Birthday coffee 2022

For the first time in 2 years I could invite guests for a birthday coffee on my actual birthday. This was really great and fantastic to have a house full of guests again after corona. 

A classic Danish birthday coffee contains three key ingredients: freshly baked bun served with plenty of butter, cream cake and hot chocolate. Hot chocolate or drinking chocolate has no space inside my kitchen, as I DISLIKE the taste of hot chocolate and cocoa milk !!! I still recall my dislike, when I as a child was served hot chocolate at the other children´s birthday :-(

So instead of hot chocolate my guests could choose to kick of the evening with either a glass of sparkling wine or a glass of Frozen Rose or both. The Frozen Rose got a lot of fans this evening. And as usual this gets the talk running, before we sat down at the table.

And as usual we start of the eating part with saffron buns saffron buns, which I always make for my birthday. For me saffron buns really equal birthday celebration for me, as the use of saffron in huge amount is a great way to celebrate life/birthdays.

Afterwards it was time for the first cake in form of a cream cake with a filling of rhubarb compote, pickled rhubarb on the top and the cream filling being a mixture of whipped dairy cream, cream fraiche 38% fat, icing sugar and vanilla corns. 

The second cake was another rhubarb cake, this time with marzipan, which is another great combination. 

I will be sharing the various recipe from this birthday coffee in the near future.

I received some very nice birthday gift in form of different yarn, books, china tea cup, cake book, knitting project bag and some great looking flowers. Thank you very much to my friends and mother for some great gifts and your excellent company :-)

Shopping in Malmö

 

Last week I went to Malmö for the Nordic Dairy Congress. I managed for do some shopping during some of the programme breaks. I went to some supermarkets, where I stocked on both saffron and vanilla powder. The saffron I will use to bake saffron buns for my upcoming birthday. I use the vanilla powder instead of vanilla pods.

I also managed to located two shops selling hand-dyed yarns produced by local yarn dyers. I found two merino yarns in green made by Joladesign.se, and in the shop Garderobendesign I also found some merino and mohair as well hand-dyed in some other green colours by Garnlycka.se.

Four of the merino yarns fits perfect together in  a knitting project of some kind. And one of the merino yarn and mohair I intend to use to knit West Side by Susie Haumann.

Hveder 2022

 

Today Thursday evening is this the evening before Store Bededag (Great Payer Day) (a Danish religious holiday celebrated on the 4th Friday after Easter). And it is the peak evening for enjoying roasted "hveder" - wheat buns with cardamom.

This year I tested out a recipe I located in the weekly magazine "Hendes Verden - issue 19 / 2022" being rich in egg. I have have no changes to the recipe expected for the kneading and raising procedure, where I used my usual way of kneading & raising. The recipe could do with some more cardamom or perhaps a combination of cardamom & vanilla sugar.

"Hveder" (wheat buns) with cardamom a la "Hendes Verden": - 12-14 buns

• 600 g wheat flour
• 3 tablespoons of sugar
• 80 g butter
• 25 g fresh yeast
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 250 g full-fat milk
• 1 teaspoon cardamom 

1. Weigh all the ingredients directly into the mixing bowl of the stand alone mixer. Keep salt & sugar away from the yeast.
2. Place the bowl on the stand-alone mixer.
3. Start knead the dough at speed 1 for 8 minutes.
4. Afterwards increase the speed to 4, knead for 2 minutes. Check the consistency of the dough. If it is not OK, when knead it at speed 4 for another 2 minutes. Again check the consistency. If needed, knead again for 1 minute and when check consistency of the dough.
5. Cover the dough in the mixing bowl with a damp tea towel.
6. Let the entire dough raise for approx 40-60 minutes under a damp cloth.
7. When you evaluate, that the dough has raise enough, divide the dough into smaller pieces with a weight of 80 g each.
8. Shape the dough pieces into bun shapes. Place the bun pieces relative close in pans covered with baking parchment. 
9. Place the pans with bun dough in the oven (fan oven at 35-40'C). 
10. Let the bun raise for second time for approx. 40 minutes inside the oven, you could on top fill some boiling water into a container below the dough in the oven
11. Heat up the oven to 200'C.
12. Bake the bun at 180'C for 20 minutes.
13. Serve the buns warm with butter. Or slice them into 2 and roast the buns in the fan oven at 200C until light brown in the colour.

Recipe suggestions for hveder for Store Bededag 2022

  

This evening is the evening before Store Bededag (Great Payer Day) (a Danish religious holiday celebrated on the 4th Friday after Easter). And it is the peak evening for enjoying roasted "hveder" - wheat buns with cardamom.

Having discovered the great taste of home-made "hveder", where is no turning back for commercial baked "hveder". The combination of freshly grounded cardamon covering your kitchen in wonderful flavour and eating freshly baked/roasted buns is a combination made in heaven !!!

As inspiration for you I hereby share a selection of the various "hveder", which I have been baking over the years. And tomorrow I will share the recipe of the hveder 2022, which I will be baking this year.

Happy baking

Hveder 2020

Hveder a la Søndag



hveder -wheat buns with cardamon

Hveder a la Isabellas

Hveder af purpur hvede og surdej

Hveder med inspiration from "Maden imit liv"

Hveder med marcipan

Klassike hveder

 

Hveder 2021

Easter Calendar 2022 - mango lemon mousse

 Easter Calendar 2022

Today is Easter Monday or second Easter day, which is the the final Easter vacation day here in Denmark.

And I will end my Easter Calendar 2022 with yet another mousse recipe, this time I have made mango lemon mousse as the sweet final to yet another Easter lunch/dinner.

When you make this dessert, you need a lot of mixing bowls and you need to whip the different ingredients in a specific order, so you do not need to clean the mixer between each whipping part.

When you mix the melted gelatine into the lemon juice, I always used my electrical whipper, so I am certain, that I do not need up with gelatine lumps. And I also use the electrical whipper, when I added the lemon juice-gelatine liquid into the whipped egg yolk-sugar mix. For the rest of the mixing I do it gentle by hand.

I decided to use pasteurised egg yolk and pasteurised egg white. In Denmark each contain of egg yolk contains 2 egg yolk, while each container of egg white contains 1½ egg white, so therefore I used 3 egg whites. If you start from fresh eggs, when you divide three eggs into egg yolk and egg white.

Mango lemon mousse as dessert requires some planning, as the gelatine needs for set for minimum 4 hours or night over in the refrigerator.

As I am working with frozen fruit, which many times requires heating up, I actually do the cooking of the frozen fruit the evening, so the fruit is cooled down, before it mixed together with the whipped cream. This is done to avoid, that the whipped cream is melted during mixing.

Lemon-lime mousse: - 4-6 servings

• 4 leaves of gelatine
• 3 egg white
• 4 egg yolks
• 65 g sugar
• 2½ dl dairy whipping cream, 38% fat
• 1 organic lemon - zest & lemon juice
• 250 frozen mango pieces

1. Zest the lemon and juice the lemon.
2. Add the mango pieces into a cooking pot together with the lemon zest and juice. Bring it to the boil.
3. Blend the mango, and place it in bowl, which is stored cold night over.
4. Place the gelatine leaves in cold water for 10 minutes.
5. Place the egg white in a clean mixing bowl, and whip the egg whites into a firm foam.
6. Pour the dairy whipping cream in another mixing bowl, and whip the cream in a airy foam, which is not too firm.
7. Place the sugar and egg yolks into another mixing bowl, and whip it thick foam.
8. Melt the gelatine leaves in a small container in a water bath.
9. Pour the melted gelatine into the cold mango lemon mix, whip well while gentle during pouring. Use the electrical mixer.
10. Pour the mango lemon gelatine mix into the whipped egg yolk-sugar, whip well while gentle pouring. Use the electrical mixer.
11. Gentle stir in the whipped dairy cream into the egg yolk & sugar mass, little by little. Stir by hand.
12. Gentle fold in the whipped egg white in the cream mass, little by little. Stir by hand.
13. Fill the dessert mixture into either a large serving bowl or smaller serving bowls/ glasses.
14. Place the lemon mousse cold in the refrigerator for minimum 4 hours or night over.

Easter Calendar 2022 - lemon moon cocoktail

 

Easter Calendar 2022

Today it is Easter Sunday, which is the fourth day in the Danish Easter vacation. However, there is still another vacation day tomorrow, so lets celebrate it by enjoying a drink. I have found this recipe here: Bigfarmboys cocktails recipe. I have made no modification to it.

Big Farm Boys Citronmåne: - 1 cockail

• 4 cl gin
• 4 cl Big Farm Boy citrin cocktail syrup
• ½ organic lemon - juice and zest
• ice cubes

1. Place the lemon zest in a cocktail
2. Pour gin and cocktail syrup in a cocktail shaker together with lemon juice and ice cubes.
3. Shake everything together.
4. Pour into the cocktail together with an ice cubes.
5. Cheers and enjoy :-)

Easter Calendar 2022 - orange jam with ginger & vanilla

  

Today it is Good Friday (Langfredag) being the second day of the Danish Easter vacation. So today, I will enjoy my vacation time making some home-made jam from orange for my Easter Calendar 2022.

I will be selling some of the jam jars at work to my colleagues, as I cannot eat 6-8 glasses of jam within reasonable time. And as usual I will donated the money to charity (Julemærkehjemmene).


Orange jam with ginger & vanilla: 6 glasses.

• 6 organic oranges with thin peel
• 2 organic lemons
• 600 g sugar
• 2 tablespoons fresh grated ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla powder
• potassium sorbate - optional

1. Wash the orange thoroughly.
2. Cut of bottom and top of two of the oranges and throw away.
3. Cut the these two orange incl. the peel into small pieces. Remove any seeds. Place the orange pieces and the orange juice into the cooking pot.
4. Do the cutting of the oranges on a chopping board, so all the orange juice can be collected and used in the jam mixture.
5. Grate the zest of the remaining oranges and lemon, and add the orange & lemon zest into the cooking pot.
6. Peel the orange & lemon, and afterwards cut the oranges and lemon into smaller pieces. Remove the orange seeds during the coating process, as they will give more bitterness in the final jam. Add orange & lemon pieces together with the juice into the cooing pot.
7. Add freshly grated ginger and vanilla powder  together with sugar into the cooking pot.
8. Bring the jam to the boiling pot. Let it simmer gentle for 15 minutes under lid.
9. Remove the lid from the cooking pot, and the jam simmer for another 15 minutes.
10. Use a blend to get a more homogenous texture. 
11. Prepare the jam jars by filling them up with the boiling water.
12.  Stir in potassium sorbate, before you fill the jam into the jam jars.
13. Fill the jam into the jam jars. Close the glass with a lid.
14. Store at ambient temperature.