Royal Christmas Afternoon Tea

In the run period for Christmas I usual invite various people around, so they help me to "get through" the many different type of calories involved in creating a Christmas Calendar :-)

This afternoon it was my good friends from Horsens, who came by for Royal version of a Christmas afternoon tea. As preparation for the calorie eating part of the afternoon tea we started off with a walk around the neighborhood.

It also gave me the opportunity to use the various item of china from Royal Copenhagen such as china tea cups, Blå Blomst tea cup & White Element serving dish. And my Christmas serving item was used for the various sweet treats.

We started off with a glass of Apple & Elderflower Fizz as the non-tea drinking stuff :-)










The first eatable stuff was these  scones with marzipan & orange served together with butter and  apple jelly. The second part was the Lucia buns.

The cake part of the afternoon tea was walnut cream cake with Christmas twist and make into single serving portion.

And to finish off we could enjoy the following sweet treats:

• After Eight marzipan treat
• Speculoos cookies
• Peppermint xylitol sweets
• Marzipan roll with speculoos
• Nougat confect with pecan nuts

Christmas Calendar 2018 - Nougat confect with pecan nuts

If you are on look out for some very easy sweet treat to make for Christmas, when these pieces of nougat are extremely easy to make. The preparation time is limited to a max 5 minutes, and you do not even get dirty hands !!! followed by a setting time of around 2-3 hours.

I have previous been making these nougat confect. However, this Christmas I decided to twist the recipe by adding in some pecan nuts and by decorating with a hazel nut on the top.

Nougat confect withh pecan nuts: - 19 pieces

• 100 g soft nougat
• 50 g dark chocolate
• 50 g pecan nuts - fine-medium chopped
• 19 hazel nuts for decoration - optional
• tempered dark chocolate for the addition of the hazel nuts

1. Melt the nougat and dark chocolate in the microwave oven little by little, so the chocolate is not burned.
2. Stir in the chopped pecan nuts into the nougat mass.
3. Fill the mass into a candy silicone form.
4. Store the form in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours, until the nougat is firm again.
5. Remove the nougat from the silicone form.
6. Temper the dark chocolate. Use the chocolate as "glue" to add the hazel nuts as decoration on top of the nougat confect.
7. Store the nougat in refrigerator in an air-tight container.

Christmas Calendar 2018 - Marzipan rolls with speculoos filling

I think it is time to start making various sweet treat for the fast approaching Christmas, which you can serve for some of the Christmas guests coming by in the next 1-2 weeks.

The Christmas sweet treat in form of marzipan rolled with a filling some kind is a very classic Danish Christmas treat.

You can have a look here as will for other suggestions for the filling part:

• Marzipan roll with alcoholic fruit filling
• Marzipan roll with nougat filling

The marzipan roll with walnuts as decoration is the classis marzipan roll with nougat filling. The other roll is marzipan with a filling of speculoos pasta (brought on tour to Alsace in June) decorate with pecan nuts.

You can either make one roll or 3 smaller rolls. The advantages of the smaller rolls is, that you can always serve a "fresh" roll during the Christmas period.

Marzipan roll with speculoos filling: - 1 big roll or 3 smaller rolls

• 200 g marzipan
• 100 g speculoos paste
• 100 g dark chocolate
• pecan nuts - optional

1. Start by rolling the marzipan thin. I sprinkle with icing sugar below and on top of the marzipan and move it around after some rolling movements, so it does not stick to the surface.
2. Stir the speculoos pasta, so it is more easy to spread on top of the marzipan. 
3. Add the speculoos pasta on top of the marzipan in a thin layer. 
4. Role the marzipan into a role.
5. Temper the dark chocolate. First covering the upper part of the marzipan roll. Let the chocolate set, before you turn the roll upside down.
6. Coat the bottom of the marzipan roll with tempered dark chocolate. Let the chocolate coating set, before you turn the roll around again.
7. Finish by adding pecan nuts on top of the marzipan roles using tempered dark chocolate as "glue" to stick the pecans on.

Christmas market at Fulby ceramic

Saturday one week ago my mother and I had a tour to Sealand visting both some old family members of my mother, Sorø kunstmuseum and the Christmas market at Fulby ceramic. 

Ever since I first meet Fulby ceramic at CLAY I have been impress by their ceramic pitcher, which are cut open after the first of the process to add in pour spout as well as the handle. However, all these ceramic pitchers were sold out, when I saw the exhibition at CLAY.

However, my mother located, that the ceramic workshop of Fulby was/is open in the week-ends in the run up to Christmas, therefore we decided to drive by to have a look. 

This time I did not buy any ceramic vases at all !!! BUT I found a small ceramic pitcher and flower bulb pot, and yes both ceramics have the colour of green :-)

The Christmas fair in also open is this weekend.

Christmas Calendar 2018 - Christmas gin tonic by "We do gin"

One week to go before it Christmas vacation, not that I am counting the days until I get Christmas from work (5½ working days from now).

What better way to celebrate the approaching week-end as well as Christmas vacation than by enjoying a gin tonic Christmas style.

Like you can sign up for a weekly or monthly box of fruit and vegetable, I have also located, that you sign up for a monthly box of gin tonics !!! Which I have done:-) A box for single box contains 2 x 5 cl gin & 2 x 20 cl tonic and selected dried infusion items.

If you want to try it out, when you use this reference link, where I can get a discount of 50 DKK, if you make a booking.

Recommendations link: https://www.wedogin.dk/ref/kirsten.lauridsen/, if you to try out a monthly box of gin tonic

Hnevisningslink: https://www.wedogin.dk/ref/kirsten.lauridsen/ hvis du kunne tænke dig at afprøve en månedskasse på gin tonics.

Another gin tonic with a Christmas twist is this citrus & cinnamon gin tonic

Anyway the topic for the monthly gin tonic box for December is off cause Christmas. And here I have enjoyed this gin tonic with cloves and oranges:

Christmas gin tonic by "We do gin": - 1 gin tonic

• 5 cl il mio gin boun natale
• 20 cl Ledger's tonic tangerine
• cloves
• dried orange slices
• ice cubes

1. Add the gin into your long drink glass.
2. Add in the cloves and dried orange slices, let it infuse the gin for minimum 2-3 minutes
3. Add in ice cubes
4. Fill in the tonic on top.
5. Cheers and enjoy the week-end :-)

Christmas Calender 2018 - Lucia buns

Today is Lucia day a day of singing girls in white dresses and candlelight in their hands. Besides from the singing and the candles you should also eat Lucia buns (buns with saffron) known as Lussekatte in Sweden, where the day of Lucia is an even bigger event than here in Denmark.

As starting recipe for the bun I used this recipe on classic buns, which really have become my favorite bun recipe. Another recipe on Lucia buns could be this Swedish lussekatte recipe or you could try this recipe on saffron pot buns.

How to roll the bun into the right shape you can below on these photos:

Lucia buns: 18-20 buns

• 650 g wheat flour
• 50 g sugar
• 125 g butter - soft
• 50 g fresh yeast
• 1 egg
• 8 g salt
• 250 g full-fat milk
• 0.25 g saffron
• egg wash for glazing

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. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and place it on the kitchen table sprinkled with flour.
6. Let the entire dough raise for approx 30-40 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 75 g each.
8. Shape the dough pieces into the shape of Lucia bun look at the photos above
9. Place the bun pieces on the baking tray covered with baking parchment. 
10. Let the bun raise for second time for approx 40 minutes under a tea towel.
11. Heat up the fan oven to 180'C.
12. Bake the bun at 180'C for 15 minutes, turning the baking trays around after 10 minutes to get an even baking.
13. Cold down the buns, before serving them with a nice cup of tea/coffee.

Christmas Calendar 2018 - Bringing light into a dark time

We are close to the shortest day of the year (21 December), so right here and now we have daylight for approc 7 hours per day !!!! Therefore many Danes will be having small fairy light outside the house, so you some kind light in the dark Winter season, where you leave home to go to work, when it is dark and it is dark again, when you return home from work.

You can also use various light chains running on battery to light up various of your indoor Christmas decoarations, so you do not have to run around lighting all the many tea lights every evening. Instead you just turn on the light chain :-)