Double baked potatoes with bacon, egg, pepper fruit and red onion - Easter Calendar 2018

Today it is Easter Saturday, which is the third day in the Danish Easter vacation.

Today I have been enjoying these double baked potatoes with a filling of bacon, Cheddar cheese, egg, pepper fruit, red onion and sour cream. This dish can be enjoyed either as a lunch dish or a main course.

Doubled baked potatoes with bacon, egg, pepper fruit and red onion: - 2-3 servings

• 3 baking potatoes
• Olive oil
• 125 g sliced bacon
• 60 g Cheddar cheese - grated
• 100 g sour cream
• 20 g butter
• 1 egg - whipped together
• 1 small red onion - medium chopped
• 2 small pepper fruit - medium chopped
• salt and pepper for seasoning
• chives

1. Heat up the oven to 200'C.
2. Wash the baked potatoes.
3. Pinch the baked potatoes and glaze the surface of them with olive oil.
4. Place the baked potatoes on a baking tray, which is placed in the lower part of the oven. 
5. Bake the potatoes at 200'C for 1 hour and 15 minutes. After 30 minute turn the potatoes up side down.
6. Meanwhile fry the bacon slices.
7. After frying chopped the bacon slices.
8. Afterwards fry the red onion and snack pepper fruit in the leftover fat from the bacon for 3-4 minutes.
9. After cooling the baking potatoes, half them and remove the potato meat without destroying the potato peel.
10. Mince the potato meat into the mashed potato.
11. Stir in the egg, Cheddar cheese, sour cream, bacon, red onion, butter, pepper fruit-
12. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.
13. Fill the mashed potato mixture into the potato peels.
14. Bake the potatoes at 200'C for 20 minutes in the lower part of the oven.
15. Sprinkle with cut chives.
16. Serve.

Scones with candied peel and raisins - Easter Calendar 2018

Today it is Good Friday (Langfredag) being the second day of the Danish Easter vacation. And today I have been baking scones with addition of candied peel and raisin, so this is another way of getting ride of the very last Christmas leftovers.

I have been using this recipe on cranberry - orange scones as starting point, while creating these Easter scones.

Scones with candied peels and raisin: 10-12 scones

• 350 g wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• 85 g sugar
• 85 g butter - diced into small pieces
• 30 candied orange peel - medium chopped
• 30 g candied lie peel - medium chopped
• 30 g (dard) raisins - medium chopped
• 175 g plain yogurt - yogurt without addition of neither sugar or fruit
• egg wash

1. Heat the oven to 200'C.
2. Cover a baking tray with baking parchment. 
3. Mix the candied peel and raisin together after chopping in a small mixing bowl.
4. Mix the flour, baking powder, vanilla sugar and sugar together in a mixing bowl.
5. Add in the butter pieces, rub in the butter using only your fingers, until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.
6. Add in the candied peels and raisinse.
7. Make a hole in the mixture, where the yogurt is pour into. Knead the scone dough together, until it is soft.
8. Roll out the scone dough in a thickness of 2 cm.
9. Cut out the scones from the dough using a cutter. Do not twist the cutter, while doing this.
10. Turn the scone up side down, when it is placed on the baking tray.
11. Let the scones raise for 15-30 minutes prior to baking.
12. Before making, brush the the top of the scones with egg wash (only the top, as this affect the raising of the scone during baking).
13. Bake the scones at 200'C for 15-20 minutes, until golden.
14. Cold down prior to serving.

Orange kugelhopf - Easter calendar 2018

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. And at the same time it is the start for my little  Easter Calendar 2018, where I every Easter day will be sharing a new recipe having a relation to Easter of some kind (according to my definition).

I start of with kugelhopf cake, which make me think of Alsace, where the kugelhopf shape is a tradtional cake shape. Alsace is one of my favourite holiday destinations.

I have found the original cake recipe in the monthly magazine "Country Living" March 2018 edition. I have replaced sunflower oil with butter and sour cream for the glazing with yogurt, so adjusting the recipe to the ingredients, which I had in my kitchen !

As my kugelhopf silicone form is relative small I also decided only to make half the portion of the cake dough. So if your kugelhopf form is much bigger than mine, you have to double the recipe.

Orange kulgelhopf: - 1 small cake

• 120 g butter - melted
• 165 g (cake) wheat flour
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon salt (reduce from 3/4 to ½ teaspoon, as I used salted butter)
• 200 g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 165 g whole fat milk
• ½ organic orange - only the zest
• Glazing
• yogurt
• icing sugar

1. Heat up the oven to 190'C.
2. Add flour, baking powder, salt and sugar to a medium mixing bowl.
3. Add the melted butter, milk, orange zest and eggs into a smaller mixing bowl. Whisk the ingredients together until combined.
4. Pour the liquid mass into the flour-sugar mix. Stir the mixture together using a cooking spoon.
5. Fill the cake dough into the kugelhopf form, place the form in the middle of the oven.
6. Bake the cake at 190'C for 40-50 minutes. Check, that the cake is baked, before removing it from the oven.
7. Cold down the cake in form, before the cake is removed.
8. Make glazing from yogurt and icing sugar.
9. Turn the cake up-side down on a plate. Glaze the cake with yogurt-icing sugar mix.

Palm Sunday - inspiration for Easter creations in the kitchen

Today it is Palm Sunday, so we are one week away from Easter celebration. Many people in Denmark went on Easter vacation last Friday, as we here in Denmark are having public holiday Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Monday.

As preparation for Easter I start decorating inside and outside the house approx 2-3 weeks before Easter to celebrate the return for sun and long days full of sunlight. Inside I decorate with small wood Easter eggs, silver eggs, and one-two weeks Easter I take in branches from trees, which are decorate with wood Easter decoration.

In case your Easter vacation takes at home, you are perhaps looking for some Easter inspiration for you and your kitchen. Therefore, I am sharing some recipes with Easter as theme.

You are welcome to look by my blog during the Danish Easter days to see my creations for the Easter of 2018.

Easter lamb with marzipan and lemon

Classic Easter Egg

English-style hot cross buns

Muffin with cherry, chocolate and marzipan

I have located this recipe on these muffins in the weekly magazine "Søndag". The taste is great and the texture is lovely soft/moist. You can use Christmas leftovers of cherry sauce as well as marzipan, if you still have some left.

Muffin with cherry, chocolate and marzipan: - 10-12 muffins

• 1 dl cherry from cherry sauce - minced
• 150 g butter - soft
• 200 g sugar
• 3 eggs
• 220 g (cake) wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons vanilla sugar
• 1 teaspoon natron
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 60 g marzipan - grated
• 60 g milk chocolate - medium chopped

1. Heat up the oven to 200'C.
2. Whip the sugar and butter into a foamy, white mass.
3. Add in the egg one by one, whip in between.
4. Mix the wheat flour, vanilla sugar, natron and baking powder together, before it is added into the liquid mass.
5. Add in the cherries, chocolate and marzipan. Stir the muffin dough well together.
6. Fill the dough into muffin forms.
7. Bake the muffins at 200'C for 20-30 minutes.
8. Check, that the muffins is baked, before they are removed from the oven.
9. Cool down the muffins prior to serving.

Shrovetide afternoon tea with Valentine twist

Shrovetide Sunday I had invited my good friends from Horsens to afternoon tea, so we could catch up with each other over a cup of tea, while enjoying various afternoon treats full of sugar and butter :-)

My good friends was really behaving as "good Shrovetide guests", as they tried to sneak up through the garden dressed as a ghost. When I opened the garden door, they sang the "Shrovetide song" demanding buns :-)

And I think I fulfilled their demand for "buns" in form of the following" menu:

Shrovetide bun with raspberry filling

Valentine scones with cranberry, raspberry and white chocolate

Eclaie with raspberry filling (tasted good, but did not raise during baking)

Muffins with spices

Valentine ice cream with cherry

"Silver ore" tapas lunch for fellow rowers

As a "thank you very much for your time" to my fellow rowers for rowing together with me during the season of 2017, so I managed to row more than 1000 km required for a "Silver Ore" (actual I rowed 1465 km in 2017), I invited the rowers, who have spend the most time together with me in the rowing boat, for tapas lunch today.

Actually if you estimate, that you row 6 km per hour - 1531 km equals 244 hours of rowing last season or 10 days and 4 hours spend in a rowing boat in rain, wind or sunshine.

I used the term "tapas lunch" as I was serving a selection of various small dished such as Greek salad with feta (as I soon will go to Greece on a Spring rowing tour), mini mozzarella cheese with cocktail tomatoes, cucumber slices with topping of skyr and smoaked cheese,  plate with various Italian ham and sausages, humus, tzatziki, green olives with Feta cheese, Turkish style yogurt dip, pate with walnuts. All this was served together with rye bread, crisp bread and cooking pot bread with marple syrup.

The sweet finishing for the lunch was raspberry tiramisu.

My fellow rowers brought me a flowers and some new small sea bags for my purse and mobile phone, so now I am ready for a new rowing season, which starts the last Saturday in March :-)