Sweet Rice Pancakes

Sweet Rice Pancakes

December 3rd.

I hope you all are started to get excited for Christmas. I meant to start my 12 days for Christmas yesterday, but life got in the way. So here is my first post Risklatkager, a great dessert or Sunday afternoon snack.  

Growing up I loved when we had risengrød/Danish rice poridge for dinner. My dad did not like this. I think he got it way to often, maybe because it was a cheap and easy dinner. My mom often asked my brother, what he wanted for dinner, and he had for the most part 3 replies: Risengrød, meatballs and crepes (Danish pancakes). But one thing my dad loved was the desserts my mom made from risengrød, such as risalamande and these sweet rice pancakes. 

Makes 12-16 

Ingredients:

• 1 portion risengrød/Danish rice Porridge

• 100 g all-purpose flour

• 3 eggs

• 2 tablespoons sugar

• 1 lemon, the zest from

• 1 teaspoon vanilla been paste

Directions:

Mix the cold porridge with the rest of the ingredients. The consistency of the batter will be rather thick.

Melt butter in a non-stick skillet add about ½ cup (1 dl) batter and fry until golden, then turn the pancake and cook until golden on the other side. Repeat with the rest of the batter.

Serve the pancakes warm with maple syrup and fresh berries.

Enjoy!

Gingerbread Loaf

Gingerbread Loaf

Today is the first Sunday in Advent - only 3 Sundays more until Christmas.

Gingerbread anything tells you christmas is coming. If you missed the pumpkin-train with everything pumpkin leading up to the gingerbread and peppermint in everything, the christmas or December celebrations are here. 

I do really love this time of year. The lights, the decorating, the cookie baking, It makes me happy. Well, somewhat stressful but happy.

Starbucks and most other coffeeshops sell these lovely gingerbread loafs during this season, and they taste so good with a warm cup of coffee. So I kick off my christmas/December celebration with my version of the coffeeshops Gingerbread loaf, a flavorful dark cake with a sweet but tangy frosting on top. 

Makes 1 (9-inch) loaf.

Ingredients:

• 75 g brown sugar

• 113 g (1 stick) butter, salted and room temperature

• 2 eggs

• 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste

• 120 ml molasses (mørk sirup)

• 225 g all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 2 teaspoons ground ginger

• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

• ¼ teaspoon ground allspice

• 1 pinch ground cloves

• 120 ml (½ cup) buttermilk

Frosting:

• 225 g cream cheese

• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

• ½ teaspoon orange juice

• 225 g confectionary sugar (powder sugar)

Sprinkle:

• Candied ginger

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350℉ (180℃). Grease a 9-inch loaf pan, and set aside.

Mix together the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, cloves and nutmeg) in a medium bowl, set aside.

Cream the butter with the brown sugar, until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between the addition. Mix in the vanilla and molasses. Fold in alternately dry ingredients and milk. 

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake it in the oven for about 45 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.

Let the cake cool in the pan. When cooled, mix the frosting, and frost the cake. Decorate the cake with candied ginger and serve it with a good cup of coffee.

Enjoy!

Apple Pie-tini

Apple Pie-tini

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers in the US (and Americans in general).

As a somewhat newly arrived Dane in the US, Thanksgiving is a Holiday we just have to pass to get to the December celebration. I have never been too fond of turkey. Well, I had a very good roasted turkey at a Thanksgiving celebration at my dorm in Denmark. We had an American exchange student (Andy) living there, and we all went all in on making a big Thanksgiving celebration with him. And as for most dinners with young people at a dorm, it turned in to a great Party. This party is still my fondest Thanksgiving memory.

I hope you all are enjoying the holiday.

Makes 2 drinks

Ingredients:

Drink:

• 90 ml vanilla vodka

• 90 ml apple cider, unfiltered

• 25 ml lemon juice

• 1-2 tablespoons honey

Decoration:

• 1 apple, in slices sprinkled with lemon juice

• 2 cinnamon stick

Rim:

• lemon juice

• baker's sugar (extra fine sugar)

• ⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions:

Cut up the apple and sprinkle the slices with lemon juice to prevent them turning brown.Mix sugar and cinnamon on a shallow plate. Make sure not to have any lumps of sugar. Pour some lemon juice in another shallow plate. Dip the rims of the glasses in the lemon juice, shake them to remove any excess juice. Dip the rim of the glasses in the sugar mixture, making sure to cover all of the rim.

Mix the ingredients for the drink in a shaker with ice. Pour the drink into the glasses and decorate with apple slices and cinnamon sticks.

Enjoy!

Apple Pie

Apple Pie

Nothing is as American as Apple pie. Well, this might not be true. But pies are a big thing here in the US. My favorite pie is Apple pie, and this one is one of the best. 

It's not all that simple to get the pie perfect. You need to have the perfect balance between a crispy/flaky crust and the creamy, sweet/tart filling. You want the pie to hold up to slicing and keeping the filling inside the crust. Making this Apple pie allows me to do this.

The recipe is adapted from Copenhagencakes.

Makes 1 pie (9 inch).

Ingredients:

Pie Crust:

• 260 g butter, salted and cold

• 360 g all-purpose flour

• 2 tablespoons confectionary sugar (powdered sugar)

• 75 ml water, ice-cold

Filling:

• 6-7 apples*,

• 100 g butter

• 120 g sugar

• 75 g brown sugar

• 50 g water

• 30 g all-purpose flour

• 1 tablespoon cornstarch

• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

• 1½ tsk cinnamon

• 1 egg yolk for brushing the crust

Directions: 

Crust:

Cube the butter and place it in the refrigerator.

Put the flour and sugar in the food processor and pulse just until combined. Add the cold butter pieces and pulse until the mixture looks like small coarse crumbs. Drizzle the water over the flour and pulse again until the dough just comes together.

Divide the dough in two discs and wrap them separately in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for 3 hours.

On a floured work surface roll the dough out to about ⅒ inch thickness. You want the dough yo be larger than your pie pan, so you end up with a ⅓ inch overhang on a 9 inch pan. Place the pan with the dough in the refrigerator, until ready to fill.

Preheat the oven to 430℉ (220℃).

Filling:

Mix flour, cinnamon in a bowl and set aside. Melt butter, sugars in a saucepan. Mix the water with the cornstarch, and pour it in the butter/sugar mixture. Add vanilla and the flour/cinnamon, stir the mixture while the sauce thickens.

Peel, core and slice the apples in thin slices. Do not soak the apples in water, this will make the filling to watery. Place the apple slices in the pie pan, and pour the sauce over the apples.

Brush the edges with egg wash. Roll out the rest of the dough for the lid, as thin as the other part. Place the lid on top, and firmly press the edges together to seal them. you can do this by hand or with a fork. Use the excess dough to cut out decorations for the pie. 

Optional: brush the lid with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar on top.

Cut 4-8 slids in the dough lid, to allow the steam to escape during baking. 

Bake the pie in the middle of the oven for 15 minutes. Lower the heat to 360℉ (180℃) and bake it for another 50 minutes until the pie is a deep golden brown. 

Let the pie cool completely, before slicing. This part is the hardest. The smell of this delicious apple pie, makes you wanting to dive in immediately. But if you let it cool first, and then reheat, it will make the slicing so much easier. 

Serve the pie with creme fraiche or a good vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!

* Use apples that are good for cooking: Granny Smith, Pippin, Gravenstein, Mcintosh, Fugi, Jonathan, Jonagold or Golden Delicious.

Mortens And - Roasted Duck

Duck roasting - from the oven cam.

Mortensaften - is celebrated on November 10th. 

The tradition that Danes and some parts of Germans eat duck on this night, dates back to before 1616. 

The story tells us that a monk called Martin or Morten in Denmark was forced to become a bishop, but he didn't want the job, so he hid in a pasture filled with geese. Not the smartest place, cause the geese honked and  Morten was revealed. As the tail goes Morten Bisp, now bishop ordered everyone to eat geese on November 10th as a punishment for the geese for ratting him out. 

Over time people switched to eating ducks, maybe because of the smaller size. 

The traditional way is to serve the duck with caramelized potatoes, pickled red cabbage and gravy, kinda the same way as the traditional christmas dinner/pork roast. To change things up, I caramelized an assortment of root vegetables and kept the red cabbage.

Ingredients:

Duck:

• 1 duck (7-8 pounds)
• 2 oranges
• 2 apples
• 2 handful of pitted prunes
• a handful salt and some pepper
• 1 star anise
• 3 whole allspice
• 5 whole cloves

Pickled Red Cabbage:

• 1 medium red cabbage
• 25 g butter, salted
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• ¼ cup balsamic vinegar (I mixed half balsamic and half blackberry-ginger balsamic for a sweeter taste)
• salt and pepper to taste

Caramelized Root vegetables:

• 3 large carrots
• 2 parsnips
• 3 sun chokes (Israeli artichokes)
• 1 small root celery
• 3 small beets
• salt
• a splash of oil for the baking
• sugar and butter for the caramelizing

Directions:

Duck:

Preheat the oven to 265℉ (130℃).

Chop the oranges and apples in the size of the prunes. Mix star anise, allspice, cloves and the broken cinnamon stick with apples, oranges and prunes. Have the salt in a clean cup.

Take neck and giblets out of the duck. Make sure that all feather sacks are out of the duck, you don't want a hard part of the feather in the crispy skin.

Pad the duck dry with some kitchen towel. Salt the duck inside, and fill it with the fruit mixture. Close the opening with a  trussing needle. 

Truss the duck by placing the duck on a tray with the legs towards you. Tuck the wing tips under the duck. Cut a piece of cooking twine about 3 feet (1 meter), and center it on top of the neck end of the breast. Lift the neck end of the duck and pull the twine down around the wings and under the duck, then bring the ends up over the breast, towards you, and knot the twine, pulling it tight to plump the breast. Bring the ends of the twine around the ends of the drumsticks and straight up. Tie as before to pull the drumsticks together and form a compact bird; tie again to secure knot."

Well, I did it my way, and tried my best to get the compact duck. Sometimes I just pull the wing onto the back of the duck, and use a cooking rubber band to tie the legs together.

Salt the duck with a lot of salt. 

Put the duck in the oven, breast side down, and cook it like this for 3-3½ hours. Have a pan under the duck, and put the giblets, neck and water in it. This water/drippings will be the base for the sauce. 

After 3½ hours turn the duck breast side up, and roast it for another 1½-2 hours until the temperature in the duck reaches 158℉ (70℃). If the skin isn't crispy, give the bird a few minutes under the boiler, be careful not to burn the duck.

Take the duck out and let it rest. Pour the drippings from the pan through a strainer into a saucepan. Skim the fat from the surface. I use a fat separator, which makes this process a breeze. Save the fat in the refrigerator or the freezer. Duck fat is a flavorful fat, and is perfect to roast potatoes in.

Add some cream, blue cheese and red currant jelly to the drippings and thicken the sauce.

Remove the twine and carve the duck. 

Red Cabbage:

Remove outher leaves of cabbage, and cut cabbage into quarters and remove the white core. Thinly slice the cabbage across the quarters width-wise. To get uniform slices I use a mandolin.

Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the cabbage and sear it for a couple minutes. Add vinegar and sugar.  Simmer the cabbage for 10-15 minutes until cabbage is tender.

Season with salt, pepper, vinegar and sugar. Serve heated to pork roasts or roasted duck. 

Caramelized Root vegetables:

Preheat the oven for 400℉ (200℃).

Peel the root vegetables and cut them into bite-sized pieces. Keep the beets separate even during baking, to prevent all the vegetables from turning red. Dress the vegetables in oil and season with salt. Bake the vegetables in ovenproof dishes for about 30 minutes until tender, but not soft. Cool the vegetables. Just before you are ready to serve, heat a large skillet over high heat, pour in the sugar and melt it. When the sugar has turned the color of light amber, add the butter and stir with a wooden spoon. Carefully pour the vegetables into the hot caramel. Lower the heat and make sure the vegetables get covered in the caramel and get heated through. Serve immediately, otherwise the vegetables looses the shine.

Enjoy!