St. Lucia Buns

St. Lucia buns

December 13th is Saint Lucia day.

St. Lucia buns aka lussekatter aka lucia breads, is a classic Swedish bun. Served on St. Lucia Day, december 13. in celebration of the light coming back. Young girls dressed in a white dress and a red sash (as the symbol of martyrdom) carrying a candle in their hands. One girl (the Lucia bride) wears a crown or wreath of candles on her head, all of them singing the Lucia song.

These St. Lucia buns are light, sweet with a nice saffron taste. I have to make these again soon. These buns reminds me of my moms version of birthday buns, a recipe lost forever.

Makes 24 lussekatter.

Ingredients:

• 300 g (1¼ cup) milk 
• 25 g live yeast or 2 teaspoons dry yeast
• 100 g (½ cup) sugar
• 1 teaspoon saffron
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 100 g butter, room temperature
• 500 g  (5¼ cups) all-purpose flour
• 1 egg + some for egg wash

Directions:

Put the saffron in a mortar and pestles with about a tablespoon of sugar, and pulverize the saffron-sugar.  In a saucepan heat the milk, saffron-sugar together until  the sugar dissolves and the milk warm to the touch, but not hot. 

Disolve the yeast in the warm milk, and add the rest of the milk. 

Add  the milk-mixture to the bowl of a stand-up mixer and mix in butter, egg, sugar, salt and most of the flour. Save some flour for the shaping of the Lucia buns.

Knead the dough for about 5 minutes. Cover the bowl and let the dough rise for about 40 minutes until almost doubled  in size.

Pour the dough onto a flour dusted workspace and divide into 24 small balls. Roll the balls out into snakes, about 14 inches long. Then curl the ends in opposite directions, forming an "S" with spirals at each end. Place the buns on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and repeat. Cover the buns and place in a warm spot to rise until the dough shapes double in size, about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 440°F (225°C). Brush the buns with some egg wash (beaten egg). Place raisins in the centers of the "S" spirals. Bake the Lucia buns  for about 8 to 10 minutes, until the buns are light golden brown.  Remove from oven and let cool covered by a kitchen towel for 5 minutes before eating.

Serve the buns warm with cold butter.

Enjoy!

Christmas Snaps

December 12th. 

In Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia we have snaps for holiday lunches, mostly when having herring or another kind of fish. Snaps is also called akvavit, and gets its distinctive flavor from spices and herbs, and the traditional spices are caraway. Typically snaps contain 40% alcohol by volume.

My dad and aunt made “homemade infused snaps" from neutral-tasting snaps, adding herbs found in nature or grown in the garden. I remember the flavors: Woodruff (skovmærke),  St. John’s Wort (perikon) and Blackthorn (slåen). I actually still have some of the blackthorn snaps my dad made. The infused snaps gets like an extract, the flavor gets stronger the longer it sits. To get it ready to drink, you should dilute it with more neutral-tasting snaps about 14 days before you want to use it.

This infused snaps is my attempt to capture the flavors of christmas in a snaps you can drink with open faced sandwiches.

Ingredients:

• ½ bottle vodka 
• ¼ orange, the zest of
• 10 juneberries  
• 3 cloves
• 3 cardamom 
• 1 star anise

Direction:

Add all the ingredients to an airtight container, and pour over the vodka.  Keep the snaps in a kitchen cabinet, so it gets as little light as possible, for 1-2 weeks. Taste the snaps every other day, the clove can be to overpowering, so if you feel like this is happening, remove the cloves. Strain the snaps into a small bottle, and serve it at room temperature with open faced sandwiches.

You can dilute the snaps with more vodka if you like.

Enjoy!

Please drink responsibly.

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.

Peppermint Marshmallows

Peppermint Marshmallows

December 9th.

These peppermint marshmallows are a great little treat or dessert. But I think they would be perfect on a cup of hot chocolate on a cold day. You can also make them as gifts for the hostess at the next holiday party, you're going to. The marshmallows  look really festive and who would not like to get a homemade gift made with love?

Ingredients:

• 120 ml water

• 21 g (3 envelopes) gelatin

• 120 ml water

• 400 g sugar

• 240 g light corn syrup

• 1 teaspoon peppermint extract

• pink food coloring

Decorating:

• Melted dark chocolate

• 1-3 candy canes, crushed

Directions:

Grease bottom and sides of 11x7-inch glass baking dish with coconut oil. Dust it with sifted confectionary sugar, and set aside. 

In the bowl for the stand mixer, sprinkle gelatin over 120 ml cold water and let it sit to bloom/soften.

In a saucepan heat granulated sugar, corn syrup, salt and 120 ml water over low heat, stirring constantly, until sugar is dissolved. Heat to boiling, and cook without stirring until the temperature reaches  240°F (115℃) on a candy thermometer. Remove from heat.

Start whisking the softened gelatin on low, and slowly pour in the syrup. Increase speed to high, and keep whisking for about 10 minutes until white and almost tripled in volume. Add peppermint extract and food coloring and keep whisking on high for another minute. 

Pour the sticky mixture into the prepared baking dish, patting lightly with wet hands. Sprinkle a thick layer of sifted confectionary sugar on top, and let stand uncovered for at least 8 hours or overnight.

Dust a cutting board with about 1 tablespoon sifted confectionary sugar. Place remaining powdered sugar in small bowl. Place the big marshmallow on the cutting board and using a pizza slicer cut the marshmallow into the desired size, or use small cookie cutters to cut marshmallows into fun shapes. Dust the freshly cut sides of each marshmallow by dipping them into bowl of confectionary sugar. 

Store marshmallows in an airtight container at room temperature up to 3 weeks.

I dipped the marshmallows in melted chocolate an sprinkled with crushed candy cane.