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Dec. 16th, 2006 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rimturseAhhhhhhh...every year the spirit of Christmas gets its dirty little fingers in me, and like any true Dane, I must bake Christmas cookies.
Let me just tell you that the baking of Christmas cookies requires physical endurance not unlike what one would expect in a Marathon. I get wiser from year to year. I've learned to limit the amount of cookie types and to make half portions only - for some reason Danes thinks it's absolutely vital to make enough cookies to feed the nation. I don't seem to get significantly wiser, though. Next year, if I even think about making vanilliekranse without a meat mincing machine, please feel free to hit me over the head with an iron cast frying pan - I swear it will be less painful.
Anyway, as promised to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rabiagale here are a few Danish Christmas cookie recipes - there are many more, but I'm a lazy girl. They are all full recipes and will yield a hell of a lot of cookies, so you might want to halve them. I baked the vanilliekranse this year and my estimate is that one full batch will give you abour 300 cookies. I didn't bake another other traditional Danish cookies apart from the vanilliekranse, but cheated and made chocolate-chip/walnut cookies instead.
500 gram white wheat flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 pods of vanilla seeds or 5 spoonfuls of vanilla sugar.
375 gram butter
250 gram sugar
1 egg
125 gram finely chopped almonds
Mix flour, baking powder and vanilla. Cut in the butter and separate the mixture with your hands until sticky and grainy. Mix egg and sugar until white and fluffy. Add to flour/butter mixture and mix. Add the chopped almonds and knead the dough together (should be slightly more wet than your average flaky paste). Put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Once cooled put the dough in your meat mincing machine and squeeze it though the star shape (thickness a bit smaller than you little finger). Shape the rolls into rings, approx. the same size as the circle made when you put your thumb and index finger together. If you don't have a meat mincing machine that will allow you to make the star shaped rolls, you can always roll them by hand - like some other idiot, whom I won't mention.
Bake 8-10 minutes at 185 degree celcius. You need to watch the cookies and take them out as soon as they start to turn golden. They should still be quite pale - if you wait too long to take them out, the cookies will be dry and powdery.
Put them on a grating/grate (don't know the English word) and let them cool completely before transferring them to a cookie jar.
These are my favourite Christmas cookies!
275 gram white wheat flour
200 gram butter
125 gram sugar
1/2 tsp. ammonium carbonate
1 egg
1 egg for brushing
25 gram chopped almonds
4 tbsp. large crystal sugar
1 tbsp. cinnamon
Cut the butter into the margarine and separate the mixture with your hands until sticky and grainy. Mix sugar with ammonium carbonate and put into the flour/butter mixture. Whip egg and add to mixture. Knead until the mixture is homogene. Put in the fridge for 2 1/2 hours. Knead dough again and roll it out on a flour dusted table until it has a thickness of about 3-4 mm. Punch out round forms 5-6 cm wide with a cookie cutter or a glass, place on baking sheet. Whip eggs together and brush cookies with egg mixture. Mix the large crystal sugar together with the cinnamon. Sprinkle the cookies with almost and sugar/cinnamon mixure. Bake 10-12 minutes at 200 degrees celsius until cookies start to turn golden.
Put them on a grating/grate (don't know the English word) and let them cool completely before transferring them to a cookie jar.
PS. The spell check thinks vanilliekranse should be vulgarians. Bwahahahaha
Let me just tell you that the baking of Christmas cookies requires physical endurance not unlike what one would expect in a Marathon. I get wiser from year to year. I've learned to limit the amount of cookie types and to make half portions only - for some reason Danes thinks it's absolutely vital to make enough cookies to feed the nation. I don't seem to get significantly wiser, though. Next year, if I even think about making vanilliekranse without a meat mincing machine, please feel free to hit me over the head with an iron cast frying pan - I swear it will be less painful.
Anyway, as promised to
rabiagale here are a few Danish Christmas cookie recipes - there are many more, but I'm a lazy girl. They are all full recipes and will yield a hell of a lot of cookies, so you might want to halve them. I baked the vanilliekranse this year and my estimate is that one full batch will give you abour 300 cookies. I didn't bake another other traditional Danish cookies apart from the vanilliekranse, but cheated and made chocolate-chip/walnut cookies instead.500 gram white wheat flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 pods of vanilla seeds or 5 spoonfuls of vanilla sugar.
375 gram butter
250 gram sugar
1 egg
125 gram finely chopped almonds
Mix flour, baking powder and vanilla. Cut in the butter and separate the mixture with your hands until sticky and grainy. Mix egg and sugar until white and fluffy. Add to flour/butter mixture and mix. Add the chopped almonds and knead the dough together (should be slightly more wet than your average flaky paste). Put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Once cooled put the dough in your meat mincing machine and squeeze it though the star shape (thickness a bit smaller than you little finger). Shape the rolls into rings, approx. the same size as the circle made when you put your thumb and index finger together. If you don't have a meat mincing machine that will allow you to make the star shaped rolls, you can always roll them by hand - like some other idiot, whom I won't mention.
Bake 8-10 minutes at 185 degree celcius. You need to watch the cookies and take them out as soon as they start to turn golden. They should still be quite pale - if you wait too long to take them out, the cookies will be dry and powdery.
Put them on a grating/grate (don't know the English word) and let them cool completely before transferring them to a cookie jar.
These are my favourite Christmas cookies!
275 gram white wheat flour
200 gram butter
125 gram sugar
1/2 tsp. ammonium carbonate
1 egg
1 egg for brushing
25 gram chopped almonds
4 tbsp. large crystal sugar
1 tbsp. cinnamon
Cut the butter into the margarine and separate the mixture with your hands until sticky and grainy. Mix sugar with ammonium carbonate and put into the flour/butter mixture. Whip egg and add to mixture. Knead until the mixture is homogene. Put in the fridge for 2 1/2 hours. Knead dough again and roll it out on a flour dusted table until it has a thickness of about 3-4 mm. Punch out round forms 5-6 cm wide with a cookie cutter or a glass, place on baking sheet. Whip eggs together and brush cookies with egg mixture. Mix the large crystal sugar together with the cinnamon. Sprinkle the cookies with almost and sugar/cinnamon mixure. Bake 10-12 minutes at 200 degrees celsius until cookies start to turn golden.
Put them on a grating/grate (don't know the English word) and let them cool completely before transferring them to a cookie jar.
PS. The spell check thinks vanilliekranse should be vulgarians. Bwahahahaha
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-16 03:17 pm (UTC)Take it from a person who has tried baking vaniliekranse without the meat mincer; it IS possible, but they don't look as pretty as when the dough has come out that star-shaped hole that my Mum uses for them. (And the reason why I didn't use one, I should add, is because I don't have one.)
My Mum used to make vaniliekranse and brunkager (oh god, she makes the best brunkager in the whole world! Not even my grandmother's brunkager can beat them), klejner and finskbrød. In the later years though, she only makes brunkager, vaniliekranse and sometimes klejner. Partly because she's got a smaller kitchen now and partly because my cousin is allergic to eggs and my parents hate having her over without her being able to eat anything on the table that she wants. The exception being vaniliekranse, and that's just because she hasn't figured out how to do that egglessly yet.
Finally, I'm standing here, soon to be in dire need of some danish cookie recipes translated to english. Would you mind terribly if I quoted you (with a link to this post) rather than translating it myself?
no subject
Date: 2006-12-16 03:29 pm (UTC)I don't have a meat mincer either and have been making the vanilliekranse without since moving to Switzerland. You're right, they're not as pretty, I excuse myself by calling them rustic! And anyway down here no-one knows what they're supposed to look like or taste like. *grin*
The main problem I have with shaping them by hand is that it takes much longer than with the mincer.
Uhmmm brunkager, klejner and finskbrød. Gløgg and æbleskiver!
PS. Oven grill could be right.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-16 03:47 pm (UTC)When I was little she did help me make another kind of cookies, probably somewhat similar to what americans know as gingerbread men. I wanted to make those a few years ago and it took me AGES! to find some cheap cookie cutters. Mum has one shaped like a die with six shapes on it, and I found one that looked a bit like it. (as in also die shaped) And it cost nearly 100 kr! I was shocked and appaled and thankfully managed to find a box elsewhere with eight separate shapes instead for only 30 kr.
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Date: 2006-12-16 04:13 pm (UTC)We would say a cooling rack or sometimes a baking rack, though baking racks are also used in the oven with some things.
I was contemplating making cookies this week. You are so right about the marathon strength. I haven't made cookies at Christmas for years because it was so exhausting when I did it. I made 8 or 9 kinds, from lemon bars to our regular chocolate chip oatmeal to the yummy little round double chocolate treasures rolled in powdered sugar. mmmm, cookies.
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Date: 2006-12-16 09:59 pm (UTC)8-9 kinds of cookies! That is a lot! :)
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Date: 2006-12-16 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-16 04:37 pm (UTC)Ammonium carbonate is not a common ingredient in the US so I looked it up.
According to http://www.foodsubs.com/Leaven.html ammonium carbonate is:
baker's ammonia = ammonium carbonate = carbonate of ammonia = baking ammonia = bicarbonate of ammonia = ammonium bicarbonate = powdered baking ammonia = triebsalz = hartshorn = salt of hartshorn = hirschhornsalz = hjorthornssalt = hartzhorn Originally made from the ground antlers of reindeer, this is an ancestor of modern baking powder. Northern Europeans still use it because it makes their springerle and gingerbread cookies very light and crisp. Unfortunately, it can impart an unpleasant ammonia flavor, so it's best used in cookies and pastries that are small enough to allow the ammonia odor to dissipate while baking.
Look for it in German or Scandinavian markets, drug stores, baking supply stores, or a mail order catalogue. Don't confuse this with ordinary household ammonia, which is poisonous. Varieties: It comes either as lumps or powder. If it isn't powdered, crush it into a very fine powder with a mortar and pestle or a rolling pin. Substitutes (for 1 teaspoon of baker’s ammonia): 1 teaspoon baking powder (This is very similar, but might not yield as light and crisp a product.) OR 1 teaspoon baking powder plus 1 teaspoon baking soda.
I knew it had to be a baking soda/baking powder kind of thing.
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Date: 2006-12-16 05:58 pm (UTC)(Cooling rack. Thanks!)
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Date: 2006-12-17 12:00 am (UTC)Thanks for posting these. One of these Christmases I'll actually do the conversions and try some of these recipes. :)
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Date: 2006-12-17 12:47 pm (UTC)