kinda hard to tell, but it's better to bake them 30 seconds longer than ending up with soft cookies. Cool the cookies on a wire rag. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.

Enjoy!

The Danish version:

Lakridskranse

Dette er en del af Madblogger udfordringen #5 Nordisk Jul. 

#MadbloggerUdfordringen5 og #MadbloggerUdfordringen.

Der er lakrids i alt efterhånden, så jeg måtte lige se om dette ville fungere. Og ja det holder hele vejen. Det er stadig den sprøde lækre krans man kender fra vanillekransen, med en skøn eftersmag af lakrids.

Ingredienser:

• 200 g smør, stuetemperatur
• 150 g sukker
• 1 æg
• 250 g hvedemel
• 100 g lakridsmarcipan (jeg brugte liquorice marzipan fra Bülow)
• 3 tsk rålakridspulver (raw liquorice powder fra Bülow)

Fremgangsmåde:

Sukker, lakridsmarcipan og smør røres sammen, indtil det er luftigt. Rør ægget med i og tilsæt slutteligt lakridspulver og hvedemel. Mix kun til dejen netop har samlet sig. 

Dejen kommes i en sprøjtepose med en stjerne tyl & sprøjtes straks ud i "kranse" på bagepapir - diameter ca. 5 cm. Bages ved 200℃ til de er let gyldne - ca. 12 - 15 minutter. Giv dem hellere lidt længere tid, da de er svære at bedømme udfra farven. Det er ikke sjovt at få bløde småkager.
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Velbekomme!