Danish pork meat balls aka frikadeller

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

Danish pork meat balls aka frikadeller:

• 500 g minced pork or blend of mined pork and veal meat
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• 1 small-medium onion- finely chopped
• 3/4 dl wheat flour
• ½ dl breadcrumbs
• 2 dl whole fat milk
• 2 eggs

1. Add all the ingredients together in medium mixing bowl. Stir the mass into a homogeneous mass. Hold back some of the milk, so the meat mass does not become to liquid.
2. Let the mass rest in the refrigerator for ½ hour.
3. Heat up butter on a frying pan until, the bubbles disappear.
4. Shape the meat mass using a small spoon into ball shape.
5. Place the meat ball on the frying pan. Continue until the meat mass is used up or the pan is full.
6. Let the meat balls fry for 5-7 minutes, before they are turned around.
7. Fry the meat balls for another 5-7 minutes on the "raw" side.
8. Serve the meat ball hot together with boiled potatoes and brown sauce.
9. The meat balls can also be served cold on rye bread.

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.

White chocolate panna cotta with passion fruit jelly

One of the things, which we created at the afternoon tea course at Denham was dessert in form of white chocolate panna cotta with passion fruit jelly as top layer. The passion fruit jelly bring a great freshness to this panna cotta.

If you find the fat content in this panna cotta to be the high, you could have a look into this version of white chocolate panna cotta.

White chocolate panna cotta with passion fruit jelly:

• 375 ml dairy whipping cream with 35-40% fat
• 125 ml whole fat milk, 3-3.5% fat
• 30 g sugar
• 4½ g gelatine leaves
• 135 white chocolate

1. Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for 5 minutes.
2. Bring the cream, milk and sugar to the boil in a small cooking pot, while stirring.
3. Squeeze the water from gelatine leaves, add the gelatine leaves to the hot cream mix, and stir well untill dissolved.
4. Stir in the white chocolate, untill dissolved.
5. Pour the panna cotta mass into the serving dish.
6. Store cold in the refrigerator.
7. Let the panna cotta stand cold for minimum 4 hours or night over, before pouring the passion fruit jelly on top.

Passion fruit jelly:

• 200 g passion fruit puree
• 50 g sugar
• 50 ml water
• 7 g gelatine leaves
• 1 passion fruit

1. Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for 5 minutes.
2. Heat sugar, water and passion fruit puree up to the boil in small cooking pot.
3. Squeeze the water from gelatine leaves, add the gelatine leaves to the fruit mix, and stir well untill dissolved.
4. Add in the passion fruit seeds.
5. Let the fruit mass cold to 30'C.
6. Pour the cooled down fruit mass on top of the set white chocolate panna cotta
7. Place the panna cotta back in the refrigerator for another 2-4 hours.
8. Serve and enjoy.

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.

Chili con carne prepared in the oven

I have found this recipe on chili con carne prepared in the oven in a small recipe collection in Kvickly. I have some tiny modification in form of using less meat, using shallots instead of normal onion and cherry tomatoes instead of normal tomatoes. Just use, what you have available in your kitchen :-)

Chili con carne prepared in the oven:

• 400 g mince beef
• 1 chili - finely chopped
• 2 shallots - finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic - finely chopped
• olive oil
• 2 green pepper fruit - medium-fine sliced
• 1 tin of kidney beans
• 1 tin of chickpea
• ½ l of tomato juice or plain water
• 1 tin of peeled and chopped tomatoes
• 10 cherry tomatoes - divided into 4
• 25 g dark chocolate - rough diced - optional
• salt & pepper for seasoning

1. Heat up the oven to 150'C.
2. Heat up the olive oil in a medium cooking pot.
3. Fry the meat, onion, garlic and chili together, until the meat is brown.
4. Add in the sliced green pepper fruit, tomatoes, peel tomatoes, chickpeas, kidney beans, tomato juice and dark chocolate.
5. Season with salt and pepper.
6. Bring everything to the boil
7. Glaze the roaster with oil.
8. Pour the chili con carne mass into the roaster.
9. Place the roaster in the oven at 150'C, and let it cook for 60 minutes.
10. Serve together with rice.

Scary Halloween cookies with liquorice

I have found this recipe on scary Halloween cookies with liquorice in the monthly magazine of Samvirke (issue Oktober 2016). And when I saw this recipe I knew at once, that I should bake these cookies for the afternoon after the cultural expedition together with my good friends from Horsens. These cookies combined the word "scary" and liquorice, where my use of liquorice can scare my good friends from Horsens !!!

When tasting these cookies my good friends from Horsens were not scared at all ! The taste of liquorice was almost "invisible", so next time I will add in some more liquorice. You could taste the liquorice, when you were bitting into a pice of the liquorice (Heksehyl).

I have made one modification to the recipe, as I have replace the dark chocolate with milk chocolate, as I personally prefers milk chocolate much more than dark chocolate.

Halloweeb cookies with liquorice:

• 250 g brown sugar
• 150 g butter - soft
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon liquorice syrup
• 250 g (cake) wheat flour
• 125 g milk chocolate - roughly diced
• 130 g liquroice Heksehyl - roughly diced
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

1. Whip butter, brown sugar and liquorice syrup together for 5 minute at speed 2 on a stand-alone mixer.
2. Add in the egg, and whip for another 2 minutes at speed 2.
3. Mix flour, baking soda, salt, diced chocolate and diced Heksehyl.
4. Stir by hand this flour mix into the sugar-egg-butter mix. Until stir until the mass is homogeneous.
5. Divide the cookie mass into 2 portion, which is place on cling film. Press the cookie dough into roll shape, cover it with the cling film, and roll the dough into equal size.
6. Place the cookie dough in the refrigerator for minimum 8 hour or up to 2-3days.
7. Heat up the oven to 170-180'C (fan).
8. Slice the cookie rolls into slices of 1½ cm, which is placed on baking trays covered with baking paper.
9. Bake the cookie at 170-180'C for 15 minutes.
10. Cool down the cookies.
11. Store the cookies in air tight containers.

Pumpkin afternoon tea

Today my good friends from Horsens had a cultural nature day together. We started the day at CLAY (ceramic museum in Middelfart) looking at various ceramic exhibition. Afterwards we walk along Lillebælt from CLAY to Gals Klint to Hindsgavl Slot back to Clay, where we has had a small lunch, before we headed back to Vejle and our afternoon tea.

For our afternoon I used a theme of pumpkin and Halloween for my baked stuff, which pumpkin pie with muscovado sugar and some un-scary scary Halloween cookies. My friends from Horsens were bringing home-made scones with apple and walnuts and a tart containing pear, dark chocolate and marzipan.

Pumpkin pie with muscovado sugar

I am having my good friends from Horsens coming around for a culture day tomorrow, so in this connection I have been preparing for some afternoon tea in line with my monthly theme of pumpkin making another version of pumpkin pie

I still have plenty of pumpkin left from the big pumpkin, which I got for my pumpkin cooking weekend. This time I have been using this pumpkin pie recipe with various modification on the spice side.

Pumpkin pie: - 1 pie

• 1 ready-to-use pie dough
• 450 g pumpkin meat
• 3 eggs
• 100g dairy whipping cream, 35-40% fat
• 100g full-fat milk
• 75 g darl muscovado sugar
• 75 g sugar
• 50 g (cake) wheat flour
• ½ tablespoon orange peel
• 2 tablespoons orange juice
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 11teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon clove
• ½-1 dairy whipping cream - for decoration

Caramellic pumpkin seeds:

• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 10 g butter
• 75 pumpkin seeds
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt

1. Boil the pumpkin meat for 10 minutes, until the pumpkin meat is soft. Remove the water and blend the pumpkin meat into pumpkin mash. Slightly cool down the pumpkin mash.
2. Heat up the oven to 180'C.
3. Add the eggs and sugars into the pumpkin mash and whip everything together.
4. Add in the whipping cream and milk, and whip again.
5. Add in the various spices, and whip again.
6. Add in the sugar and wheat flour, and whip again.
7. Cover the pie form with the pie dough.
8. Fill the pumpkin pie mass into the pie dough.
9. Bake the pumpkin pie at 180'C for 75 minutes.
10. Let the pumpkin pie cool down for minimum 2 hours, before the pie is cut.
11. Melt the sugar on a frying pan, untill it is light brown in colour
12. Add in the butter, and the butter melt.
13. Add the salt and pumpkin seeds and stir very well for approx 30-60 secounds.
14. Pour the pumpkin seeds out on a piece of baking paper.
15. Separate the pumpkin seeds from each other using teaspoons or forks.
16. These caramellic pumpkin seeds is used for decoration of the pumpkin pie together with whipped dairy cream.

Harvesting marigold in the garden

Yesterday late afternoon the weather permitted me to cut all my many hosta leaves, before they had started to collapse. At the same time I also cut the last heads of my marigolds along the house. So now I am drying the flower petals for later use in my kitchen in either cake or tea.

I have placed the flower heads with the head down on a tea towel, and I move around with the flower heads from time to time. The marigolds should dry, until you very easy can remove the petals from the flower core without any resistance at all. I am not drying the flower heads over heat or in the oven. And the flower heads should not be placed in sun light during the drying process.

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 pie

In line with my monthly theme of pumpkin and making sure to use up pumpkin leftovers from last week-end I have been baking my fist ever pumpkin pie using this Mad og Bolig recipe as starting point.

Pumpkin pie: - 1 pie

• 1 ready-to-use pie dough
• 450 g pumpkin meat
• 3 eggs
• 180 g dairy whipping cream, 35-40% fat
• 165 g full-fat milk
• 150 g sugar
• 50 g (cake) wheat flour
• 1/4 teaspoon sat
• 1½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon clove

1. Boil the pumpkin meat for 10 minutes, until the pumpkin meat is soft. Remove the water and blend the pumpkin meat into pumpkin mash. Slightly cool down the pumpkin mash.
2. Heat up the oven to 210'C.
3. Add the eggs into the pumpkin mash and whip everything together.
4. Add in the whipping cream and milk, and whip again.
5. Add in the various spices, and whip again.
6. Add in the sugar and wheat flour, and whip again.
7. Cover the pie form with the pie dough.
8. Fill the pumpkin pie mass into the pie dough.
9. Start by baking the pumpkin pie at 210'C for 15 minutes.
10. Lower the oven temperature to 180'C and bake for another 50 minutes.
11. Let the pumpkin pie cool down for minimum 2 hours, before the pie is cut.

Skagen´s shopping

This weekend my mother and I went on one night stay to Skagen (my birthday gift to my mother). Besides from filling up the memory with the wonderful paintings of the Skagen´s painters, I brought back some more tangible stuff such as:

Hard boiled candy from Bolcheriet incl candy sprinkles, which can be used as topping on ice cream and cakes.

As more lasting I also brought some green things for my home in form of a green ceramic plate from Skagen Potteri and a green glass vase from Skageng Gasværksted.

Clafoutis with pears and vanilla

At last I have made this recipe on clafoutis with pears and vanilla, which I found in the weekly magazine Femina back in 2013 (issue 9/2013) !!!

Instead of baking these clafoutis in creme bruleé bowl, I used some ramekins, which were not broad enough. So the clafoutis dough was raising a lot during the baking almost like a souffle, and then they collapsed. The taste was great, and now I know, that I wish for Christmas :-)

Instead of pears you would also make these clafoutis with cherries or raspberries.

Clafoutis with pears and vanilla: - 6 servings

• 4 eggs
• 75 g sugar
• ½ vanilla pod - only the corns
• 5 cardamon kernels - freshly grained
• 50 g (cake) wheat flour
• 25 g butter - melted
• 2 dl full-fat milk
• 4 pears

1. Heat up the oven to 180'C.
2. Glaze the forms with oil or butter.
3. Whip eggs, sugar, vanilla corn and cardamon very well together.
4. Stir in the wheatflour, followed by the melted butter and milk.
5. Core and peel the pears. Cut the pears into slices of ½ cm.
6. Place the pears slices in the forms.
7. Pour the clafoutis dough on top of the pear slices.
8. Bake the clafoutis at 180'C for 20-25 minutes.
9. Cool down.
10. Prior to serving, sprinkle them with icing sugar.

Gin shopping in Helsinki

During a recent business trip I brought this bottle of Finnish gin being described as the world´s best for gin & tonic !!! It was a  bottle of gin from Kyrö DistilleryCompany. I still have to see, if this gin is mentioned in any of the two books on gin, which I brought back with from London.

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.

Pumpkin-pear jam

Also during this kitchen week.end with focus on pumpkin I made this pumpkin-pear jam using a recipe from the weekly magazine Søndag (issue 36/2016) with various modifications as such as adding water for the boiling process and some natural gelling agent in form of pectin.

The taste of this jam is not very fruity or sweet.

Pumpkin-pear jam: - 10 glasses

• 500 g pumpkin meat - roughly grated
• 500 g pear without peel - roughly grated
• 450 ml water
• 18 g pectin
• 1 vanilla pod - only the vanilla corn
• 500 g sugar
• 2 teaspoons apple vinegar

1. Add the roughly grated pumpkin meat and pear into a medium-big cooking pot together with water.
2. Bring the fruit-vegetable mass to the boil, and let it simmer gently for 15 minutes under lid.
3. Blend the pumpkin-pear mass together, when it is soft.
4. Dry-mix the pectin with 50 of the sugar, and add it to the mass, while stirring.
5. Let the mass cook gently for another 5 minutes.
6. Prepare the glasses by adding boiling water to them.
7. Disperse the vanilla corn with 3 teaspoons of the sugar to break up the mass of vanilla corn.
8. Stir in the vanilla corn and rest of sugar.
9. Adjust the taste of the jam with addition of apple vinegar or lemon juice.
10. Bring the jam to boil again for 3-5 minutes.
11. Pour the jam in the jam glasses.
12. Store the jam cold.

Sweet pickled pumpkin

I started out using some of the many wonderful and colourful pumpkin making sweet pickled pumpkin, which was in high demand by my mother, as she had already be eating her pickled pumpkin from from our shopping tour ton Samsø.

I used the recipe on sweet pickled pumpkin from Søndag issue 36/2016 without any modification.

Sweet pickled pumpkin: - 5 glasses

• 1 kg pumpkin
• 2 dl water
• 1½ dl plain clear vinegar
• 500 g sugar
• 20 g fresh ginger - peel and thinly sliced
• 1 vanilla pod - both corn and pod
• 1 cardamon seed - crouched

1. Prepare the storage glasses by adding boiling water into them.
2. Wash the pumpkin. Divide the pumpkin, remove the seedy core and peel the surface.
3. Cut the pumpkin into thinner slice, which is cut into 4 cm pieces.
4. Add the water, vinegar, sugar, vanilla pod, ginger and cardamon into a medium cooking pot. Bring it to the boil.
5. Add in the pumpkin pieces and bring it again to the boil.
6. Let the pumpkin boil for 4-5 minutes.
7. Remove from the heat. Remove the pumpkin pieces from the pickle liquid.
8. Empty the storage glasses for water.
9. Add the pumpkin pieces into the storage glasses.
10. Afterwards fill the pickle liquid into the glasses, so the pumpkin pieces are covered by pickle liquid.
11. Store cold.
12. Enjoy to meat or as topping on open sandwiches.

Pumpkin weekend in the kitchen

In line with my theme for October on pumpkin I have got a big plastic bag full of different pumpkin from a colleague, so I can spend a part of this weekend in the kitchen trying out various pumpkin recipe from a Danish weekly magazine Søndag ( issue 36/2016) covering everything from soup to cake.

I will later on be sharing the following pumpkin recipes with you:

• pumpkin soup
• sweet pickled pumpkin 
• pumpkin-pear jam
• pumpkin muffins with apple with walnut

Esters æblestænger - Ester´s apple sticks

"Hjemmebagt" - 73 recipes - 36 accomplished = 37 recipes to bake

After a more than a year I have again been baking from the great bead book called Hjemmebagt.
This time I have been baking the recipe called Esters æblestænger as my contribute to the cake regatta at the rowing club, where the topic was kringle (pretzel).

Both taste and texture is excellent. And I am actually quiet pleased with the look of the final cake. After tasting the original recipe I already have some suggestions in mind for further modifications, perhaps sprinkling the apple boats with either cinnamon sugar or chai sugar, mixing in some marzipan in sugar and butter layer.

Cake regatta at the rowing club

This morning I was busy baking my contribution in form of Ester´s æblestænger for the annual cake regatta at my rowing club. The theme this year for the cake regatta as pretzel. The winner of last year´s cake regatta decided the theme and actual time for next year´s cake regatta.

We started the cake regatta with a small rowing tour, so we build some appetite for enjoying the many home-made pretzels.

Out of 9 rowers turned 7 rowers came together with their pretzel. All the pretzels were given a number prior to the tasting session, so the identify of the baker was unknown. After the tasting each pretzel eater can given a piece of paper, where you could write the number of your preferred pretzel.

October equals pumpkin

October equals pumkin

October is the second month of Autumn and the pumpkins can be found everywhere in the super markets, where they light up the surrounding with their bright orange colour. So therefore I will celebrate October in my kitchen having pumpkin as theme.

In September the theme of my kitchen was apples, where I created 4 recipes (apple-walnut scones, carrot cassarole with apple twist, apple buns and apple curd).

I will as inspiration for October share this recipe on with you on happy Halloween soup.