Mulled Cider - Varm Krydret Cider

Mulled Cider

December 5th the cold weather is here to stay, and we need something to keep us warm.

Hot mulled cider, this lovely drink was all new to me 6 years ago. I thought that mulled wine aka glögg/gløgg/glühwein was a German/scandinavian thing. And adding warm spices to a non-alcholic drink, that was new to me, I'm sad to say. 😳

First time I had it was at a William-Sonoma store, and boy the got me hooked on that stuff. I love this when when winter approaches, and you need at hot strong drink to keep you warm. 

It has become a tradition to make hot mulled cider when we are having ebelskiver the weeks up to christmas. And to bee honest, I have the cider simmering on my stove almost every day. This fills my house with the sweet smell of christmas and it makes me very happy. 

Ingredients:

• 2 quarts good apple cider

• 1 orange, zest of half

• 2 sticks of cinnamon

• 5-10 whole cloves

• 5-10 whole allspice berries

• 1-2 star anis

• 3 green cardamom capsules

You could also buy a mulling spice mix, but I prefer mixing my own.

Directions:

Put all the ingredients in a large saucepan and heat the cider to a simmer. Turn down the heat, and let the spices steep in the cider for 5-10 minutes. Reheat the cider. Pour the cider through a sift into cups and serve immediately.

The Danish Version:

Varm Krydret Cider

Ingredienser:

• 2 liter god æblecider

• ½ appelsin, skallen fra

• 2 kanelstænger

• 5-10 hele nelliker

• 5-10 hele allehånde

• 1-2 stjerneanis

• 3 grønne kardemomme

Kom alle ingredienserne i en gryde og varm det op til kogepunktet. Skru ned for varmen og lad krydderierne trække i cideren i 5-10 minutter. Varm cideren op og si krydderierne fra. Server cideren med det samme.

Peppermint Ice Cream and Hot Chocolate Affogato

Peppermint Ice Cream and Hot Chocolate Affogato

December 4th and the cold front hit northern California. So what is the best drink for keeping warm? Normally I'm not a big hot chocolate person, I would rater have a good latte. But the peppermint lightens up the hot chocolate and makes it scrumptious . My husband loves ice cream, so we made this treat as a compromise. I really hope you will enjoy it.

In December you see peppermint everywhere, and I learned that peppermint is the holiday flavor of choice for americans. And why not adapt the seasonal flavor in a decadent dessert? 

I love a normal affogato, an espresso poured over a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It's a perfect ending to a great Italian dinner. So combining the affogato and the peppermint hot chocolate, I see in every coffee shop this time of year, must be a perfect match.

Here I flavored a classic ice cream with peppermint and topped it off with a decadent hot chocolate. 

Ingredients:

Ice cream:

• 1¼ cup (300 ml) Heavy whipping cream

• ¾ cup (180 ml) whole milk

• 4 egg yolks

• 85 g sugar

• 1 pinch salt

• 1 - 1¼ teaspoon peppermint extract

• crushed candy cane

Hot chocolate:

• whole milk

• milk chocolate (use a good one like Valrhona)

• dark chocolate (use a good one like Valrhona)

Directions:

Making the custard:

Pour the cream into a metal bowl placed in a larger bowl of ice, set aside.

Warm milk, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. Make sure the sugar and salt is dissolved completely.

In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm milk into the egg yolks, while whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan, and heat the mixture over medium heat, until it thickens. Stir constantly in this process and make sure to scrape the bottom of the saucepan. 

Pour the egg/milk mixture through a sieve into the cold cream. 

Cool the custard in refrigerator. 

Add the peppermint extract, ½ teaspoon at a time, taste the custard.

Pour the custard into a ice cream maker and freeze it according to manufacturers instructions. Sprinkle with crushed candy cane just before you scoop out the ice cream.

Freeze the ice cream in the freezer a couple of hours before serving.

The making of the custard is a basic step in the ice cream making. You can flavor your ice cream to your liking after the custard is made. It's also possible to add flavor to the milk while heating.

Hot chocolate:

Heat whole milk and chocolate in a saucepan, whisk while heating.

Serve the ice cream in a glass, pour the hot chocolate over and sprinkle with crushed candy cane.

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.

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.

Waiting for december.........

24 Little black secrets

I've got 24 little black secrets for my husband, an advents calendar with a little liquorice treat for every day until christmas.

But I got something for you too. Stay tuned, It all starts tomorrow.