Herb-scented cordial with lemon balm and rosemary

I have been using this recipe on herb-scented cordial with geranium as starting point, when making this herb-scented cordial. I am actually using the flavour suggestion, which the tutor Vivien Llody shared with us at the Summer preserves course.

This recipe is very easy to make. You only have to pick the herbs in your kitchen garden, boil up the water, sugar and lemon juice, when you pour the hot liquid over the herb leaves and let the herb infuse the cordial for minimum 30 minutes. I actually prefer to the infusion either night over or for up to 24 hours.

The amount of 2 small rosemary strings bring a good taste without being too dominating in my opinion.

Instead of lemon balm and rosemary, you can also make this herb-scented cordial with either geranium leaves or mint leaves.

Herb-scented cordial with geranium: - 1 bottle

• 300 ml water
• 85 g sugar
• 1 lemon - the juice of it
• 20 small lemon balm leaves
• 2 small rosemary strings

1. Bring the water to the boil in a cooking pot. Add in the lemon juice and sugar and stir until dissolved.
2. Remove the cooking pot from the heat and add in the herbs.
3. Cover the cooking pot with a lid, and let the herb leaves infuse for minimum 30 minutes or night over or up to 24 hours.
4. Sieve the cordial through a sieve lined with thin cotton muslin.
5. Pour the cordial into a clean bottle.
6. Store cold in the refrigerator for up to 4 weeks.
7. When serving dilute one part cordial with five parts of water (still or sparkling).

Green ceramic bowl by Ninna Gøtzsche

I have found this small ceramic bowl in my favourite colour (green) at the ceramic museum CLAY. The bowl is made Ninna Gøtzsche, and you find more information about her here: Formuleret.dk

Small sandwiches for afternoon tea

The Royal Afternoon Tea was started out in the right order with some sandwiches, but the usual sandwiches as seen for afternoon tea in England, but the open sandwich style known from Denmark. As the menu for the afternoon was quiet long I decided to make small sandwiches, however, you easily scale these sandwich up for a normal size served for afternoon tea.

I served two different sandwiches:
The first sandwich was goat cream cheese spread onto rye bread and topped with pickled cucumber salad (another Danish topping, which is popular during Summer).

The second sandwich was small toast bread (Italian Crostini) with matured Cheddar and tomato and chilli jam.

As other suggestions for sandwiches for your afternoon tea you can also look into sandwich with smoked salmon and sandwich with avocado and egg.

Yogurt scones

For the recent Royal afternoon tea I decided as usual to make scones, as an afternoon tea without scones is not a real afternoon tea. I used with recipe on scones with cranberry and orange as starting point turning it into a classic version without any flavour addition in form of cranberry and orange.

These scones were served together with butter, strawberry-apple jam and a gooseberry curd made from red gooseberry.

I had Greek-style yogurt in my refrigerator, so therefore I used this type of yogurt. However, you can easily make these scones with a normal plain yogurt or thick milk. I think you can use what type of fermented plain dairy product, which you have in your refrigerator, so there is no need to buy a special type of yogurt for baking these scones.

Yogurt scones: 9-10 scones

• 350 g wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 85 g sugar 
• 85 g butter - diced into small pieces
• 175 g plain Greek-style 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 flour, baking powder and sugar together in a mixing bowl.
4. Add in the butter pieces, rub in the butter using only your fingers, until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.
5. Make a hole in the mixture, where the yogurt is pour into. Knead the scone dough together, until it is soft.
6. Roll out the scone dough in a thickness of 2 cm.
7. Cut out the scones from the dough using a cutter. Do not twist the cutter, while doing this.
8. Turn the scone up side down, when it is placed on the baking tray.
9. Let the scones raise for 15-30 minutes prior to baking.
10. 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). 
11. Bake the scones at 200'C for 15-20 minutes, until golden.
12. Cold down prior to serving.

Royal Afternoon Tea

After a long period of excellent Summer weather here in Denmark (plenty of sunshine and no rain) since the beginning of May, some more normal Danish Summer weather came knocking on the door this week-end in form of a lot of wind and some heavy showers. So it turn to be a perfect day to have my good friends from Horsens coming around for some "serious" afternoon tea enjoying my new Royal Copenhagen china (birthday gifts).

We started off with an Earl Grey Martini, which I got inspiration from watching the episode of Anne & Anders in Brexitland having focus on England. I twisted my version of the Earl Grey Martini with addition of bergamotte liqueur, which is a key flavour note of Earl Grey.

Earl Grey Martini

We started off the menu for this afternoon with some small sandwiches in two different versions:

• Rye bread with goat cream cheese with pickled cucumber
• Small toast bread with matured Cheddar and tomato and chilli jam

After the sandwiches we continued with another classic afternoon tea item in form scones, jam and curd. The scones were yogurt scones. The marmalade was the strawberry-apple jam and a gooseberry curd made from red gooseberry.

The finishing touch to this afternoon tea was a cake selection in form of squash cakesquash cake, strawberry cheese cake strawberry cheese and finally some "Sukkertop" cakes from the local cake shop Vanilla here in Vejle.

Besides from drinking plenty of tea we did also taste my two last edition of herb-scented cordials (cordial with lemon balm and rosemary & cordial with selection of mint).

Now with a fully tummy from both cakes, tea and great company I can sit and enjoy these wonderful flowers, which I received as hostess gift together with "goodie bag" full of apples and plums from the garden of my friends in Horsens.

"First Preserves - marmelades, jam, chutneys" by Vivien Lloyd

At the Summer preserves course our tutor Vivien Llody was selling her recipe book called "First Preserves - marmalades - jams - chutneys for 10 £. I thought it was a great souvenir and it is handy, so I could bring it back to Denmark in my backpack despite all my shopping for tea and gin in London and some new recipe books found in London with afternoon tea as topic.

I also got a dedication in by our tutor Vivien. Since my return back to Denmark I have actually been using some of the jam recipes making blackcurrant as well as red gooseberry jam without any addition of food ingredients !!!

I have actually found out, that making jam without the use of the wonderful pectin as a food ingredient in powder format, you have to rely on, that the natural pectin content in the fruit is enough for making the gel combined with a very high sugar content, close to 60% of the jam recipe is sugar combined with longer time, before the jam sets in its glass. So it more a challenge for making jam without the use of natural food ingredients and you do not always know for certain, if your jam/jelly will set or not.

Blackcurrant jam - classic version without addition of gelling agent

I have been practicing my jam skills in my own little kitchen after my return from the Summer preserves course, so maintaining my jam skille without using natural food ingredient such as pectin in powder format. It is more of a challenge, a least for me to rely 100% on the natural pectin content from the fruit itself combined with addition of high levels of sugar (close to 45% of the jam is sugar) and finding the specific time, when you have cooked the jam enough, so it WILL set in the glass afterwards. And when you have to be very patience for up to 1-1½ day, before you are sure, that the jam will set, and you carefully turns the jam jar a little during the day to see, if it is setting or not.

As usual I was invited into the garden of my good friends in Horsens, which have plenty of bushes of blackcurrant for free picking. And I decided to test of a recipe on blackcurrant jam from the jam book "First Preserves". I got 8 jars of blackcurrant jams from this portion, which I am not able to eat myself ! Therefore I decided to bring some glasses of the jam to work, where I have been selling the extra jam jar for 15 DKK (approx 2 €) to my colleagues, and later in the Autumn I will donate the entire sum of money from this jam to charity (araceagainstbreastcancer.dk).

If you want to be 100% sure, that your blackcurrant jam will set, when you should have a look into these recipes: classic blackcurrant jam with twist of balcamico, blackcurrant jam with liquorice lemon and blackcurrant jam, where you have the natural pectin to ensure, that the gelling will take place.

Blackcurrant jam: - 8 glasses

• 1 kg black currant
• 850 ml water
• 1.4 kg sugar

1. Prepare the blackcurrants by washing the blackcurrant, removing the berries from the strings, removing leaves and removing the dead flower end.
2. Place the blackcurrants in a large cooking pan and pour in the water. Bring the fruit to the boil, and let fruit simmer gently, until the fruit is tender, approx 25-30 minutes.
3. Prepare the jam glasses either by heating up in the oven or adding boiling water to them.
4. Add the sugar into the fruit mass and stir until it is dissolved.
5. Bring the jam to a rolling boil and boil hard until the setting point is reached. Stir the jam frequently.
6. Test of set after 5 minutes using the flake test.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. Leave the glass upright and disturbed to cool and set.
10. Store at ambient temperature.