»Knækbrød«

Knækbrød, or crisp bread, is quite nordic, I guess. Very swedish for sure :-) If you go to Sweden, you can choose between endless varieties of crisp bread – rye, wheat, with sunflower, sesame, cinnamon, oh, I could go on for ever.

I'm no Swede, but why not go all the way, and make your own variety! The recipe below is really more of a guide. You can mix in any grain or flavor you like, the only thing you have to consider is that it

 * sticks when rolled out thin and that it can

 * bake relatively fast. (means no whole rye, for example, unless you want to pay your dentist an unscheduled visit!)

I used: 

Rolled oat

flaxseed

pumpkin seed

sesame

rye flour (one tblsp)

wheat flour (two tblsp)

salt

water

+ oil for brushing

Mix well. The dough should be sticky and "tough". In other words not fall apart when you roll it flat. Lightly brush two sheets of baking paper with a tasteless oil, and roll out the dough very thinly between the sheets. Remove the top sheet, season with salt /rosemary/ thyme/ sesame/ or ?

Run the backside of a knife through to make squares, this way it's easy to break bread into nice pieces after baking.

Place on tray, and bake in 200 C hot oven for 10-15 minutes. Let cool on rack.

Store your crisp bread in an airtight container (cookie jar?)

Easy, healthy and quick!

—Christine

Read More...

Summary only...

Limoncello Tiramisu

A classic with a twist!
Whenever I'm making Tiramisu I use this very simple recipe; egg yolk and sugar whipped thick, mixed with rich mascarpone; Ladyfingers dipped in espresso and Kahlua. Layers. Fridge. Dust with cocoa. Spoon, please.

Almost too easy for something that tastes so great.

This version is just as easy, and ooohhh so good!
The fresh Lemon liquers Limoncello suits the rich masparpone perfectly, sided by the sweetness and coolness of sugary Ladyfingers and fresh green tea.

  Serves 6-8


Make a pot of green tea. Let cool completely. (My favorite is ginger/lemon from Perchs)

2 egg yolks
2 tbsp sugar
Zest of one organic lemon
1/4 dl Limoncello
200 g mascarpone

Whisk egg yolk and sugar until all sugar grains are dissolved, and the eggs are fluffy and rich. Mix with mascarpone, lemon zest and Limoncelli. Set aside.

In a low pan, mix tea and Limoncello in the ratio one part green tea to 1/2 part Limoncello.
Dip Ladyfingers one by one - long enough for it to absorb the liquid, but not so long they soak. When the whole thing is assembled, the Ladyfingers should be soft (not crisp), and the Tiramisu precisely moist, not runny.

Assemble in layers: one layer Ladyfingers, one layer mascarponecreme, etc, ending with one layer of mascarponecreme. You can grate extra lemon zest over for decoration.

Cover, and set cold (fridge) for at least a couple of hours, even until the next day - only makes it better, if'y ask me :-)

I hope you like this version :-) I'd be very happy should you let me know
Best,
Christine

Read More...

Summary only...

Valentine´s Day - Ohh sweet Crème Brulée time.

Happy Valentine to all of you, we wish you a very joyfull day with sweet Crème Brulée. We have made a pink very Valentine like version, a licorice version and of course the traditional Vanilla version.

Have a lovely day.

Christine and Tina





Crème Brulée: 6-8 pers.

Put your glasses or small jars in the freezer for minimun 20 minutes, fill the kitchen sink with cold water, just a precaution, if the cream should  overheate and and separate. If you can see that the creme separates just put the pot in the cold water and whip the creme.

Start here:
Whip the egg yolks with the white sugar and leave it.
Put the cream and the cut open vanilla pod in a pot and heat it up while whipping constantly,
bring it to the boil, but it must not boil, take it of the heat just before it boils and pour it, vanilla pod and all, in the eggs and sugar.

I devided the cream into three bowls, one natural vanilla, one for Valentine pink - just a small drop of pink food color, and finally the interesting licorice powder - one-two tea spoon.

Heat each cream up again one a time at very low heat, and whipe constantly, here you can use the cold water if it seperate. It will take around 8 minutes before the creme thickens, but do not cook it too much it will become grainy. It is a fine balance.
Pour each color in the cold frozen glasses and put them in the refigerator. Leave them there at least 2 hours.

Just before serving sprinkel a thin layer of cane sugar on top and burn with a gass burner.

Happy sweet Valentine´s Day

Christine and Tina

Read More...

Summary only...

Far East meets Ancient Incas

Making sushi using the ancient Inca grain Quinoa instead of regular sushi rice, filling with cucumber and avocado. Quinoa is a very healthy grain, high in protein and rich in amino acids. This made a delicious lunch, and only took about half an hour to make—including cooking the quinoa!  

Rinse quinoa well in cold water. Cook 3 dl grains with 6 dl water. When the quinoa has absorbed all the water, remove from heat, and taste with rice vinegar and salt. Ad drops of water until it gets sticky (it doesn't get quite as sticky as sushi rice). Let cool.

Meanwhile cut long slim stems of cucumber and avocado and find hoisin sauce, plum sauce, teriyaki and pickled ginger from the fridge.

Lay out a sheet of seaweed on your sushi bamboo mat. Squash the sticky quinoa onto the sheet, leaving app. 2 cm in the end furthest from you grain-free (to close roll). Season with sauce, place veggies, and roll using the mat. Set aside and make two more.

Let sit for at few minutes, and with a clean, sharp knife, cut your rolls into neat sushi bites.

Enjoy with teriyaki and your favorite brand pickled ginger.
楽しむ
;o) Christine

Read More...

Summary only...

Kyndelmisse - Pancakes, blood oranges syrup, hazelnut cream and dark beer.

Kyndelmisse is a Christian Church festival we used to celebrate here in Denmark in the old days, Kyndelmisse always falls 2nd February - 40 days after Christmas. And originally it was a festival of light, to celebrate that now the winther will turn and we will go to lighter periods. Latin Candelarum=Light and Missa=Mass.

The tradition was to light Candels in the Churchs and have a feast with friends eating Soups with bacon and baking pancakes and drinking dark Beer.

I have here made small pancakes with Blood Orange Syrup, Agave Syrup and Hazelnut Cream, this cream is very fantastic without sugar from the Danish Chocolate Company Summerbird.

Blood Orange Syrup:

4 small Blood Oranges
4 tea spoons Agave Syrup
1 tea spoon cane sugar

Squeeze the juice into a pot and add syrup and sugar, cook at very low
for around 15 minutes untill the syrup thickens and cool down.

Pancakes: 4 pers.

1 dl Wheat flour
3 dl  Buckwheat flour
2 tea spoon baking powder
1 tea spoon Natron
1 tea spoon Sugar
1 tea spoon Salt

2 Eggs
3 dl  Buttermilk
4 table spoon Oil

Mix all the dry ingredients. Separate the yolk from the egg white, and whip the whites stiff and set aside.
Whip the yolks, the oli and the buttermilk together and mix it in with the dry mix. Finally turn in the wipped whites.
Let the dough rest in the refrigerator for minimun 30 minutes and fry the small pancakes in butter on a hot frying pan.

Enjoy and happy Kyndelmisse

Tina Brok

Read More...

Summary only...

Pinterest - what a powerfull media.

I must say that Christine and I are very proud and grateful. The last couple of days we have had so many visitors on our blog, as never before, and it totally peaked this Sunday with 1144 visitors. Usually we have around 50 visitors a day, and max 200 visitors when we have new posts on. All this traffic is due to only one of our picturs - This Valentine pictures - Pink Champagne and Macarons.

Last Valentine I pinned our pictures to my Pinboard - Lovely food, and now approaching Valentine 2012 it has been rediscovered.

Thank you so very much to all our Pinterest friends and happy Valentines 2012.

Best regards
Christine and Tina

         This weeks visitors

Read More...

Summary only...

Sunday getaway - A walk in "Dyrehaven" north of Copenhagen and coffee at "Den Gule Cottage"

Happy New year to all of you, hope you will have a great 2012.
I have started the new year a little slow, and have had time for a long Sunday walk.
Only 20 minutes away by train from Copenhagen, Dk we have the most fantastic forest "Dyrehaven" filled with wild dears around 2.000 pcs. and old and farytail like trees. The forest was original a hunting place for the King Frederik III and dates back to 1669. Its is a great place for a Sunday walk, fresh air and exercise.

And after some hours of fresh air you really need a good lunch and coffé. We like to visit a great little place by the waterfront at Klampenborg "Den Gule Cottage", super cozy and luxorious. See our lunch below. But first our walk this Sunday.

The Castle "Eremitagen" in the middle of "Dyrehaven" is fascinating. It has never been a residens, but just a place where the old kings could enjoy a meal after hunting. The Castle have a table that can be lowered into the kitchen and be set with food and be hoisted again up to the King and his hunting guests, without any servants, so they could be alone "En Ermitage" - in solitude. Below you see the oldest tree in Dyrehaven.

Our nice Sunday lunch at the restaurant Den Gule Cottage.


        Bouillon with chicken and herbs
        Cheese and sausage
        Nice small fresh bread
        A set of sweets:

• Liquorice  soft caramel
• Danish "romkugle".
• Biscuit with lemmon.
• Caramel with dark chocolate.
• Macaron and apricot

And off course nice coffee.

Have a nice sunday.
Best regards
Tina Brok

Read More...

Summary only...

Christmas Project

This year's big cake challenge has been to make a traditional Christmas cake. I started well in advance - four weeks before Christmas. It was a long wait, especially since I couldn't taste it; I had to wait until the cake was covered in marcipan and fondant :-)  

Uncoaked

First coating

Second coating

Making the leaves

For full Recipe, click Read more ... below 

100 g almonds, skin off and chopped nicely

100 glace cherries

200 g mixed pickled peels, chopped

500 g dark raisins

250 g yellow raisins (sultanas)

2 dl raisins, dades and dried abricots, soaked in brandy and chopped in mixer

1 handful of chopped pecan nuts

1 handful of chopped walnuts

zest of one lemon

275 g plain flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cardamomme, ground

2 cloves, ground

3 allspice, ground

275 g butter

275 g sugar

1 big tablespoon brown sugar or molasses

6 eggs

1/2 dl brandy, and quite a lot more to drizzle the cake with over the weeks

500 g marcipan

650 g fondant

red and green food color

Set the oven at 150 C

Sift flour and spices and mix with all the frut, almonds and lemonzest.

Whisk together butter, molasses and sugar, Add eggs and whisk until combined (one egg at a time, whisk well between adding). Gently mix with fruitmix and brandy.

In a pan coaked with baking paper (I used a large cast iron pot) pour the dough, and make a little hollow in the middle so it won't make a top when baking. Bake for about 3 1/2 - 4 hours, after a couple of hours, cover with several layers of baking paper, to prevent the cake from burning.

You can check if the cake is done, by sticking a knitting needle (metal) in – if it comes out dry, the cake's ready.

Remove from the pan, make a few holes in it using the knitting needle, and pour brandy over.

When cooled, wrap in baking paper and store in air tight container. Drizzle with booze of your choise regularly until it's time to coat and decorate. I used brandy, and drizzled almost every day, and once a week made wholes with the needle to make sure the brandy soaked all the way through.

Coating

Turn your cake upside down, so that it sits on its widest side. Coat with a thin layer of abricot jam, roll out 200 g marcipan between two sheets of baking paper, and cover the cake. Use icing sugar to prevent the marcipan sticking to the paper. Coat with another thin layer of abricot jam, roll out the fondant and cover the cake, Smoothe using an easy-glide fondant smoothener or whatever your kitchen may hold (I used the top of a cake tin - worked fine).

Color 2 small batches of fondant - one green and one red, for the holy leaves and the berries. Use a holy leaf puncher for the leaves.

And you're done! Your cake is ready to eat :-)

Have fun, and enjoy

A Very Merry Xmas to All
:-) Christine

Read More...

Summary only...