Christmas Calendar 2013 Day 8 - Marzipan "potatoes"

This type of Christmas candy I remember back from my childhood. It is something, which is very, very easy to make even for children. And it does not involve any electrical things or something warm, which you can burn yourself on. So I assume you say SAFETY FIRST, if you make this candy at home. The only thing could perhaps be dusting from handling the cocoa powder.

In order to be a little daring, I decided to spice up the cocoa powder with addition of cinnamon. Cinnamon is is a NEW dangerous food stuff here in Denmark due to this content of coumarin, which can cause liver damages. But again here I am playing safe using the real cinnamon from Ceylon, which has a lower content of coumarin compared to dangerous cassia cinnamon.

Well, why is the Christmas candy called marzipan "potatoes" ? Well the marzipan balls resemble a potato with it´s brownish surface and whitish inner core. The good thing, that you do not need to neither peel nor wash this "potato" in order to eat and enjoy it.

Marzipan "potatoes":

• 100 g marzipan
• 10 g cocoa powder
• ½ teaspoon real cinnamon - optional - leave it out to even more safe !!!

1. Divide the marzipan into small lumps, which you roll by hand into ball shape.
2. Mix cocoa powder and cinnamon together in deep dish.
3. Add the marzipan balls to the powder mix, roll them around until they are completely covered by the cocoa powder mix. I use a teaspoon for this part of the process, so I do not end with cocoa everywhere.
4. Place the cocoa coated marzipan ball in an air tight storage container.

Christmas Calendar 2013 Day 7 - "Snow balls" with butter and oat flakes

These "Snow balls" are soo much easier to make, as the creation process does not involve any coating with (white) chocolate. So make these "Snow balls", if you are time pressed. And if you have more time or is a more patient person, than I make, you can these "Snow balls" instead of.

I found the original recipe in a Christmas booklet add to the the weekly magazine "Alt for Damerne" issue 46/2013. And I have no changes to this recipe.

"Snow balls" with butter and oat flakes:

• 100 g white chocolate
• 250 g marzipan - grated
• 150 butter - soft
• 150 g oat flakes
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• 2 dl coconut flakes

1. Melt the white chocolate - I always my microwave oven for this purpose.
2. Add grated marzipan, soft butter, vanilla sugar, oat flakes and melted white chocolate in a mixing bowl and knead everything together. I used my NEW best friend for this on low speed.
3. Roll the dough mass into small balls with the size of a hazel or walnut nut.
4. Roll the "snow balls" in the coconut flakes.
5. Place the "snow balls" in an air tight container and store them in the refrigerator as they contain butter.

Christmas Calendar 2013 Day 6 - Dates with marzipan stuffing

Again I have been on the outlook for new suggestion on Christmas candy, so I both taste and share new recipes with you. The recipe I found in the Christmas recipe attachment to the weekly magazine "Alt for Damerne" issue 46/2013.

I made two change to the recipe. The first modification: I used 2 mandarins instead of the orange, as my weekly vegetable box contained mandarins instead of orange. The second modification: I decided to add icing sugar into the marzipan mass in order to make more dry, as the juice from the mandarins was making the marzipan mass quiet wet.

Half way through the process I got tried of removing stones from the dates and filling them with the marzipan stuffing, so I decided to stop and taste one of dates without chocolate coating to see, if I could continue my "work". And the taste was just so overly sweet even for me with my "sweet tooth, so I decided not make any more of these dates. So if you do not very sweet Christmas candy, do not even start to make these dates !!!

Dates with marzipan stuffing:

• 75 g walnuts
• 300 g marzipan
• 2 organic mandarins - zest and juice
• 4-6 tablespoons icing sugar
• 500 g big dates
• 200 g dark chocolate

1. Roast the walnuts at 180'C for 8-10 minutes.
2. Remove the skin of the walnuts by rubbing them with paper towel.
3. Chop the walnuts into medium chunks.
4. Knead the chopped walnuts, mandarin zest and juice together with the marzipan. If needed add the icing sugar to adjust the texture from being wet to dry.
5. Remove the stone from the dates.
6. Fill the "stone hole" in the date with ½ teaspoon of the marzipan stuffing.
7. Melt the dark chocolate, as usual I use the microwave oven for the purpose.
8. Dip one of the date with marzipan stuffing into the melted chocolate.
9. Place the chocolate coated date on a piece of baking paper, until the chocolate coating has dried up.
10. Store the dates in an air tight container.

Christmas Calendar 2013 Day 5 - Cookies with cranberry and white chocolate

It is time to bake some cookies for the Christmas festive season. These cookies are very easy to make, as you do not spend at lot of time on getting the shape right, as you can easily do with some of the more traditional Danish Christmas buttercookies. For some of the tradtional Christmas buttercookies you need to spend time on rolling the cookie dough into a certain height, followed by cutting the dough into specific shapes, kneading the left over cookie dough and rooling it out again and start the cutting process again !!!

With these cookies you simply roll the cookie dough into the shape of "sausages", as we call it here in Denmark, leave the dough to cool down in the refrigerator followed by cutting slices of the cookie "sausages" with a size of 1 cm, place each slice on a baking tray covered with baking paper. Much easier it can not get !!!

And will you are making the cookie dough, make an extra portion, which you can use a very personalised hostess gift, so a dear person of yours can bake their own home-made cookies for Christmas. You can easily freeze down this cookie dough.

I took the inspiration for this Christmas cookies from this recipe on cookies with ginger and white chocolate, using cranberries and white chocolate bringing the red and white colours, which are soo traditional for a traditional Danish Christmas.

Cookies with cranberry and white chocolate:

• 125 g butter - soft
• 100 g sugar
• 1 egg
• 2½ dl (cake) flour
• ½ dl oat flakes
• ½ tea spoon baking powder 
• 1/4 tea spoon salt 
• 100 g white chocolate
• 50 g dried cranberries

1. Whip the soft butter and sugar together.
2. Add the egg into the butter-egg mass and whip again.
3. Add flour, oat flakes, baking powder and salt into the cookie dough.
4. Break the white chocolate into smaller pieces and stir them and dried cranberries into the cookie dough.
5. Roll the cookie dough to a height of 5 cm.
6. Wrap the cookie dough in cling film.
7. Let the cookie dough rest in the refrigerator for minimum 1 hour or night over or place it in the freezer for ½ hour.
8. Heat the oven (conventional oven) to 200'C.
9. Cut the cookie roll into pieces of 1 cm and place those on a baking tray covered with baking paper.
10. Bake the cookies in the middle of the oven for approx 10-12 minutes. 

Christmas Calendar 2013 Day 4 - Christmas aquavita with spices

We need to get started to those things, which needs time to matured before they can be enjoyed during the Christmas holiday. So today it is time to make this Christmas aquavita with spices, at it needs minimum 1 week of infusing with the various spices.

I have found this recipe on Christmas aquavita with spices in a small attachment to the weekly Danish magazine Søndag (issue 46/2012). I was forced to make change: I could not find dill seeds any where, so I have replaced the dill seeds with fennel seeds, which I had ready for use in my kitchen.

This blog has been submitted for the Blogging Challenge "Cooking with Herbs & Christmas spieces" December 2013 

Christmas aquavita with spices:

• 70 cl of Brøndum Klar (clear flavour Danish aquavita)
• 3 star anise
• 1 tablespoon cumin seeds
• 1 tablespoon fennel seeds
• zest of 1 organic lemon

1. Start by adding boiling water to the storage container. Empty the container after 5 minutes.
2. Add zest of lemon, cumin seeds, fennel seeds and star anise into the container.
3. Add the aquavita on top and close the container.
4. Store the aquavita in the container in a cold and dark place for minimum 1 week.
5. Let the aquavita run through a sieve in order to remove the lemon zest and spices.
6. Pour the Christmas aquavita in a clean bottle.
• Skål & Glædelig Jul (Cheers and happy Christmas).

Christmas Calendar 2013 Day 3 - Cinnamon sugar

The new BIG thing being discussed here in Denmark is cinnamon and the implementation of some EU legislation !!!! The baked goods are now being divided into traditional/seasonal baked good and fine pastries. The traditional baked goods can contain more of the "bad thing" (=coumarin), while the fine pastries will have a lower limit for coumarin.

The classic  kanelsnegl (cinnamon "snail" = Danish pastry with cinnamon sugar filling) is ended up in the group fine pastries, whereas the Christmas cookie "Jødekager" (Jew cakes, which is not a nice translation) is grouped as traditional/seasonal baked goods.

The amount of couramin depends as well as the type of cinnamon used. Many bakers are using cassia cinnamon (cheaper cinnamon) having a higher level of coumarin, which is toxic for our livers. The real cinnamon (Cinnamomum Verum), also known as Ceylon cinnamon, has a lower level of coumarin.

So now EU and the Danish food authorities are almost being blamed for destroying Danish culture, as the cinnamon "snail" has been grouped as fine pastries, while the Swedish food authorities has grouped their cinnamon bun as traditional based goods.
This leaves the Danish bakers with two options: reduced the amount of cassia cinnamon in the cinnamon "snail" or going back to use real cinnamon instead of cheating us consumers with low cost cinnamon.

Well, I like to use cinnamon (naturally only the REAL stuff) in my little kitchen, so I have decided to participate in this "cinnamon war" by introducing a new label "Cinnamon" for recipes containing cinnamon, adding a new line to my blog description and when by sharing this recipe on cinnamon sugar with you as a part of my Christmas Calendar 2013 :-))

For my non-Danish readers having no idea where to use cinnamon sugar, I would suggest that you could try it here:

• sprinkle on rice porridge together with a lump of butter
• sprinkle on Christmas cookies
• sprinkle on top of these apple muffins with cinnamon before baking
• sprinkle on top of orange slices served as refreshing dessert

UPDATE 1 December 2015:
This sugar is being forward for the monthly blogging event Tea Time Treats having the theme ofsugar and spice. Tea Time Treast is managed by Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Jane from The Hedge Combers.

Cinnamon sugar:

• 8 tablespoons sugar
• 4 teaspoon real/Ceylon cinnamon

1. Add both sugar and cinnamon into the storage container.
2. Close the storage container and turn it several times to mix every thing very well together.
3. Store in a dark place.
4. Sprinkle on top various food stuff as taste provider.

Christmas Calendar 2013 Day 2 - Christmas cake English style

In the wonderful baking book "Season Baking" by Fiona Cairns, which I brought on my last shopping expedition to England. And in this book I found there is recipe on traditional English Christmas cake full of raisins, nuts and alcohol. The good thing about this recipe is, that you do have to make it months away from Christmas, as a maturation time of one-two weeks is sufficient, however a couple of month as maturation time would also be OK according to this recipes.

I made a few changes, as this gave me the opportunity for using smaller amount of leftovers available in my kitchen. Hopefully this will not ruin my cake !!! Replaced with sherry with white port wine, used more currants and less dark raisins, used a mix of hazelnuts and almonds to clear up nut left overs instead of only almonds and finally replaced glacé cherries with Amarene cherries.

Already now I have decided, that I will not try my hands on making the advanced decoration with marzipan lid, royal icing, sugar paste and small eatable roses and leafs, as I know I will be messing up this part of the cake. So here I will bake a ready-to-use marzipan and make no decorations at all.

Christmas cake English style a la "Season Bake":

• 170 g sultanas
• 155 g dark raisins
• 85 g currants
• 60 g pickled ginger - finely chopped
• 2 organic oranges - only the zest
• 200 golden syrup 
• 4 tablespoons white port wine
• 150 g butter - soft
• 50 g dark chocolate
• 100 g (cake) flour
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 60 g blanched almonds
• 150 g dark muscovado sugar
• 3 eggs
• nuts flour (40 g almonds and 20 g hazel nuts)
• 115 g Amarene cherries - removed from it´s syrup and halved
• 2 tablespoons white port wine
• Marzipan cake lid

1. Place the sultanas, raisins, currants, orange zest, golden syrup and white port wine in a mixing bowl.
2. Stir everything well together and place the mixing bowl, which it closed with a lid, before it is place in the refrigerator night over.
3. Roast the blanched almonds in a baking tray in the oven at 180'C for 8 minutes. 
4. Cold down the almonds and chop them roughly.
5. Blend the others with skin into fine flour.
6. Melt the dark chocolate, as usual I used the microwave oven for the purpose.
7. Sieve the (cake) flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder together in one mix.
8. Whip the soft sugar and dark muscovado sugar together for five minutes on relative high speed into a light and fluffy mass. I used the balloon whip on my KitchenAid - speed 6.
9. Add the eggs one by one and between the egg add spoon fulls of the flour mix. Here I used speed 2.
10. Be careful not to over whip the cake mass after addition of the last egg.
11. Fold the nut flour, chocolate, the sugar-alcohol fruits and Amarene cherries into the cake dough. Fold everything well together.
12. Cover a round tin (diameter 23 cm and height 7.5 cm) with baking paper.
13. Fill the cake dough into the cake form.
14. Bake the cake at 150'C for 2-2½ hours in the lower part of the oven, or until a cake tester comes clean out of the cake.
15. Cool the cake down in the form.
16. When the cake is cold, pinch holes in it and sprinkle it the remaining 2 tablespoons of white port wine.
17. Wrap the cake in baking paper followed by foil and place in a air tight container, and lets is mature for one-two weeks or several months, if you are out in good time.
18. Finally you will decorate the cake with marzipan depending on your capabilities with this area.