Koldskål pancakes

A little bit of koldskål left that no one seemed inclined to eat as is. Was thinking about making pancakes, but would have to be eggless as no eggs. Considered banana. Considered koldskål. Found this recipe and it was exactly what I had in mind. Gave it a try. 

https://www.dk-kogebogen.dk/opskrifter/38618/pandekager-med-koldskaal

180 g / 6.5 oz flour

1 tsp baking powder

1-2 tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp salt

300 ml koldskål

50 ml water (or milk)

2 tbsp veg oil

1 tsp vanilla sugar

Mix flour, baking powder, sugar, vanilla and salt in a medium bowl.

Mix milk, water and oil in a small bowl then beat it gradually into the flour mix. Best until soft and without clumps. It should be quite thick, like a cake dough. Add a bit more flour or water if needed.

Melt a little butter in a pan at medium temperature then cook the pancakes til golden on both sides.

Serve with maple syrup (and bananas?) while still warm.

They are pretty good! The thick kind of pancakes.

Pizza snails

s’s birthday wish was to have his class from børnehave over to play. They do this sometimes for birthdays - the whole room of kids goes to the birthday boy/girl’s house for a few hours in the morning during børnehave time, with a pedagog or two. But we haven’t tried it before… 

Apparently pizza snails (pizza snegle) are required for such gatherings. Like overnight bread rolls, these seem to be something every Danish mum can whip up with her eyes closed.

I asked two different Danish mums about how to make pizza snegle, and both directed me to the same recipe, this one. So that seemed like a done deal. 

(makes about 30 medium snails - including some slightly small/awkward end ones - about 20 acceptably similar ones)

For the dough:

50 g fresh yeast

200 ml milk

150 ml plain yoghurt 

2 eggs 

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp honey

100 ml olive oil

250 g / 9 oz wholewheat flour

400 g / 14 1/2 oz plain flour

 

For the tomato sauce:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

1 400 g tin tomatoes

2 tbsp tomato purée

2 tsp dried oregano

Salt+pepper

 

To finish:

125 g (one pack) fresh mozzarella, finely chopped

1 egg, lightly beaten - for brushing

 

Make the dough:

Mix yeast in a large bowl with the milk. Add oil, yoghurt, honey, egg, salt and wholewheat flour and mix well together.

 

Add plain flour a little at a time until the dough is nice and flexible (it was a bit sticky). Put in a warm place to rise, with a tea towel over it, for about an hour or until doubled in size.

 

Make the tomato sauce:

Heat olive oil in a pan and sauté onion and garlic until soft and translucent. Add tinned tomatoes, tomato purée, oregano, salt and pepper. Simmer c 20 min until thick. Let cool, and keep in fridge until needed, esp if making in advance.

 

Assembly:

Roll out half the dough on a floured surface until c 1/2 cm thick rectangle/square. Spread half the tomato sauce out evenly on top, except c. 4 cm from one end. Sprinkle with half the cheese. Roll into a long roll and cut snails about 2 cm thick with a sharp knife. Put on baking sheets lined with baking paper, with a few cm between them at least, and make round and neat with your hands. Repeat with the other half of the ingredients. Let rise on the sheets for 30 min. Brush with beaten egg. Bake 16-18 min at 180C, until golden brown.

 

They came out well and looked legit. They didn't go down all that well with the kids (they preferred melon, salty popcorn and coconut water), but there were no major complaints so think I got them about right.

5th birthday: Dragonfish cake

For the first time this year I had a birthday cake request from s (who was turning five! FIVE!). Dragonfish. Perhaps I was too ambitious last year and got his expectations up? It's nice to be believed in, and I thought I’d try… Request was for coconut and mango. And blue. 

Decided to do a coconut cake and mango icing. Needed to get a few details for it to be a dragonfish - mainly a light- up lure and long, sharp, multitudinous teeth. Then also big weird eyes, and some spikes and spots along a long, thin body.

Hard to find good pics of dragonfish, since it cannot live above deep sea level. But I am pretty sure s got the idea from wild kratts so I partly based the look on that.

Pretty much followed this recipe for the coconut cake - baked in one round springform tin and one loaf tin.

For the cake:

250 g / 9 oz butter, softened, plus extra for greasing

250 g / 9 oz sugar 

4 eggs, lightly beaten 

1 tsp vanilla 

250 g / 9oz flour 

3 tsp baking powder 

75 g / 2 ½ oz desiccated coconut 

4 tbsp coconut cream

 

For the icing:

6 oz butter

6 oz icing sugar

c. 3/4 cup mango purée made from dried unsweetened mango covered in hot water and soaked for a few hours, then blended up

3-4 tbsp ground desiccated coconut

Food colouring (should be blue)

 

For Features:

1 fresh ripe/brown coconut

1 pack marzipan

c. 30 g dark chocolate

Small white chocolate drops / buttons

Food colouring (blue, green)

Small bike light

Tape

Kitchen foil 

To make the cake:
Heat the oven to 180C. Grease tins and line the bases with buttered baking paper.

Cream the softened butter and sugar together for 3–4 min, or until pale and light – do this as much as possible, here is where I wish I had a mixer of some kind. Gradually add the eggs, mixing well between each addition. Add the vanilla and mix again. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into the bowl, add the desiccated coconut and coconut cream, and beat again until the mixture is smooth and the ingredients are well combined.

Divide the mixture evenly between the prepared tins and bake for 25–30 min, or until the cakes are well-risen, golden-brown and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Leave the cakes to cool in the tins for 5 min, then carefully turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

To make the icing:

Beat the butter until really pale and light. Gradually add the icing sugar, mixing well between each addition. Add the thick mango puree and ground desiccated coconut and mix again. Finally add the food colouring until desired colour is reached (nb I wanted it to be blue but it ended up more green - think the orange-yellow colour of the mango might have skewed it). Chill until needed.

To make the features:

Teeth + spikes - fresh coconut - cracked open and flesh removed in as big pieces as possible; then sliced into thin spikes. Tooth pieces left white; tail spike pieces coloured blue by mixing with food colouring.

Lure+spots - marzipan, food colouring, bike light, tape, foil - marzipan coloured with food colouring by kneading briefly together until colour consistent, then squished into spots; bike light taped into appropriate shape then wrapped with foil, then foil covered with coloured marzipan to make the part that attaches the lure to the fish's body.

Eyes - Melted dark chocolate with small white chocolate blobs in the middle. 

To assemble:

Carve the cakes into shape, sticking together with icing. I used a couple of toothpicks hidden at the back of its head as well, to keep the jaws open. When the shape is OK, cover the outside with icing. Then add the features in appropriate places.

I made the cakes, icing and most of the features two days before the birthday, then chilled overnight, then assembled the day before and kept in cool room overnight. Ideally you could do it all in one day, but... life... All the components should be chilled when assembling - and definitely not at all warm - think it makes everything easier if stuff is stiffer.

I wasn't completely happy with the colour, and the fish was a little dumpier than I would have liked, but on the whole it turned out like I wanted - recognisably a dragonfish!

Whipped feta

This came about as a good way to use up part of a block of feta left over from something else. I love feta but it doesn’t keep long after you’ve opened it, and there never seems to be exactly the right amount in the block for what you’re making… This is really quick and simple and the rest of the ingredients we pretty much always have. 

1/2 block feta
1/2 cup skyr
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tbsp lemon juice
Pinch of salt
Little bit of garlic, crushed

Put all ingredients in a little blender and blend. Scrape into serving bowl and sprinkle additional salt, pepper and olive oil on top. 

Avocado grapefruit salad

If S is out in the evening sometimes I watch queer eye and shell walnuts at the same time. One time the food dude made an avocado and grapefruit salad, and I guess I took a mental note - I like both, don’t think I’d had that combination before, but it sounded good. Some time later, s insisted on grapefruit purchase but then remembered he doesn’t like them much, and it sat in the fruit bowl for a while until some ripe avocados arrived too, and I remembered about the avocado and grapefruit salad…

1 pink grapefruit
1 ripe avocado
Lettuce 
Chopped almonds
Honey
White wine vinegar
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Segment the grapefruit and remove all the pith and membranes. Do it over a bowl and keep the juice. Peel and chop the avocado. Put the lettuce (anything mild is good - little gem, spinach etc) in a bowl, add the grapefruit, avocado and chopped nuts. Add the vinegar, olive oil, honey, salt and pepper to the grapefruit juice and  whisk together to make a dressing. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss.

It was a great combination, why have I never eaten this before?!

Easter 2022: Aubergine kuku

I have decided that Easter is my favourite holiday. We get three days off work, it is Spring and everything feels full of possibility, the days are fresh and sunny (if we are lucky), and the garden is full of the best flowers and not yet too out of control. Spring and its regenerative effect feels like something to celebrate: potent and powerful. 

Eggs are so symbolic of all this. I make an effort to cook something big and eggy, and ideally using beaten eggs, so the shells can be painted later.

This time, I remembered this recipe, which had caught my eye a while ago, partly because of the fun name. I bought a pile of barberries a while ago and have been trying them out in different things. So we had all the ingredients except the aubergines, which I picked up from my favourite wee shop (along with some mangoes - the yellow South American ones are here - summer is on its way!) on my way home today.

120 ml sunflower oil, plus extra (used less - about 50 ml)
4 small onions, peeled and sliced
3 small aubergines, peeled
5 eggs
2 tbsp plain flour
1½ tsp baking powder
25 g chopped parsley, plus extra to garnish
1 tsp saffron strands, dissolved in 1 tbsp of hot water
3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
½ tsp salt
Black pepper
20 g dried barberries, rinsed and dried

Heat the oven to 210C. Drizzle the oil in a big roasting tin, toss in the chopped onions, and put in the oven for about 7 min.

Meanwhile, cut the aubergines in two widthways, cut each half into 1 cm-thick slices, then cut each slice into 1cm-thick sticks. Add these to the onion tin, toss, and put back in the oven for 15-20 min, until the aubergines are completely soft (add a little more oil if needed, but not a lot). Set aside to cool down.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, flour, baking powder, parsley, the saffron and its water, garlic, salt and a good grind of pepper. Once smooth, fold in the barberries and the aubergine and onion mix.

Grease and line a 22cm spring-form cake tin. Pour the egg mix into the tin and bake for 30-40 minutes, until golden-brown and cooked through – insert a skewer in the middle to make sure the egg has set.

Remove from the oven and set aside to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature,with good bread. It will keep in the fridge for two days.

 

I made this with s, he liked the idea of a savoury cake. It is pretty quick and easy, especially if you do the aubergine-onion mix in advance. The recipe called for frying them, by the way - but generally I prefer to do them in the oven for these kinds of things.

Easter 2021: Pace Eggs

At some point I fell down an Easter google bunny hole, wherein I discovered that the Pace Egg is not only a peculiar play at Heptonstall, but also the name for beautifully dyed boiled eggs. Also the word 'pace' is closer to 'påske' (Danish for Easter) than 'easter', making me wonder about origins of both traditions. I've tried dyeing eggs naturally before but it didn't work that well, probably boiling is the trick. I used mainly this recipe, but took the tip about using flowers and leaves from this one.

 **save red and brown onion skins for a few weeks before Easter!**

Eggs

Onion skins

Small, pretty flowers and leaves (e.g. curly parsley)

Dampen the eggs, then press leaves or flowers (could also try cutting shapes from larger leaves, or plastic bags) gently onto them to stick.

Wrap onion skins (red, brown, or a mixture) around the eggs, covering the leaves/flowers.

Wrap tinfoil around the onion skins, encasing the egg.

Put the eggs in a pan along with the rest of the onion skins. Cover with water and bring to the boil.

Boil approx. 8 min, then let cool in the water.

Remove the wrapping carefully to see the pattern. Polish with a little butter to make them shine, if you wish.

They are mainly decorative - they are edible, but not the best-tasting boiled egg you ever had.

I tried shapes made from paper, but it didn't work very well - perhaps could cut shapes from larger leaves instead? I considered other dyes (turmeric? red cabbage? beets?) - but the beauty of onion skins, besides the good strong colour, is that it makes use of something I'd otherwise throw out.