Recipes for a Sweet Year in Denmark
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Index Introduction 2 Cinnamon Rolls 3 Drømmekage 5 Træstammer 7 Cheesecake 9 Chocolate Chip Cookies 11 Brownie 13 Pebernødder 15 Brunsviger 17 Vaniljekranse 19 Fastelavnsboller 21 Jaime’s Orange and Chocolate Cake 24 Epilogue 27 1 Introduction Denmark is a country that loves sweets, that is no secret, and their passion seems to be rooted in their own culture and personality. Danes have an immense variety of traditional desserts, they all seem to know how to bake and they even have TV programmes fully dedicated to baking. Here cake is not regarded as an occasional treat or something for special occasions, but as something you can eat on a daily basis, just because it’s “hyggeligt”... And for a sweets lover like me, that is just perfect. I have eaten so many sweets during my voluntary service in Denmark that I have memories, anecdotes and reflections attached to many of those cakes and biscuits. This is a small recipe compilation of those desserts, accompanied by the stories they evoque and remind me of. It is also an excuse for me to bake some delicious pastries, many of which I had never even heard of before I came to this sweet country and met these sweet people. I hope you enjoy reading about them and maybe even try to bake them yourselves. 2 Cinnamon Rolls A sweet beginning Let’s start this book from the beginning, from the day my project started. I had only been in Denmark for a couple of days when Vandel Efterskole opened, which is the school where I’ve been working as a volunteer for the whole year. Vandel is a place full of nice people, and that’s something I realized from the first minute, even before the students arrived, just by talking to the sta and teachers and realizing how warm and welcoming they all were. However, I was a bit nervous about meeting the students and seeing what they would be like. The day they arrived and everyone was both tense and excited, since they were saying goodbye to their families and starting a new and exciting phase in their lives. In that sense we were in a similar situation. Everything was new for me too, and I felt a bit lost. My job that day was to talk to the students and their families and oer them some cinnamon rolls that the sta from the school’s kitchen had prepared. Even though they looked delicious, I didn’t want to take any in case there weren’t enough for everybody. For some reason I was so nervous I thought it could be wrong for me to eat a single cinnamon roll. As if he could read my mind, one of the students approached me and told me I could take as many as I wanted. Apparently, he had been in Vandel the previous year too, and he knew how everything worked much better than I did. We ate some cinnamon rolls together and had an entertaining conversation. He was very nice to me and talking to him was what made me realize I had nothing to be nervous about. From that point on I relaxed and started enjoying the day. It really was a sweet start to my experience in Denmark. Almost as sweet as the cinnamon rolls that we ate! 3 Ingredients Dough ❖ 100 grams of butter ❖ 250 mL of milk ❖ 50 grams of fresh yeast ❖ 2 eggs ❖ 600 grams of flour ❖ 2 teaspoons of cardamom ❖ 1 teaspoon of salt Filling ❖ 150 grams of soft butter ❖ 100 grams of brown sugar ❖ 2 tablespoons of cinnamon Glace ❖ 200 mL of powdered sugar ❖ 2 tablespoons of water Instructions Start by mixing the melted butter with the milk at room temperature and dissolving in the yeast in them. Add the dry ingredients and mix until obtaining a soft but still sticky dough. Let the dough rest for half an hour so that it starts rising with the activated yeast. After that, roll the dough on a flat surface with some flour to avoid sticking. Mix the softened butter with brown sugar and cinnamon until creating a paste. Extend the butter paste throughout the extended dough. Once you’ve finished extending, it’s time to roll the dough, trying to keep it tight and well compacted until you end up with a cylinder. Cut it in sections of the desired height, then place them in the baking pan, cover them with some cloth and let them rise for another 15 minutes. Before putting in the oven, brush them with the beaten eggs so that they turn golden, which shouldn’t take more than 12 or 15 minutes. Once they are fully baked, pour the icing while they are still hot and let them cool. 4 Drømmekage Aftenkae My project as a volunteer is in an Efterskole, which, for the ones not familiar with the term, is a crazy boarding school where crazy things happen on a daily basis, from reproducing the American elections, to going on scarry trips in the middle of the night or preparing a whole musical in a week (stage and costumes included). All these things make my project both incredibly fun and terribly tiring. That’s why daily routine is much appreciated, and my favorite part of the school’s everyday life is “aftenkaen”. Aftenkaen is the last meal of the day that we take at 21:30 and, contrary to what you might imagine, it doesn’t involve any coee. It consists of a piece of fruit and a bun, some cookies or a piece of cake. There is always great expectation to see what we are having for aftenkaen, and the school's homemade drømmekage is many people’s favourite option, including myself. It’s probably the first Danish cake I tried here, and a perfect example of how sugary danish pastry is. But apart from an excuse to eat some cake, aftenkaen is the perfect opportunity to chat with the students, reflect on what has happened during the day and have a “hyggeligt” time together. A very sweet way to end the day! 5 Ingredients Cake ❖ 4 eggs ❖ 300 grams of sugar ❖ 200 mL of milk ❖ 50 grams of butter ❖ 250 grams of flour ❖ 3 teaspoons of baking soda ❖ 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract Topping ❖ 100 grams of butter ❖ 150 grams of grated coconut ❖ 225 grams of brown sugar ❖ 50 mL of milk Instructions Beat together the eggs and sugar until light and fluy. Heat the milk and butter in the microwave until melted, and add it to the mixture. Whisk the dry ingredients and slowly add them to the wet ingredients by sifting them in. Don’t overmix the dough or else you might miss some of the fluness that’s key to this cake. Pour the dough in a small baking pan and put it in the oven at 200ºC for around 20 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the topping by melting butter in a pan and adding brown sugar. Bring it to a boil and, as soon as the sugar starts caramelizing, add in the coconut. Stir constantly, and if the consistency is not soft enough, start adding the milk. The quantities mentioned above are the ones I used following an internet recipe, but most drømmekager I’ve tried in Denmark have at least twice the amount of topping that this one has, so don’t hesitate to prepare more if you like it very sweet and sticky. When the cake is almost fully baked, take it out of the oven and spread the coconut mix on top. Try to achieve a consistent thickness throughout the whole cake, and put it back in the oven for about 5 minutes, raising the temperature to 225ºC. Take it o the oven and let it cool before you eat it. 6 Træstammer Building relationships in the kitchen Around the beginning of the school year, I came across my first big frustration. I had been joining the lessons and some of the activities for a couple of weeks, but most students acted a bit shy around me and I always had to start every conversation. At that time, I was still learning the students’ names and most of them were uncertain of my purpose in the school (even I was). Then the “Boys cooking classes” started. It was an optional lesson that took place only once a week for a few weeks, and I joined because I wanted to learn some Danish dishes to show my friends and family back in Spain. It was a lesson not many students were attending, which created a very cozy environment where we had to cook in small groups. I think for most students that was the first time they were seeing me not taking a leading role like the teachers. In fact, I still couldn’t understand a single word of Danish, so they were the ones helping me out. I believe that was the moment they realized I could also be one of them, and while cooking we started small conversations that allowed complicity to grow. I remember preparing Træstammer the last day of the courses and having so much fun playing with the food and getting dirty together, as well as having some deep conversations while we let the Træstammer cool down. In conclusion, cooking helped me find my place in my project and allowed me to start building deeper relationships with the students. 7 Ingredients ❖ 450 grams of cake left-overs ❖ 200 grams of dark chocolate ❖ 2 tablespoons of raspberry jam ❖ 2 tablespoons of rum essence ❖ 200 grams of marzipan Instructions Start by making the cake left-overs into crumbs with a fork or your hands.