Shopping during Summer vacation in August

I have been away again on Summer vacation here in August. This time I have been on vacation in the area of Limfjorden (the Northern part of Jutland). This time I was driving in my car, so therefore I could bring more heavy items and more clothing  compared to my my Summer vacation in July. Besides from various shopping of clothing in the towns of Lemvig, Løgstør, Nykøbing Mors and Thisted I did also bring the following items back with me.

In Thisted I found these located cream puffs in different flavourings (caramel, liquorice & orange) produced by Thy Chokoladen.

In Lemvig I found these two green plants for my home, which can be seen below.

In Lemvig I also brought these three single apple juice produced by Vesterhavsmost in form of Cox Holstein, Elstar & Rød Aroma.

In Lemvig at the same wine shop, where I located the apple juice I found this bottle of rose port and gin a la orange jam from Sevilla. The shop owner provides me with the some serving suggestions for making drinks with both the gin and port. So look around at a later time, where I try out these suggestions.

Finally I locate this yarn of thin silk mohair from Sandness in the colour of light grey, petrol and olive green together with the a sweater recipe at MORS garn.

Muffin with apple, cinnamon and oat

For the annual cake regetta at-the rowing club I decided to give it a go with these æblemuffin with cinnamon and oat a la Elle. The muffins did not increase so much during baking, and they are a little to the dry side. Instead of using oat flakes, I decided to grained the oat flakes into oat flour.

As another suggestion on muffins with apple take a look here apple muffin with cinnamon. These muffins has more moisture.

In the original recipe the plain yogurt is used, however I decided to use thick milk instead of, as I had thick milk and no plain yogurt in my refrigerator. You could also use buttermilk as alternativ.

Muffin with apple, cinnamon and oat: - 8 muffins

• ½ dl rape seed oil
• 75 g sugar
• 1 dl yogurt or thick milk
• 2 eggs
• 80 g oat flakes - grained into the flour
• 125 g wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 nip of salt
• 1 apple - diced into small pieces
• another apple - cut into thin slices for decoration
• cinnamon sugar - optional

1. Heat up the oven to 180'C-
2. Whip the sugar and rape seed oil well to get.
3. Add in the thick milk/plain yogurt and whip.
4. Add in the egg one by one, whip between each addition of egg.
5. Add the wheat flour, oat flour, cinnamon, baking powder, salt and vanilla sugar into another mixing bowl.
6. Add this dry into the sugar-oil-egg mixture, while you whip.
7. Finally stir the apple pieces.
8. Fill the muffin dough into the 8-12 muffin forms
9. Add three thin apple slices on top of the muffin as decoration, and sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top.
10. Bake the muffin at 180'C for approx 20 minutes, +/- 5 minutes (depends on the size of the muffin form).
11. Cold down the muffins prior to serving them together with a cup of coffee/tea.

Rhubarb & apple jam

At the Summer preserves course last year I learned to make this strawberry& apple jam, where the addition of apple was used to gelled this strawberry jam. As rhubarb has a similar low natural content of pectin as strawberries, I decided to use addition of apple puree to gel this rhubarb jam in combination with a high sugar content.

Well, I think I should have added some more apple puree to obtain a more gelled texture, as this rhubarb jam has a quiet fluid texture. Or perhaps it was the addition of the 200 ml water in order to the rhubarb boiled. Or perhaps I used have added ½-1 teaspoon citric acid to obtain the gelled texture.

As usual I will sell the majority of the jam to my work colleagues, as I cannot eat all this rhubarb jam on my own. The money, which my colleagues pay will afterwards be donated to charity.

Rhubarb & apple jam: 8-10 glasses

• 1 kg rhubarb stems - washed and stem removed and cut into a length 2-3 cm
• 200 ml water
• 450 g cooking apples - peeled, cored and thinly sliced
• 1400 g sugar
• Atamon - optional

1. Place the apple slices in a separate cooking pan together with the water part.
2. Cover the pan with a lid and cook the apple over low heat, until the apples is quiet soft and pulpy, should look like apple mash (approx 10 minutes).
3. Sieve the apple pulp, there should be around 340 g in total.
4. Add the rhubarb pieces and water to a large jam. Bring the content to the boil, let the fruit simmer gently until tender, approx 15 minutes.
5. Prepare the jam glasses either by heating up in the oven or adding boiling water to them.
6. Add the apple purée into the rhubarb mixture mix together to combine the fruit.
7. Add the sugar into the fruit mass and stir until it is dissolved.
8. Bring the jam to a rolling boil and boil hard until the setting point is reached. Stir the jam frequently.
9. Test of set after 5 minutes using the flake test.
10. When the setting point is reached, remove the pan from the heat and leave it to stand for 5 minutes. As the jam settles, push any scums from the surface of the pan to the side and remove it with a metal spoon. The purpose for the waiting step is well to build viscosity in jam, so the fruit pieces will be trapped inside the jam inside of be going to the top of jam.
11. Gently stir the jam after the resting time and pour it into the prepared glasses, fill the glasses up to the brim. Remove any scum for the surface of the jam using a tea spoon. Close the glass with a lid.
12. Leave the glass upright and disturbed to cool and set.
13. Store at ambient temperature.

Christmas Calendar 2018 - Apple jam with cinnamon

Well apple and cinnamon is a very classic flavour combination, and cinnamon is also one of the very classic flavour related to Christmas, well at least for me :-)

So why not combined the apple jam with cinnamon ? After some thinking how to do that, I decided to twist this apple jam with vanilla by, after the filling into jam jars to stick a cinnamon stick into each jar of apple jam, before sealing the jar with the lid.

Apple jam with cinnamon sticks: - 8 glasses

• 1.4 kg apples - washed, cored, peeled and cut into smaller boat shapes
• 600 ml water
• 2 organic lemons - zest and the juice
• 1 vanilla pod
• 1 teaspoon of apple vinegar - optional for flavour adjustment
• 8 cinnamon stick - one cinnamon stick per jar
• 1.4 kg sugar

1. Add water, lemon juice and zest into the cooking pan.
2. Prepare the apples washing them, removing both core and peel and finally cutting the apple into small boat shapes. Place the apple boat in the liquid in the cooking pan.
3. Open up the vanilla pod, remove the corn from the vanilla pod. Add both vanilla pod and vanilla corn into the apple mass in the cooking pot.
4. Put the cooking pan on the stove, heat up the content, so the apples are simmering. 
5. Let the apple simmer until the apple boat are tender and starts to cook out.
6. Prepare the jam glasses either by heating up in the oven or adding boiling water to them.
7. Remove the vanilla pod from the apple mass.
8. Add the sugar into the fruit mass and stir until it is dissolved.
9. Bring the jam to a rolling boil and boil hard until the setting point is reached. Stir the jam frequently.
10. Test of set after 5 minutes using the flake test.
11. When the setting point is reached, remove the pan from the heat and leave it to stand for approx.  5 minutes. As the jam settles, push any scums from the surface of the pan to the side and remove it with a metal spoon. The purpose for the waiting step is well to build viscosity in jam, so the fruit pieces will be trapped inside the jam inside of be going to the top of jam.
12. Gently stir the jam after the resting time and pour it into the prepared glasses, fill the glasses up to the brim. Remove any scum for the surface of the jam using a tea spoon.
13. Before closing the jam jar, stick a cinnamon stick into each jam jar.
14. Close the glass with a lid.
15. Leave the glass upright and disturbed to cool and set.
16. Store at ambient temperature.

Apple jelly

I keep experimenting using the various recipes and techniques, which I learned at the Summer preserves course using the different fruits, which I can get access to from gardens of friends and colleagues.

This time I got a bag of different apple types from a colleague as part of my preparation for the annual Christmas calendar. So look by in December to check out, what I need apples for.

As I had apples let from my Christmas experiment, I decided to make apple jelly using this recipe on red & black currant jelly as starting point.

As usual I always remove the core of the apple, as I do not like the bitterness from the apple kernel. Do not worry about removing the natural fruit pectin within the apple getting ride of the apple core. The pectin is not located in the apple core, the pectin is located in fruit part of the apple.

Compared to the recipe on red & black currant I decided to add in lemon juice for two reasons. First reason I use the lemon juice in order to reduce the browning effect of the apple after cutting, And the second reason is, that a higher acidity level (lower pH) will give a faster and stronger gelling inside the jelly.

If you work with smaller portion of jelly, when you should not stir the jelly during the cooking of the jelly mixture as this can give problems with too many air bobbles in the final jelly.

I noticed, that this apple jelly was extreme slow with regards to obtain the gelled texture. It took close to 1½ day for the jelly to gel, and the texture seems quiet soft (= not so firm). This can be due to several issues. Either the used apples were more matured in, so the content of natural active fruit pectin inside the apples were lower, the acidity level was to the high side (further adjustment by adding in more lemon juice or apple vinegar or the ratio between apple juice and sugar should have been 100 g sugar to 100 ml juice (as I used, when making this crab apples jelly).

It is actually quiet nerve racking turning the jelly jars slightly to see, if the gelled texture is where or not. And when thinking about how to "safe" a liquid jelly and get it too gel !!!

Apple jelly: 6-8 glasses per 1 kg apple

• 1100 g apple - washed and cleaned, the stems and core removed
• 750 ml water
• 1½ lemon - only the juice
• 450 g sugar per 600 ml juice or perhaps 100 g sugar to 100 ml apple juice ?

1. Add water, and lemon juice into the cooking pan.
2. Prepare the apples washing them, removing both core and peel and finally cutting the apple into small boat shapes. Place the apple boat in the liquid in the cooking pan.
3. Bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, and let the apple simmer gently for 10-20 minutes, until the content becomes pulpy in appearance. 
4. Mash the apple boat into apple mask structure.
5. Place a jelly bag suspended over a large bowl.
6. Pour the mashed apple/water into the jelly bag.
7. Leave until, the bag has stopped dripping. Alternative night over.
8. Prepared the jelly glasses. I add boiling water to the glasses, while other will heat the glasses in the oven at 120 minutes.
9. Measure the amount of fruit juice and weight out 450 g sugar per 600 ml juice.
10. Pour the fruit into large cooking pan and heat up the juice to the boil.
11. Add in the (pre-heasted) sugar, Stir until the sugar is dissolved.
12. Bring the jelly mixture to a rolling boil (the jelly mixture has a lot of boiling foam on top).
13. Let it boil for 4 minute as starting point.
14. Test for a set after 4 minutes using the flake test (how the jelly is dripping from the cooking spoon). This is tricky, otherwise see, if the temperature is 104'C.
15. When the the texture is right, remove the cooking pan from the heat. Start right away to remove any scum from the surface of the jelly, using a large metal spoon.
16. Pour the jelly into glass jars, fill the jar to the top. Again remove any scum from the surface using a tea spoon.
17. Seal the jar with a lid.
18. Leave the glass upright and undisturbed to set.
19. Store at ambient temperature. 

Apple jam with vanilla

As my colleagues have been busy buying all jars with apple & ginger jam, I decided to make a new portion of apple jam, as I still have plenty of apples on my apple tree. This time I decided to exchange the ginger with vanilla, but other I made no changes to the amount of apples, lemons and sugar.

In order to get a little more freshness to the flavour profile, I added in a tiny amount of apple vinegar.

As usual I added the water, lemon juice and lemon zest into the cooking pan first, so this liquid mixture hopefully could reduce the browning of the apple boats, as I right after the apple cutting would place the apple boats into this acidic liquid.

When I started to remove the scum from the surface of the jam, I became a little uncertain, if I at the same time was removing all the vanilla corns together with the scum. However, later I could see, that the jam jars still had plenty of vanilla corn inside the jam.

Apple jam with vanilla: - 8 glasses

• 1.4 kg apples - washed, cored, peeled and cut into smaller boat shapes
• 600 ml water
• 2 organic lemons - zest and the juice
• 1 vanilla pod
• 1 teaspoon of apple vinegar - optional for flavour adjustment
• 1.4 kg sugar

1. Add water, lemon juice and zest into the cooking pan.
2. Prepare the apples washing them, removing both core and peel and finally cutting the apple into small boat shapes. Place the apple boat in the liquid in the cooking pan.
3. Open up the vanilla pod, remove the corn from the vanilla pod. Add both vanilla pod and vanilla corn into the apple mass in the cooking pot.
4. Put the cooking pan on the stove, heat up the content, so the apples are simmering. 
5. Let the apple simmer until the apple boat are tender and starts to cook out.
6. Prepare the jam glasses either by heating up in the oven or adding boiling water to them.
7. Remove the vanilla pod from the apple mass.
8. Add the sugar into the fruit mass and stir until it is dissolved.
9. Bring the jam to a rolling boil and boil hard until the setting point is reached. Stir the jam frequently.
10. Test of set after 5 minutes using the flake test.
11. When the setting point is reached, remove the pan from the heat and leave it to stand for approx.  5 minutes. As the jam settles, push any scums from the surface of the pan to the side and remove it with a metal spoon. The purpose for the waiting step is well to build viscosity in jam, so the fruit pieces will be trapped inside the jam inside of be going to the top of jam.
12. Gently stir the jam after the resting time and pour it into the prepared glasses, fill the glasses up to the brim. Remove any scum for the surface of the jam using a tea spoon. Close the glass with a lid.
13. Leave the glass upright and disturbed to cool and set.
14. Store at ambient temperature.

Crab apples jelly

I keep experimenting using the various recipes and techniques, which I learned at the Summer preserves course using the different fruits, which I can get access to from gardens of friends and colleagues.

This time I have got hold of crab apples from the garden of my manager, so here I decided to make a jelly from those.

I decided to cut the entire crab apple into smaller piece as a way of both removing the core of the apple (I dislike the bitterness of apple core) as well as spoiled part of the apple. Do not worry about removing the natural fruit pectin within the apple getting ride of the apple core. The pectin is not located in the apple core, the pectin is located in fruit part of the apple.

I also decided to add in some acidity in form of apple vinegar for two reasons. First reason to get a more fresh taste, which boost the fruit flavour. Second reason a higher acidity level (lower pH) will give a faster and stronger gelling inside the jelly.

If you work with smaller portion of jelly, when you should not stir the jelly during the cooking of the jelly mixture as this can give problems with too many air bobbles in the final jelly.

Any left overs of the crab apples was be used for crab apple aquavit.

Crab apple jelly: 4 glasses per 1 kg crab apple

• 1 kg crab apple - washed and cleaned, the stems and core removed
• 800 ml water
• 100 g sugar per 100 ml juice
• 1/8 teaspoon apple vinegar per 100 ml juice - optional

1. Place the fruit piece  and water in large cooking pan. Bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, and let the fruit simmer gently for 10-20 minutes, until the content becomes pulpy in appearance. 
2. Mash the apple pieces into apple mask structure.
3. Place a jelly bag suspended over a large bowl.
4. Pour the mashed apple/water into the jelly bag.
5. Leave until, the bag has stopped dripping. Alternative night over.
6. Prepared the jelly glasses. I add boiling water to the glasses, while other will heat the glasses in the oven at 120 minutes.
7. Measure the amount of fruit juice and weight out 100 g sugar per 100 ml juice.
8. Optional add in the apple vinegar in form of 1/8 teaspoon per 100 ml juice.
9. Pour the fruit into large cooking pan and heat up the juice to the boil.
10. Add in the (pre-heasted) sugar, Stir until the sugar is dissolved.
11. Bring the jelly mixture to a rolling boil (the jelly mixture has a lot of boiling foam on top).
12. Let it boil for 2 minute as starting point.
13. Test for a set after 2 minutes using the flake test (how the jelly is dripping from the cooking spoon). This is tricky, otherwise set, if the temperature is 104'C.
14. When the the texture is right, remove the cooking pan from the heat. Start right away to remove any scum from the surface of the jelly, using a large metal spoon.
15. Pour the jelly into glass jars, fill the jar to the top. Again remove any scum from the surface using a tea spoon.
16. Seal the jar with a lid.
17. Leave the glass upright and undisturbed to set.
18. Store at ambient temperature. 

Christmas Calendar 2016 - Christmas apple sticks

Since I first tried to bake these Ester's apple sticks in Autumn, I have known, that I wanted to make a Christmas version of them full of cinnamon, sucat and marzipan.

Christmas Apple Sticks: - 2 cakes

Dough:

• 300 g wheat flour
• 100 g butter
• 20 g fresh yeast
• 25 g sugar
• 2 g salt
• 1 egg
• 100 g milk

Filling:

• 100 g butter - soft
• 100 g sugar
• 100 g marzipan - roughly grated
• 50 g almond - roughly chopped
• 50 g sucat - roughly chopped
• 1 apple - sliced into thin boat shapes.
• chai sugar
• whipped egg for glazing

1. Add all the dough ingredients into the mixing bowl of the stand-alone mixer.
2. Knead the dough for 5 minutes on speed 2.
3. Cover the mixing bowl with a tea towel, and let the dough raise for 45-60 minutes.
4. Meanwhile make the filling.
5. Add butter and sugar into mixing bowl, stir into a homogeneous mass by hand.
6. Afterwards add in the marzipan, chopped almonds and sucat, stir everything together.
7. Heat up the oven to 220'C.
8. Divide the dough into two portions. Place each dough portion on a piece of baking paper.
9. Roll each dough portion into 15 x 25 cm.
10. Divide the filling into 2 two portions.
11. Place the filling portion in the middle of the dough. And spread out.
12. Place the apple boats on top of the filling.
13. Sprinkle the apple pieces with chai sugar.
14. Cover the filling and apple with rest of the dough.
15. Move the apple stick with baking paper to the baking tray.
16. Glaze the dough with whipped egg.
17. Bake the apple sticks at 220'C in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes.
18. Bake the apple stick, until they are golden.
19. Cold down the apple sticks on a oven rack.
20. Slice the apple sticks, when they are cold.

Christmas Calendar 2016 - Apple ginger cake

It is always nice to enjoy some cake for your afternoon coffee/tea. This time I have been baking this apple ginger cake for my colleagues at work in order to say "thank you" to the "elfs" (nisser). For the last three years I have been hanging up a Christmas stocking at work as decoration. The most existing part is that every day during these years some "elfs" are putting various fills into my Christmas stocking :-). And this years more "elfs" are active !!! So today it is time for my colleague to enjoy a piece of cake for their afternoon coffee as "thank yor" to the "elfs" from my side.






Apple ginger cake:

• 300 g apples - peeled, cored and cut into smaller pieces
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• ½ teaspoon of cinnamon
• 190 g (cake) wheat flour
• 60 g oat flakes - blended into flour
• 30 g almonds - blended into flour
• 85 g sugar
• 1½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon home-made vanilla sugar
• pinch of salt
• 2 eggs
• 170 g buttermilk
• 70 g rapeseed oil

1. Heat up the oven to 185'C.
2. Mix 50 g of the apples pieces with 1 tablespoon sugar and ½ teaspoon of cinnamon. Set a side in a small bowl.
3. Add wheat, oat and almond flour into a mixing bowl together with sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, vanilla sugar and salt.
4. Add eggs, buttermilk and oil into another mixing bowl and whip it together by hand.
5. Add the liquid phase into the dry part, and stir by hand into a homogeneous mass. 
6. Afterward add most of the apples.
7. Cover a bread form with a sheet of baking paper. Fill the dough into the form. Top the dough with the cinnamon coated apples pieces.
8. Bake at 185'C for 50-70 minutes, until the cake is baked.
9. Cool down the cake, before you slice it.

Christmas Calendar 2016 - Apple cake with walnuts

When I found this recipe on apple cake with walnuts at Sæson (Æblekage med valnødder) using many of the spices, which you associate with Christmas, I knew I wanted to make this cake as part of my Christmas Calendar with the theme of Christmas afternoon tea.

It is possible to make the apple mash a few days before. The use of apple mash in the cake gives a cake with great moisture. However, it also makes it tricky to bake the cake, because when is the cake actually baked !

Apple cake with walnuts:

• 5 apples - cored, peeled and cut into boat shape
• 1 dl water
• 2 teaspoons of home-made vanilla sugar
• 5 teaspoons of sugar
• 125 g butter - soft
• 200 g sugar
• 1 vanilla pod - only the seeds
• 300 g (cake) wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ dl whole fat milk
• 100 g sultana raisins
• 100 g walnuts - roughly chopped

1. Add the apple boats and water into a medium cooking pot.
2. Bring the apples to the boil. Let the apple boil gently for 10-15 minutes.
3. When the apples are soft, remove the cooking from the heat and mash the apple together.
4. Add in vanilla sugar and sugar. The amount of sugar depends on your sweetness preference.
5. Cool down the apple mash.
6. Heat up the oven to 190'C.
7. Whip the butter, sugar and vanilla seeds together into a firm mass.
8. Add wheat flour, cinnamon, ginger, salt and baking soda into the cake mass together with the apple mash and milk. Stir until homogeneous.
9. Stir in the raisins and chopped walnuts.
10. Fill the cake dough into a round pie form, 22-24 cm in diameter.
11. Bake the cake in the middle of the oven at 190'C for 50-70 minutes.
12. Cold down the cake, before it is cut.

Sweet Apple Martini

I decided to make a drink using this very sweet home-made juice of Ingrid Marie apples combining it with dry Martini and some slices of lemon. This turned to be a great combination. I have previous been sharing this recipe on Apple Martini wih gin with you, which taste less great this new version of Apple Martini.

Sweet Apple Martini: - 1 drink

• 6-8 cl dry Martini
• 12-16 cl sweet apple juice
• 1-2 slices of lemon
• ice cubes

1. Pour Martini and apple juice into a medium-large cocktail glass.
2. Add in 1-2 lemon slices and some ice cubes.
3. Cheers and enjoy :-)

Old-fashioned Danish apple cake

Today I served Sunday dinner for my mother in form of grand mother-style food using recipes from "Frøken Jensens Kogebog". We had Danish pork meat balls known as frikadeller served together with boiled potatoes, brown sauce, pickled cucumber and red beet. As dessert we enjoyed old-fashioned Danish apple cake.


I have previously shared a recipe on traditional Danish apple cake with you. This time I roasted the breadcrumbs and sugar in butter prior to putting the cake together.

Old-fashioned Danish apple cake is one of the most easy cake to made at all, as it requires not any baking or freezing at all !!!! It is the style of Danish apple cake, which I grew up with at home. My mother would make the cake during Autumn, when guests were invited over for coffee, she would never serve it as a dessert in connection with a meal, but always together with coffee. In my opinion you can served it as dessert as well.

Even if it is very, very, very easy to make, you still need to make some preparation in advance in form of the apple mash/compote and the roasted breadcrupms. However, this can be done quiet easy be done 1-2 days in advance (as the preparation of the apple boats without peel is quiet time consuming).

You can either serve this cake as a single serving or in one big bowl. From my childhood home I am used to have this cake served in one big bowl. I am not used to the tradition of adding small lumps of red jams such as redcurrant jam, as my mother never did that. However, in some family this is another tradition, when serving Danish apple cake.

Old-fashioned Danish apple cake:

• 1 kg apple - to be cored, cut into boat shape and peeled
• 2 dl water
• 100 g sugar
• 2 teaspoon home-made vanilla sugar or 1 teaspoon commercial vanilla sugar
• 100 g breadcrumbs
• 50 g sugar
• 50 butter
• whipped dairy whipped cream, 35-40% fat¨

1. Bring the apple boats and water to the boil in medium size cooking pot under lid.
2. Gentle boil the apples, until they are soft.
3. Mash the apple boats into a homogeneous mass.
4. Stir in the sugar and vanilla sugar.
5. Taste the apple mask, add more sugar, if you prefer a sweeter taste.
6. Cold down the apple mash.
7. Mix the sugar and breadcrumbs together.
8. Melt the butter on a frying pan.
9. Roast the breadcrumbs-sugar mass in butter, while stirring.
10. Keep roasting until the breadcrumbs are golden in colour and crips.
11. Cool down the breadcrumbs. Stir it from time to time.
12. Start by filling a layer of breadcrumbs into the glass/bowl.
13. Afterwards fill apple mash on top.
14. Filling a second layer of breadcrumbs on top.
15. Followed by a second layer of apple mash/compote.
16. Continue to fill layer of breadcrumbs and apple mash, until the glass/bowl is almost filled.
17. The last layer is breadcrumbs followed by a finishing touch of whipped dairy cream.
18. Let the apple cake rest in the refrigerator for 1-4 hours before serving it. It can also be eaten right away.

Home-made juice of Ingrid Marie apples

The apples from the annual apple harvest, which were damaged in some sort, has now be turned into home-made juice of pure Ingrid Marie apples.

I always remove the core of the apples, when I juicing appples, as I juicing with the apple kernels gives bitterness in the final juice.

The juice on these Ingrid Marie apples has a rich red colour combined with a very intense sweet aromatic taste. The sweetness is so high, that you can only drink a small glass of juice at the time.

Next time, when  I have damaged Ingrid Marie apples I will not juice these apples, but instead of make apple mash, which could be used as ingredients in the classic Danish apple cake.

Home-made apple juice:

• Apples - core and damaged parts removed

1. Prepare the apple prior to juicing on juicer. 
2. Juice the apples.
3. Store the juice cold in the refrigerator for up to 2-3 days.
4. Enjoy as cold juice.

Apple harvest of 2016 is in house

My "big" apple harvest is in the house or rather the harvest is stored outside the house :-)

I have two apple tree in my "little" park. One unknown apple tree in pillar sharp and the second tree is a "family" tree, which should have 3 different sorts of apples, however I can see two different sorts (Philippa and Ingrid Marie).

Today I have harvested all my apples, as the apples have been tumbling down, when the wind is busy in the garden. The apples harvest has been divided into two portions. One portion of apple, which will be stored, and the second portion of apples with damages, which will be juiced.

Two years ago I brought some old fashion looking apple storage boxes.

The first I stored my apples in a small outbuilding, where the mice held a big party, where I and Hannibal the Cat were not invited.

Last year I decided to store my apples next to the kitchen door outside the house, so Hannibal the Cat could take care of the mice. Here the blackbirds had an apple feast of their own, again without issuing any invitations to me.

This year I am trying out a new storage place, this time on the balcony on the North side of the house, and placing some newspaper on top. Hopefully I have an apple feast for myself this year. And if you come around you are invited to taste one of my home-grown apples :-)

While I was harvesting I could see how many figs from the second fruit setting, which my fig tree is having. However, the second fruit setting will never mature in Denmark due to our climate. So I can only harvest figs from the first fruit setting of the season, which also was quiet big this year, so I actually made fig jam of figs from my garden.

Pumpkin muffins with apple and walnut

During my busy pumpkin week-end in my kitchen I also baked some muffin with grated pumpkin inside.

I was daring enough to bring these muffins with me to work, so they could donate a small sum of money, when they enjoy these muffins for their afternoon coffee. The donation of 177 DKK was afterwards forwarded to A Race Against Breast Cancer.

The texture of these muffins is quiet wet due to all the pumpkin meat, so it quiet tricky to bake them enough without over baking them. They do not raise a lot during the baking, which I think again is due to the high amount of pumpkin meat. So another time I would decrease the amount of pumpkin meat from 500 g to 250 g.

Pumpkin muffin with apple and walnut: - 35 muffins

• 500 g pumpkin meat - roughly grated
• 200 g walnuts - roughly chopped
• 2 apples - roughly grated
• 5 eggs
• 300 g sugar
• 1 vanilla pod - only the vanilla corn
• 3 dl rapeseed oil
• 2 dl milk
• 400 g (cake) wheat flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• pinch of muscat nut
• 4 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon all specie
• pinch of cardamon

1. Heat up the fan oven to 170'C.
2. Add grated apple and pumpkin and chopped walnuts into a large mixing bowl.
3. Add egg, milk, rapeseed oil, sugar and vanilla corn together in another mixing bowl, and whip it together.
4. Add flour, baking powder and all the different spices together in a third mixing bowl. Stir everything together.
5. Stir in the liquid phase into the apple, pumpkina and walnut mass. Afterwards stir in the flour mix and stir everything well together.
6. Fill the dough into muffin forms.
7. Bake the muffins at 170'C (fan oven) for 20 minutes.
8. Cool down the muffins.

Apple curd

As a finishing touch to my theme of September I have been making apple curd using this recipe. I decided to use the entire apple mash for this curd. This apple curd could the a great touch to these apple walnut scones.

Apple curd: - 6 glasses

• 680 apple - cored, peeled and cut into boat shape
• 150 ml water
• 1 lemon - only the juice
• 340 g sugar
• 2 eggs - whipped together
• 110 g butter

1. Cook the apple, lemon juice and water, until the apples are soft.
2. Blend the apple, lemon juice and water into a homogeneous mass.
3. Prepare the storage glasses by adding boiling water to them.
4. Add in the sugar, butter and egg mass to the apple mash.
5. Continue to stir and heat up the apple curd to 80'C, so the eggs does not curdled.
6. Pour the apple curd into the storage glasses.
7. Store the apple curd cold.

Apple buns

I found this recipe on the Sæson homepage (koldhævede æbleboller), which fitted perfect into my September theme with focus on apples, while I add the same time could bake buns to bring with me on my evening rowing tours.

I made a small modification to the original recipe, as I reduced the yeast level from 10 g to 5 g and included 50 g sour dough.

These buns are just as easy to make and bake as the cooking pot bread, and they involves no handling of the dough with your hands.

Apple buns: - 12 buns

• 500 g water
• 5 g yeast
• 50 g sour dough (optional)
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 200 g apple - roughly grated
• 200 g grahamflour
• 600 g wheat flour
• 1 egg for glazing

1. Add yeast, sour dough and water into a large mixing bowl. Stir everything together.
2. Afterwards add in the honey, salt, grated apple and grahamsflour, and stir again.
3. Add in the wheat flour little by little, while you continue to stir the dough.
4. Cover the mixing bowl with a lid and place it cold the night over (or 8 hours).
5. Heat up the fan oven to 215'C.
6. Cover the baking trays with baking paper.
7. Use two tablespoons to place the dough as buns on the baking tray. After each bun dip the tablespoons into cold water. This makes it very easy to take out a new piece of the bun dough.
8. Let the buns raise for 30 minutes.
9. Glaze the buns with whipped egg.
10. Bake the buns at 215'C in the fan oven for 20 minutes.
11. After baking cool down the buns on a rack.

Carrot cassarole with apple twist

I found this recipe on carrot casserole in the weekly magazine Søndag (issue 35/2016), where I made a few modifications in form of less meat, more vegetables and addition of an apple in line with my September theme of apple.

My mother found the taste a little to the strong side, and perhaps that some the vegetable a little to the less cooked side., but do as you like. I like my vegetable still to have a bite to them.

Carrot cassarole with apple twist: - 4 servings

• 4 carrots - 2 roughly grated and 2 slices thinly
• 520 g chicken meat - roughly diced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon curry
• 400 g coconut milk
• 150 g sugar peas - roughly divided
• 1 broccoli - divided into bouquets
• 1 apple - roughly diced
• salt & pepper for seasoning

1. Fry the chicken pieces in hot oil in a bog cooking pot for approx 5 minutes.
2. Removed the chicken pieces.
3. Roast the curry in the cooking pot.
4. Add in the grated carrots and coconut milk, bring it to the boil.
5. Blend the coconut and carrots into a sauce, which afterwards is seasoned with salt & pepper.
6. Add in the chicken pieces, carrots slices, sugar peas, apple diced and broccoli bouquets.
7. Let everything cook gently for 5 minutes under lid.
8. Serve together with rice.

Apple walnut scones

I better make a good start of my September theme of apple, so therefore I have been creating these scones with apple and walnut inside using the scone recipe, which I got during my recent afternoon tea course at Women Institute of Denham. I will later share this classic scone recipe with you as well as tell you more about the actual afternoon tea course.

I used a plain eating knife to stir everything together into a homogeneous mass using the advise of one of the course participants, which I meet at the afternoon tea course.

Apple walnut scones: - 9 scones

• 275 g (cake) flour
• 1½ teaspoon baking powder
• 25 g sugar
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• 50 g (salted) butter - diced into smaller pieces
• 150 g milk
• 1 apple - cut into smaller pieces
• 30 g walnuts - medium diced
• milk or egg for glazing

1. Heat up the fan oven to 200'C.
2. Add all the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl.
3. Add the butter pieces and rub the butter into the flour mix, until it look like fine breadcrumbs,
4. Add the milk, apple and walnuts. Combine it into a homogeneous looking mass using a eating knife.
5. Leave it to rest for 10-15 minutes. 
6. Press the scone dough into a height of 3-4 cm. 
7. Use a small cutter or glass to cut out the scones, which is placed on a baking tray covered with baking paper.
8. Glaze the scones with milk or whipped egg.
9. Bake at 200'C for 12-15 minutes.
10. Cold down on a baking rack.

Crumble cake with blackberry and apples

This easy cake is an excellent way to clear up your freezer for any fruits picked last year, but not used before new fruit is ready to fill up your freezer again.

You can use a lot of different fruit. In this case I have used a combination of frozen blackberries and 2 fresh apples. One one of my colleagues at work was getting tried of all my frozen blackberries filling up the freezing room at work, so I had to find a way for using these blackberries, while I at the same time could get some brownie point at my colleague, as I baked this cake for him !


Crumble cake with blackberry and apples:

• 380 g blackberries
• 2 small apples -cut into boat shape
• ½ teaspoon vanilla sugar
• 100 g butter
• 50 g wheat (cake) flour
• 100 g oat flakes
• 3 tablespoon sugar

1. Heat up the oven to 200'C
2. Place the blackberries into a small oven stable tray.
3. Place the apple boats on top of the blackberries.
4. Sprinkle the vanilla sugar on top of the fruit.
5. Melt the butter.
6. Mix flour, oat flakes and sugar into the melted butter.
7. Spread this crumble layer on top of the fresh fruit.
8. Place the cake in the upper part of the oven.
9. Bake the cake at 20-25 minutes at 200'C.
10. Cool down the cake prior to serving.
11. The cake could be served with sour cream or whipped dairy cream.