Follow up on Christmas Calendar 2011

I have been having a lot of fun making my very own Christmas Calendar in my little kitchen here in 2011, just like they do in TV ! Well not in my kitchen, but perhaps an idea for the upcoming 2012  for Brødrene Price ? I am sure Hannibal the Cat would become a fantastic fur star, and I am myself just like the brothers a dedicated fan of using butter, plenty of butter in my cooking and baking.

Reviewing your visits in my Christmas Calendar, I have made a TOP 5 over the most popular Christmas Calendar Doors according to you:

1. Baked marzipan confect - door 7
2. Daim confect - door 8
3. Cocoa marzipan confect with blackcurrant - door 11
4. Lebkuchen - door 12
5. Christmas Liqueur - door 2

So from this I will make the conclusion, that you are great fan of Christmas confect containing plenty of marzipan, German style Christmas cookies like Lebkuchen (not being perfect at all - here I am on the look out for much better recipe) and alcohol !!! I assume this profile is fitting 120% of most of us Danes.

I have a small survey (poll) running another 24 hours, so until the very end of 2011, if you were following this Christmas Calendar of mine and if you would like me to create a 2012 version of a similar Christmas Calender.

I will be making less confect in the 2012 version, as I completely filled up with all this Christmas confect !! I have been thinking about making family recipes from around the world and/or Denmark, which work colleagues as well as friends would like to share with you in my little kitchen.

So use your freedom to share your opinion on Christmas Calender 2012 either through the on-going poll and/or leave a comment here on this specific blog posting.

Marzipan cake (kransekage) suggestions for New Year 2011

 

If you are in a surplus situation of marzipan after Christmas I would suggest, that you try to make your own marzipan cake (kransekage) for the fast approaching New Year 2011. Home-made marzipan cake just taste so much better compared to the cakes, which you find in the supermarkets or at the baker´s shop.

Another benefit of making your own marzipan cake is, that you can control the sweetness in the final cake and hereby adjust it to your preferred sweetness level. I find the sweetness level to be too high in the marzipan cake, which you are buying in the shops.

And please remember to serve the marzipan cake with a sweet type of champagne or sparkling wine, as the combination of sweet marzipan cake and dry sparkling wine is a taste killer.

My first suggestion to you on the "classic" type of marzipan cake could be these zebra marzipan cake

made from either the plain marzipan or the cocoa marzipan.

Another good tasting marzipan cake could be these
marzipan orange cakes or with an extra little twist in of orange flower as here marzipan orange cakes with orange flower.

These baked marzipan confect is my final suggestion to you to try at New Year´s eve tomorrow.

DANISH marzipan cake

As it will be my last working tomorrow !!! well my last working day in 2011, I have decided, that I would bake marzipan cake as a New Year treat for my colleagues tomorrow.

My inspiration was to use the red coloured forest fruit marzipan and decorated with white icing sugar, so making marzipan cake in the Danish national colours !!!!

Well the red colour disappear from the  surface of the marzipan cake during the baking process. However, when you take a bite of the marzipan cake you are able to see the Danish national colours again in form of the red coloured forest fruit marzipan and rough white pieces of almonds. Therefore I decided to name this recipe DANISH marzipan cake.

DANISH marzipan cake:  - 20 pieces

• 400 g marzipan - forest fruit
• 100 g icing sugar
• 100 g almond flour
• 1 egg white

1. Heat the oven to 220'C (conventional oven).
2. Slip the almond. And grained them into flour using a mill.
3. Knead the marzipan, almond flour, icing sugar and egg white together.
4. Divide the marzipan cake mass into 20 pieces of equal size.
5. Form the marzipan cake mass into a longer sharp.
6. Bake the marzipan cake mass at 220'C for 7-8 minutes.
7. Cool down the marzipan cake.
8. Decorate the top of the marzipan cake with icing sugar.
9. Let the icing sugar dry.
10. Enjoy !!!!

Snow drops getting ready

While I was preparing the house and the dinning table for my guests coming for Christmas lunch Tuesday this week, the weather was just like a wonderful spring day full of sunshine.

And I noticed, that two out of three places, where I have planted various snow drops during the last couple of years, were showing "live" in form of snow drops getting ready popping their "heads" above the earth.

Christmas Cocktail

I have found this recipe on juleorangeade on the blog "Himmelske kager", and it look very interesting, so I decide to try it out in connection with the Christmas lunch yesterday.

This Christmas Cocktail does not have any spice flavour at all, but the taste is excellent being a mix of Christmas spices with the freshness of orange juice. And my girl friends found it to be quiet a good cocktail having a perfect Christmas profile without being dominated of the Christmas spices.

Christmas Cocktail: - 4 cocktails


Sugar liquid

• 1 dl water
• 1 dl sugar
• 1 orange - organic (as you use everything of the fruit)
• 4 cloves
• 2 star anise
• 2 cinnamon sticks

Christmas Cocktail:

• 5 dl orange juice
• 1 dl vodka
• ½ dl Cointreau
• Ice cubes

1. Slice the orange into thin slices.
2. Add water, sugar, orange slices and spices into a cooking pot.
3. Heat the sugar liquid to the boiling point. Let is softly boil for 3-4minutes.
4. Cool the down the sugar liquid in the refrigerator. In order to get the wonderful flavour of Christmas, I  let the sugar liquid infuse for 12-24 hours
5. Remove the spices from the sugar liquid.
6. Use the orange slices for decoration of the cocktail glasses.
7. Mix the sugar liquid, orange juice, vodka and Cointreau together.
8. Serves in cocktail glass with plenty of ice cubes and orange slices.
9. Cheers and merry Christmas :-)

Closing Christmas of 2011 with cheese tapas

As we found the cheese tapas from Osteriet Vejle to be a nice alternative to the traditional Danish Christmas lunch, my girl friends and I decided to repeat last year menu for annual Christmas lunch get together.

Perhaps the menu was not dominated by Christmas, but the "liquid food" had enough Christmas character to make it "real" Christmas lunch.

The "liquid" menu was:

• starter - Christmas Cocktail
• main course - Christmas Aquavit
• dessert - Christmas Liqueur

This Christmas lunch is for me is relaxing way of putting a closure to Christmas as well as looking forward to an approaching 2012 in the wonderful company of some very good girl friends, while talking, laughing, eating and drinking.

I received some lovely hostess gifts in form of home-made jam, a bowl full of hyacinths (I really like the wonderful of hyacinths) and a NEW cooking book (Spise med Price by the father to Adam and James Price)

Instead of the usual Danish Christmas lunch (aquavit, marinated herrings, fried fish, ham, red cabbage, Danish pate, cheese etc), my girlfriends and I decided this year to have Christmas tapas created by my local cheese "pusher".
However, the Christmas aquavit was still an important ingredient, even though the food was replaced with different slices of Parma ham and sausages, pate and some very good tasting cheeses.

I really enjoy this annual Christmas lunch with the girlfriends (after both a busy December month and some busy Christmas days), where I have the feeling of saying goodbye to Christmas with pleasure looking forward to an approaching new year in the company of some very good freinds, while eating,  drinking, talking and laughing.

The garden lion was as well very keen to participate doing his best to steal some sausages without luck. Even the black olives were in danger of being eaten by Hannibal the cat.
The history ended today, while I was at work, and the cat "killed"/smashed the butter bowl, while  eating butter. How the cat can both smell and locate butter in a closed butter bowl is beyond my imagination.

Glögg evening 2011

I have some great girl friends in the local area, which always comes around, when I need a "helping hand" or perhaps the correct wording is "helping mouth" removing calories from my kitchen !

So 4 days evening before Christmas Eve, 8 wonderful friends came banging on my front door with their hands full of some perfect hostess gifts like white wine, Christmas liqueur, some Christmas decorations and food care products.



Besides from the mulled white wine, tea and coffee my friends could taste the following "creations" from my kitchen:

• Kløben buns
• Christmas mince pies
• Lebkuchen
• Dates with marzipan
• Snow balls
• Forest fruit marzipan with blackberries
• Nougat confect
• Cocoa marzipan with blackcurrants
• Daim confect

Hannibal the Cat inspecting the hostess gifts