Last week we shared our recipe for brown Christmas spice cookies – Danish ‘brunkager’. Here’s another wonderful recipe for Christmas cookies, this time straight from my great grandmother Inger’s old recipe book. I guess most people are familiar with the Danish vanilla butter cookies that you can buy in typically blue tins, often with photos of famous Danish places on them. Whether these mass produces cookies leave a positive or negative impression of Danish baking on those who try them, is not for me to judge, but these homemade ones are definitely a much more interesting taste experience, and I think far more worth the calories. And they are super…
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Spicy Christmas cookies
It’s time to start planning which Christmas cookies to bake this year! Danish ‘brunkager’, literally ‘brown cakes’, have always been my favorite Christmas cookies. With all their warm aromas from cinnamon, cloves, ginger, all spice and nuts, these wonderful little treats smell and taste like real Christmas to me. Just wait till you put them in the oven, and you’ll see what I mean. There are tons of variations of these cookies, and you can find cousins of these all over Scandinavia and northern Germany. But since this recipe for these spicy Christmas cookies comes from my ancestors, of course I think it’s the best. A ‘brunkage’ is also a…
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Marvellous apple and macaroon muffins
Crunchy on the outside and moist and fluffy on the inside, these apple and macaroon muffins always satisfy my cake cravings. Like most muffins they are quick and easy to make, and a wonderful way to use apples. The recipe grew out of an old recipe for macaroon cakes that I found in one of my granny’s old food magazines, and since I have a general hankering for apple recipes, I thought, why not combine the two? I decided to make these again the other day because my eight-year-old son suddenly found that green apples, having been his favorite apples for as long as I can remember, were no longer…
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Rye bread with beer
In my top three of foods I miss the most from Denmark, you will definitely find rye bread, or ‘rugbrød’ in Danish. Since moving to Canada almost three years ago, I’ve not yet been able to find any type of bread that comes even close to resembling classic Danish rye bread. I did once buy a rye bread from a Danish bakery store here in Toronto, but I have to say even that, despite its original recipe, was rather a disappointment. Luckily, I dug up this old recipe for rye bread with beer in one of my grandma’s old collections of recipes. It’s heavenly and it just tastes like home!…
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Two cheese onion quiche
There is something rather retro about quiches. For me, they always seem to bring back memories of buffets in the ’90s. Luckily, most of them are fond memories, which I guess is why I continue to make a lot of quiches. This onion quiche with Brie and Gruyère is my own variation of a classic French onion quiche, basically a product of me being really fond of both French onion quiche and cheese, especially Brie. The result is a very soft, creamy and fluffy quiche with lots of rich and deep taste, perfect for lazy autumn lunches, dinners, brunches… or, buffets! The trick to a really good quiche, though, is…
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Bread, with lots of butter…
Good bread is the no. 1 reason why I could never give up carbs entirely, and, really, nothing beats a freshly baked bun with lots of butter! Of course, kids know it too, and maybe that’s why classic birthday buns with butter are an essential part of kids’ birthday parties in Denmark. My Grandma Inger was the uncrowned queen of buns. For every birthday party I had as a kid she brought her home-baked birthday buns, and my mom would put them in the oven, just for a bit, so everyone could get a warm bun with what we Danes call “tooth butter”. Let me explain this phenomenon: “Tooth butter”…
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A cake lover’s cake (Danish brunsviger)
Sometimes I just get this insistent craving for a good Danish brunsviger, or, what probably best translates into sticky brown sugar butter bread cake. There are so many scrumptious and awesome classic Danish cakes and pastries, and yet, this is the one I’d always choose above the rest. That is if I was forced to make the choice. (Let’s hope that never happens!) In Denmark this cake originally comes from my native island Fünen (Fyn). For all of my birthdays when I was a kid, my mom would serve brunsviger. And for many kids who come from Fünen this cake continues to be a must for their birthdays. Every little…
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Rose water butter cookies
These delicate rose water butter cookies are the perfect little treats with a nice cup of tea. They do, however, also go surprisingly well with a glass of champagne or other bubbles, for example for New Year’s! They also make a great hostess gift, bagged or boxed nicely, maybe even accompanied by the hostess’ favorite tea or bottle of bubbles. This rose water butter cookie recipe hails back to my grandma, and there is indeed something totally old-school about butter cookies. The rose water though seems quite an exotic addition which must have been a rather decadent and almost daring feature back in grandma’s day. Often used in Middle Eastern…
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Best crunchy creamy scones
Ever tried scones with Camembert and pumpkin seeds? Well, they won’t make winter go away, but they will bring lots of comfort if the cold forces you to stay cooped up inside. This weekend temperatures dropped to -10 F here in Toronto. My first instinct was to simply cuddle up in bed, feel sorry for myself and daydream about the Caribbean. However, I decided instead to use this as a perfect excuse to bake a nice treat for myself and my family. I’ve loved scones ever since my first encounter with them when I lived in England. The first ones I tried were the classic sweet ones with loads of…
