family memories

There are some moments in our lives that are so precious you don't want to forget them. These are the moments that you lock away in your heart to hold on to the memory.

I have been so blessed to have an amazing extended family. A family where both sides of the family like each other and don't mind vacationing together. And when one of the family units decides to move to a different country (my immediate family being that family unit:) they love us so well that when we are in town or on special occasions WE ALL come together. For example in 2004 when we came back to Denmark for visit over Christmas - both sides of our family came together and we rented a cabin and spent the Christmas holiday together and just enjoyed quality time together. Such a great memory. Pass forward to October 2015 and my parents decided to celebrate their 60th birthdays, Danish style - and their siblings, many of my cousins and their kids all made the trek from Denmark to help celebrate and make memories. What a great family! We all stayed together for a week leading up to the party - and just hung out, caught up, enjoyed each others' company, played games, went on excursions, ate together - and got to know each others' kids. I am so thankful for a family that chose to use their vacation and finances to make such a special week happen. Thank you! I miss family time in Denmark and am thankful when I get a chance to experience it once in a while. Here are a bunch of snapshots from the week.

enjoying life outside

meal time

enjoying life inside

out and about

milling mondays: whole wheat sister cake (soesterkage)

When my parents were in town last month I decided it was time for an old school danish cake. The original recipe dates back to the 1700s, but you can't go wrong with a tried and true recipe. And it was nice to bake something that is different than my usual go-to desserts.


Whole Wheat Soesterkage (Sister Cake)

Ingredients

400g whole wheat flour (2/3 soft wheat berries and 1/3 hard wheat berries)
1 tsp baking powder
1 TBS cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp allspice
250g butter, softened
250g sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 dl (about 1 cup) buttermilk
100g raisins


Directions

Preheat the oven to 350F

If you mill your own flour, grind the soft and hard wheat berries. I of course use my WonderMill on the pastry setting. You may want to mill a little extra flour since you will need to sift the flour twice to make the cake less dense.

Combine the freshly milled whole wheat flour, baking powder and spices. Set aside.

In a separate bowl cream together the butter and sugar.

Add the eggs one at a time mixing in between.

Then add the flour mixture.

Add the buttermilk and mix until the dough is formed.

Stir in the raisins.

Pour the dough into a greased fluted cake pan.

Bake the cake for about 40 minutes until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Before serving you can sift powdered sugar over the cake.

ENJOY!

milling mondays: danish christmas recipes

As I mentioned in my last post I can't believe that it is almost Christmas! So exciting:) I just love love Christmas time. I love the cozy times spent with family and friends. Christmas trees and decorations, gift exchanges, Christmas smells, and yummy yummy food and dessert that are served this time of year. This season is often filled with nostalgia for me and with that the desire to make Christmas recipes I grew up enjoying. Here are some of my favorite yummy Danish Christmas treats featured on this blog if you want to try something new and delicious.


Vanillekranse

Brunkager

Danish Rye Bread with Dried Fruit, Seeds and Nuts

Æbleskiver

Ginger Cake (Ingefærkage)

If baking isn't your thing and you enjoy yummy smelling Christmas candles you can head over to Waiting Hearts Candle Co using this link to purchase some.

christmas 2013

I can't believe Christmas was a month ago and I have yet to post any pictures from this trip. We had a lovely Christmas with my family in Florida. I plan to post some more pictures from our time there in the days to come, but here is a sneak peak.

milling mondays: homemade danish wienerbrød - danish pastry

Wienerbrød is a danish specialty. When I visit Denmark I will not leave before I have had at least one piece of freshly baked wienerbrød from the bakery. Wienerbrød comes in many shapes and sizes and can have many different types of fillings. Since wienerbrød isn't as readily available in Phoenix (and most other American cities) then I had to learn how to make this.  Many Americans will describe this type of pastry as a Danish. Unfortunately, the Danishes that you can buy in the States don't taste anything like the real thing ... don't let yourself be fooled (just ask my husband who discovered this tasty pastry for the first time in Denmark a few years ago and will never go back to the American Danish.).



Whole Wheat Danish Wienerbrød
recipe modified from mydanishkitchen



Ingredients

Pastry Dough

225g Whole Wheat flour (75g hard wheat berries and 150g soft wheat berries)
150g unsalted butter, cold and diced
2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
60g warm water
58g heavy cream
1/4 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg, room temperature
25g sugar

Filling
raspberry preserves (or preserves of choice)

Glaze
1/2 egg white
1 Tbsp water
sugar for topping
sliced almonds for topping

Icing
64g powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp warm milk
1/4 tsp almond extract




Directions

If you mill your own flour, grind your soft and hard wheat berries. You may want to grind a little more flour than needed since you will be sifting the flour. I use my WonderMill on the pastry setting.  Sift your flour twice in order to make the pastry less dense. 

Add the flour to a food processor and then add the cut butter. Pulse the flour and butter until it becomes crumbly.

In a separate bowl, dissolve yeast in the warm water and let it sit for about 5 minutes.

Next stir in the cream, cardamom, salt, eggs, and sugar.

Fold in the flour/butter mixture into the liquid mixture.

Cover and refrigerate for at least four hours (up to 4 days).

Once the dough is cold, roll the dough out on a floured surface into a 16 to 20 inch square.
Fold the dough into thirds, rotate dough a quarter of a turn and fold into thirds again before turning over the dough and repeating the rolling and folding steps another two times (roll/fold a total of 3 times). 

Finally wrap the dough and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes (or overnight). 

Once the dough is chilled, roll the dough into a 9x15 inch rectangle and then spread the filling down the center of the rectangle. 

Then cut slanting strips towards the center along both sides of the rectangle

 

Fold the strips over the filling in a crisscross manner.

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Place the pastry onto a baking sheet and let it rise for about 15-30 minutes.

While the pastry is rising, mix together the glaze by beating the egg and water together.

Once the pastry appears puffy, spread the glaze over it before sprinkling with sugar and almonds.

Bake the pastry for about 15 minutes until golden brown.

When you are ready to serve the pastry, mix together the icing. Then drizzle it on top of the pastry.

ENJOY

Wienerbrød is tasty with a good cup of coffee. YUMMMMMMM.

milling mondays: brunkager (danish christmas cookies)

Christmas is right around the corner so it is time for brunkager (brown cookies)! Growing up in Denmark, Christmas always included brunkager.  Brunkager are a very traditional Danish Christmas cookie that tastes a little like ginger snaps (even though this recipe does not have any ginger:). They are crunchy with a spicy flavor and not too sweet . They taste like Christmas ... at least to me! Growing up, my farmor and mom made these cookies and actually you probably can't go to a Danish home at Christmas time and not be served brunkager .... so this year, it was my turn to make some. YUM! I hope you love them as much as I do.

Brunkager (Danish Christmas Cookies)

print-email-text recipe

Ingredients

200g whole wheat flour (150g soft wheat berries and 50g hard wheat berries)

1/2 tsp hartshorn

1 tsp clover

1 tsp cinnamon

125g butter, cut into pieces

90g brown sugar

48g  corn syrup

20-30g almonds, blanched and finely chopped

Directions

 Prepare your almonds by soaking them in boiling water and then remove the skin before chopping.

If you mill your own flour, grind your soft and hard wheat berries (you may want to grind just a little more since you are going to sift the flour). I use my WonderMill on the pastry setting. Sift the flour twice removing some of the bran in order to make the cookies less dense.

Combine the flour, hartshorn, clover and cinnamon.  

  

 

Then add the butter and mix it into the dry mixture using your fingers.

 

Mix in the brown sugar, syrup, and almonds until it forms a dough.

 

 

Once the dough is formed divide the dough into two logs and refrigerate them.

 

Preheat oven to 375F.

Once the dough has become firm enough in the fridge to cut the dough into thin cookies use a very sharp knife to do so (if the dough starts to become too soft to cut it, put it back in the fridge).

 

Place the cookies on a parchment lined/prepared baking sheet.

 

Bake for about 5 minutes.

ENJOY this little piece of Christmas.

 

milling mondays: danish rye bread with seeds and carrots

 

 

As I have mentioned before, Danes love their rye bread. It is a lunch stable for most people in Denmark. It therefore makes sense that there are lots of different versions with different types of additions in it. The one that I am really liking right now is filled with lots of seeds and carrots. It is moist and full of goodness.

 

 

Danish Rye Bread with Seeds and Carrots (Rugbroed)

print-email-text this recipe

 

 

Ingredients

 

Sour dough starter - check out my blog post on how to make the starter

375g whole wheat flour (hard wheat berries)

375g rye flour (rye berries)

5 tsp salt

1/2 L water

500g seeds/grains (I used 175g sunflower seeds, 175g pumpkin seeds, 50g flaxseed (roughly ground), 50g sesame seeds, 50g steel cut oats)

2 carrots, peeled and grated

1/2 bottle dark beer

 

 

 

Directions

 

If you mill your own flour, grind your wheat and rye berries. I of course use my WonderMill.

 

Knead together the wheat and rye flour, salt, water and sour dough starter.

 

 

 

 

Let the dough sit covered for 24 hours.

 

Once the dough has rested for a day, add in all of our seeds/grains, carrots and beer and blend together to form a dough.

 

Remove about 300g of the rye bread dough and set aside to use as the sourdough starter the next time you make this recipe. Store it in the fridge in a closed container. Note, this means you don't have to make the sourdough starter from scratch the next time.

 

Pour the dough into your greased bread pans (1-2 depending on the size). Cover them and let them rise for 4-5 hours (you wont really notice  a whole lot of difference in the size of the bread before and after).

 

 

Pre-heat your oven to 395F. And let the bread bake for 70 minutes.

 

 

Danish rye bread is dense and its crust can become quite hard. In order to remedy this, take the warm bread and wrap it in a kitchen towel and place it in a bpa free plastic bag/zip top bag.
 

Let the bread cool in the bag while the moisture softens the crust. Let it sit overnight before cutting it.

ENJOY!

 

northern cal vacation: solvang

 

Last month we drove to northern California to visit friends in Santa Cruz. On our way we stopped in Solvang (like we did a couple of years ago) to enjoy some tasty Danish treats and speak some Danish with some of the store owners. This was a great first stop on vacation.

i love how this is denmarket square and all you can see in the background  are american flags?!

 

 

now these are REAL danishes

YUMMMMMMMMMMMY

the area is also known for its wineries