Easter decoration 2021

 

It is a Danish tradition to decorate your home with various lambs, eggs, chickens in the time up to Easter. It is also a Danish to tradition to bring tree branches to the living room, which when is decorate with various eggs decoration.

I have also started to hang up various Easter decorations with tape in my windows as a way to use all my mine Easter decorations. This year I had to hang up the Easter egg a high up as possible, as my little garden tiger Felix likes to punch to things, which are within reach :-)

Also this year I have been buying some new Easter decoration, this year in form of 3 small decoration lambs.

I have received as gift as well brought myself this selection of both eatable & body shampoo & lotions Easter eggs

It is not typical Danish to decorate your outdoor surroundings with colourfull eggs. This is much more tradition in Germany. However, I really like these outdoor decorations with eggs, so I have been doing this for the last 7 years. 

Easter Calendar 2021 - lemon mousse

 

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

After having two different Easter lunches from two different restaurants during this holiday period, where the both lunches included lemon mousse as dessert, I have decided to make home-made lemon mousse for  today's version of my Easter Calendar 2021.

I have used this recipe on citron fromage a la Valdemarsro as starting point. 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 two eggs into egg yolk and egg white.

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

Another suggestion on lemon mousse.

Lemon mousse: - 4 servings

• 3 leaves of gelatine
• 3 egg white
• 2 egg yolks
• 65 g sugar
• 1½ dl dairy whipping cream, 38% fat
• 3 organic lemons - zest & lemon juice
• 1 dl dairy whipping cream, 38% fat - for decoration

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

Easter Calendar 2021 - rich chocolate cake with twist of coffee & orange

 

Today it is Easter Sunday, which is the fourth day in the Danish Easter vacation.

And to day it is time to bake rich indulgent chocolate cake. You can either bake this cake as the usual one big cake or I decided to bake this chocolate cake in small pieces, so I ended up with 16 pieces of chocolate cake. 

I have found this recipe in the weekly magazine "Hendes Verden" (issue 8 / 2021). The original recipe consist of a chocolate cake with a topping butter, coconut and coffee. As I found, that the cake dough already contains 200 g butter, and a topping with another 100 g butter, I decided to bake the cake without making the topping. 

I also decided to give the cake a orange twist, both from using dark chocolate with orange flavour and orange zest.

Rich chocolate cake with twist of coffee & orange: - 16 small cakes

• 200 g butter
• 150 g dark chocolate -medium chopped
• 2½ tablespoon cocoa powder
• 4 eggs
• 200 g sugar
• 1 organic orange - only the zest
• 175 g (cake) flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons vanilla sugar
• 1½ strong coffee - made from 1 teaspoon with top of instant coffee

1. Heat up the oven to 180'C.
2. Melt the butter in a cooking pot. Add in the cocoa powder and chopped dark chocolate into the melted butter. Melt the chocolate.
3. Add the sugar, orange zest and eggs into a medium sized mixing bowl. Whip into a foamy mass.
4. Stir in the melted butter-chocolate mass into the egg-sugar mass.
5. Afterwards add into the flour, baking powder, vanilla sugar and strong coffee. Mix everything together.
6. Fill the cake dough into one large or silicone form with with small individual forms.
7. Bake the smaller cakes at 180'C for 20 minutes and the large cake at 180'C for 35-40 minutes.
8. Check that the cake is baked, before taking it out of the oven.
9. Cool down the cake, before it is served.

Easter shopping of yarn for new knitting projects

As start on my Easter vacation I went to Aarhus, where I meet up with a friend from high school, so we could visit various of yarn shops in city center of the city. Each of us had on our shopping list yarn from Tønderingstrik for some new knitting project, which is a part of both our Make Nine 2021 knitting projects.

I need yarn for the shawl Struktur tørklæde, and at the same time I want to look at colours in real life for a Summer sweater Charlotte Tøndering lun sommerbluse. Both these knitting projects will be knitted in yarn from Ito. This is a yarn, which I never have knitted in, so I am looking forward to work with it.

A few days later on in my Easter vacation I went shopping in my local yarn shop Garn i skovhytten for Isager Trio yarn in three colours for another Summer blouse called Trio Sommer by Hanne Larsen. This knitting project is also on my Make Nine 2021 list.

A finally I received yarn for the Ranunkel sweater by Hanne Søvsø in the Önling No 16 yarn.

So, I am not going to miss entertainment during my Easter vacation :-)

Easter Calendar 2021 - Buns with chocolate

Today it is Good Friday (Langfredag) being the second day of the Danish Easter vacation. So today, I will enjoy my vacation time with a home-made bun for the blog post for my Easter Calendar 2020.

I have used this recipe on bun with poppy seeds as inspiration (replacing the poppy seeds with chopped milk chocolate.

Buns with chocolate: - 10 buns

• 20 g fresh yeast
• 2 teaspoon sugar
• 100 g butter - cut into medium pieces
• 100 g milk
• 1 egg
• 125 g sour cream, 18% fat
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 400 g wheat flour
• 40 g milk chocolate - medium chopped

1. Weigh all the ingredients into the mixing bowl, keeping the sugar & salt away from the yeast. The chopped chocolate is first added towards the end of the kneading process.
2. Knead the dough at speed 1 on the stand-alone mixer for 10 minutes.
3. Add in the chopped milk chocolate.
4. Knead the dough at speed 4 for 2 minutes.
5. The dough will have a soft/sticky feeling.
6. Place the dough in a mixing bowl, which can be closed with a lid. 
7. Raise the dough at ambient temperature for 1-2 hours.
8. Fill the dough into egg shape silicone form.
9. Raise the dough warm for 20-40 minutes.
10. Heat up the fan oven to 190'C.
11. Bake the buns at 190'C for 15 minutes. 
12. Cool down the buns, before serving them.

Easter Calendar 2021 - Egg shape cake with orange twist

Today it is Maundy Thursday (Skærtorsdag), which is a public holiday here in Denmark and starting off the Danish Easter vacation with 5 days off from work. It could be, that you are off from work, but this Easter you are not off from home due to the corona situation. So we are staying at home and staying away from each other to keep people 

So today, I am baking small cakes in the shape of eggs using a silicone form in egg shape. I have used this Easter egg cakes, where I have removed the use of liquorice powder and lemon zest, adding in orange zest instead of.  

Next time I will use cocoa powder or dark chocolate to boost the chocolate flavour. The amount of orange was just right.

Easter egg cakes with orange twist: - 8 cakes

• 100 g soft butter
• 100 g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 100 g (cake) flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 40-50 g milk chocolate - melted
• 1organic orange - only the zest

1. Heat up the fan oven to 180'C.
2. Whip the soft butter and the sugar together into a foamy white mass.
3. Add in the eggs one by one, whip between each addition of egg.
4. Add in the (cake) wheat flour and baking powder.
5. Divide the cake dough into two portions, approx. 200 g per portion.
6. Add orange zest into one of the cake dough portions.
7. Melt the chocolate using the micro wave oven.
8. Stir in the melted chocolate into the second cake dough portion.
9. Fill half the egg silicone form with the chocolate cake dough. And fill the remaining part with the orange cake dough.
10. Bake the cake in fan oven at 180'C for 20 minutes.
11. Cold down the cakes prior to serving them.
12. Store in airtight container.

Easter Calendar 2021 - Palm Sunday - knitting a bread napkin

Well, the first entire into my Easter Calendar 2021 is a home-made, but it is not an eatable treat in form of neither Easter marzipan eggs or cakes. It is knitted napkin for a bread basket, which is knitted from 8/8 cotton in the classic Easter colour of yellow. The knitting is done on knitting needles in size 4.5, therefore it takes no time to knit this napkin.

The pattern is free available (in Danish) from here: brød serviet, and it is knitted in a pattern called dandelion. I have brought the cotton from from Karen Klarbæk together with various other types of yarn. You need 2½ skeins to knit this bread napkin in the original size of 41 x 41 cm, so I spend 60 DKK on yarn to buy 3 skeins. 

Besides from knitting one bread napkin for myself, I have also knitted one for my mother.