Lavender Shortbread Cookies

Lavender Shortbread Cookies

I bought some dried culinary lavender, for my cheese cake. I thought that I would receive about a cup lavender. But no, I got a big bag full of lavender. I have enough lavender to last a lifetime or two. So I have to come up with new ways to use the lavender, so now I warned you. 😉

Makes about 30

Ingredients:

• 60 g confectionary (powdered) sugar

• 1 tablespoon dried culinary lavender

• 1 lemon, the zest of

• 225 g butter, salted and room temperature

• 215 g all-purpose flour

Directions:

In the bowl for the stand mixer, mix the sugar, dried lavender, and lemon zest until well incorporated. Add the softened butter and cream it with the sugar. You are looking for at light and fluffy butter mixture. Slowly add flour mixing until just combined.

Roll dough into a log (2 inch in diameter), wrap in glad wrap and refrigerate for  minimum 3 hours. Make sure to have a smooth surface to get an even look on the finished cookies.

Preheat the oven to 375℉ (190℃).

Slice the chilled dough into ¼-inch slices, place them on a parchment lined baking sheet, spacing about 1 inch apart. Bake cookies 12-15 minutes, not getting any golden edges on the cookies.

Cool cookies on the pan on wire racks. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks.

Enjoy!

Kaffebrød - Coffee Bread

Kaffebrød - Coffee Bread

Kaffebrød or coffee bread might be a forgotten cake. It might not get as mush recognition as a lot of other Danish cakes. But I really like them. The crispy bread with a sweet slightly chewy topping, is really good with a cup of tea or coffee. 

Makes 12-15.

Ingredients:

Bread:

• 25 g live yeast (2 teaspoons dry active yeast)
• 250 ml milk
• 500 g all-purpose flour
• 50 g butter, salted
• 50 g sugar 
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cardamom 
• 1 egg

Topping:

• 300 g marzipan
• 300 g sugar
• 3 egg whites 
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 
• ½ teaspoon baking powder 
• 1 teaspoon vanilla paste 

Directions:

Bread:

Heat the milk till a little more than finger warm. Let the butter melt in the warm milk.

Mix the sugar with the yeast, the mixture turns liquid. If using dry yeast, dissolve it in the milk.

Add all the ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer. Knead the dough for about 7 minutes. 

Let the dough rise for about 40 minutes. Divide the dough in two, and roll each part Into a large flat bread using a rolling pin. Let the breads rise on a parchment lined baking sheet for about 20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400℉ (200℃).

Bake he bread for 15-18 minutes, until golden brown.

Let the breads cool before slicing in 1-inch (2.5 cm) thick slices. Place the slices cut-side up on a baking sheet. Toast the slices for 5-7 minutes until light golden brown. 

Topping:

Mix marzipan, sugar, vanilla and egg whites in a stand mixer till you have a soft paste. Mix in flour and baking powder. Now you should have a thick paste, that won't run off the bread slices. Put the paste into a piping bag, and cut off so you have a large hole, so you just need one fat line of topping to cover the bread slices. Pipe one line on top of the toasted bread slices. Bake the slices for another 10-15 minutes until golden brown.

Let the coffee bread cool before serving.

Enjoy!

Checkerboard Cookies

Checkerboard Cookies

8th Day of Christmas.

I only make cookies one time a year, around Christmas. Well, cookies like chocolate chip cookies, will be made all year round.

I really like vanilla cookies, and my husband loves everything chocolate. So these checkerboard cookies is the perfect compromise. They are fun to make, they look fancy, and luckily they are really tasty too.

Makes 100-120 cookies

Ingredients:

Vanilla dough:

• 170 g butter, salted and room temperature

• 100 g confectionary sugar (powder sugar)

• 45 g almonds, bleached and grounded

• 1 egg yolk

• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

• 255 g all-purpose flour

Chocolate dough:

• 170 g butter, salted and room temperature

• 100 g confectionary sugar (powder sugar)

• 40 g almonds, bleached and grounded

• 30 g unsweetened cocoa powder, I use Valrhona

• 1 egg yolk

• ½ teaspoon vanilla bean paste

• 255 g all-purpose flour

Directions:

Vanilla dough:

Cream the butter until soft and creamy. Add the confectionery sugar, mix until fully combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the ground almonds, egg yolk, vanilla and flour, and mix until  just blended. Be careful not to over mix the dough. 

Roll the dough between two sheets of parchment paper into a large rectangle about ⅓ inch (9 mm) thick. Transfer the dough onto a baking sheet and refrigerate for a minimum of 3 hours until hardened.

Chocolate dough:

Follow the instructions for the vanilla dough. Add the cocoa with the ground almonds. Roll and chill the chocolate dough as for the vanilla dough.

Assemble the cookies:

Remove one of  the doughs from the refrigerator, peel off the paper from both sides and set the dough onto a fresh sheet of parchment. Using a sharp knife, slice the dough lengthwise into square strips about ⅓ inch (9 mm) thick. Place the dough strips in the refrigerator, while repeating the other dough.

Remove dough strips from the refrigerator. Lay a strip of vanilla dough lengthwise on the baking sheet, then lay a strip of chocolate dough next to the vanilla, another strip of vanilla  and finally another chocolate, so you now have 4 strips alternating colors. Press the three strips gently together so that they stick to one another. You can brush the sides with some diluted apricot preserve, to help the dough to glue together.

Do this with the rest of the strips, so you end up with logs of striped cookie dough.  Place the logs on top of each other, so the chocolate and vanilla alternates and you have  4x4 colors per log.

Gently press the log together on all sides. Wrap the log with plastic wrap, a place in the refrigerator.   Make more logs with the remaining dough.

Chill the logs for at least an hour before slicing.

Preheat the oven to 375℉ (190℃). Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Slice into cookies about ¼ inch (6 mm) thick. Set the squares ½ inch (1 cm) apart on the baking sheet and bake for about 8 minutes, until the vanilla parts are lightly browned. If your oven is baking unevenly rotate the sheet halfway through. Cool on the parchment paper on a wire rack. 

Store the completely cooled cookies in an airtight container.

Enjoy!

Honey Hearts - Honningkagehjerter

Honey Hearts - Honningkagehjerter

December 5th. Second day of Christmas.

Honningkagehjerter or honey hearts, are a classic December or christmas treat. As a child I got at least one of these in my advent calendar during the month of December. Honey hearts are kinda like a gingerbread cookie, but more spongy. The chocolate adds some creaminess and sweetness. A honey heart is the taste of Christmas.

In Denmark it is the tradition to put a glossy picture of a Santa or an angel on the heart, which adds to the Christmas cheer.

You have to start up the pre-dough a little early, but the result is scrumptious, and well worth the effort. but if you want to take a shortcut make this Honey Cake instead, it's not the same thing, but a bit similar.

Makes 16-18 hearts.

Ingredients:

Pre-dough:

• 450 g honey

• 450 g all-purpose flour

Cake-dough:

• 900 g pre-dough, shredded

• 2 egg yolks

• 10 g potaske (Potassium carbonate (K₂CO₃))

• 5 g ground cinnamon

• 5 g ground ginger

• 2½ g ground ground cloves

• 2½ g ground allspice

• 1 tablespoon orange zest, grated

• 1 tablespoon water

Topping:

200 g good dark chocolate, tempered

glossy pictures or icing and sprinkles

Directions:

Pre-dough:

Pour honey in a small cooking saucepan and heat to 104-122℉ (40-50℃). Pour the warm honey into the flour and knead it until you have a smooth mixture. I did that in my stand mixer. Place the mixture in an airtight container, and place it in a cool dry place for about 4-6 weeks. The pre-dough will turn very hard. 

Cake-dough: 

Preheat the oven to 350℉ (180℃). Line 3-4 bakings sheets with parchment paper, sprayed with baking spray and lightly floured. Set aside.

Mix the egg yolks with the potaske and set aside. Shred the hard pre-dough into you bowl for the stand mixer. Mix in the egg yolks, spices and zest. Start with your mixer on low for about 3 minutes. Then increase the speed to high and keep mixing for another 3 minutes. You end up with a smooth but somewhat sticky dough. If your dough seems to dry add a little water. 

Scrape the dough out on a work surface sprinkled with good layer of flour. Sprinkle more flour on top of dough and roll dough out to about ⅕-inch (5 mm) thickness. Make sure to keep flouring your dough, so the dough doesn't stick. Using a heart-shaped cookie cutter, cut out hearts placing them on the prepared baking sheets, spacing them with about 2-inches. Keep rolling the dough and cutting out hearts until all the dough is used up.

Bake hearts for 8-10 minutes. The hearts will be done when the cookie spring back when you gently press a finger in the center of the cookies. You don't want the cookies to deflate. 

Let the hearts cool completely on a wire rack. The hearts will be crispy at this point. So to soften them up store the cookies in the refrigerator in an airtight container, with a damp towel for 3-4 days. (Place the towel, so it won't touch the hearts.) As is the hearts will keep for weeks in the refrigerator.

When ready to eat, cover the hearts with tempered chocolate. Place a glossy picture centered on the heart. Or decorate with icing and sprinkles.

Enjoy!

Marengskys - Meringue Tops

Marengskys - Meringue Tops

Meringue tops are called kys or kisses in Danish, and are small sweet tops, perfect with ice cream or at any party. 

These are dressed up for a party, with some rainbow disco dust.

Makes a lot.

Ingredients:

• 2 egg whites
• 135 g sugar
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• ½ teaspoon lemon juice
• ½ teaspoon vanilla paste
• a drop food coloring
• sprinkle of rainbow disco dust 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300℉ (150℃). Line 2 baking sheet with parchment paper. 

In the bowl for the stand mixer, beat egg whites until stiff peaks. Add the sugar gradually, a couple tablespoons at a time, while still beating the egg whites. The egg whites/meringue will become thick and glossy. Gently fold in cornstarch, vanilla, lemon juice and food coloring.

Transfer the meringue into a pastry bag with a star tip. Pipe tops onto the prepared baking sheets, You don't need to space them to far apart, they will stay pretty much the same size. Sprinkle the tops with rainbow disco dust.

Bake the meringues for 45 minutes.

Enjoy!