February | 2011 | My Danish Kitchen

Archive for February, 2011

Cremelinser – Custard Filled Tarts

Posted in Danish, Dessert, tagged cake, cherry, cremelinser, custard, Danish, dessert, sauce, tart on February 28, 2011| 25 Comments »

Cremelinser with Cherry Sauce

As you may have heard me say before, I am a big sucker for Custard. Whenever I make something with Custard I always make sure to leave one or two big spoonfuls in the bowl for me to taste. Well I have been craving that sweet vanilla flavor lately and when I came across these delicate little cremelinsers I knew that I had to make them immediately. And so I did. The Custard did not disappoint, it turned out fluffy and creamy. I thought the Cremelinser’s should be served with a sauce and what I wanted to make was a raspberry sauce, but I was not able to find any plump fresh raspberries so I made a cherry sauce instead which was equally delicious. Please enjoy!

Cremelinser

Ingredients:

For the dough:

150 grams cold butter (about 10 tablespoons)

250 grams flour (1 2/3 – 2 cups)

60 grams sugar ( 1/3 cup)

2 egg yolks

1 tablespoon cold water

For the Custard filling:

2.5 deciliter milk (1 cup)

1/2 vanilla bean

2 tablespoons sugar

2 egg yolks

1 tablespoon cornstarch

Directions:

Making the filling:

Cut vanilla bean in half lengthwise and scrape out seeds with the tip of a knife. Place vanilla seeds, bean and milk in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks and sugar together until pale in color and fluffy. Add cornstarch and mix together. While continuing to beat the eggs, slowly pour half of the hot milk into the eggs to temper it. Then pour the tempered egg mixture back into the saucepan and return to low temperature on the stove. Continue to whisk mixture over low temperature until the custard starts to thicken, making sure the custard does not boil. Remove from heat, place in a small bowl, cover with cling wrap directly on the custard surface to prevent a skin from forming and place in refrigerator to cool.

Making the dough:

Cut cold butter into small cubes, add to flour and crumble butter and flour together. Add egg yolks, sugar and cold water and quickly bring dough together using your hands. Form dough into a flattened disk, wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for at least 1/2 hour.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius (392 degrees Fahrenheit)

Dust working surface with flour and roll out dough to about 3 mm thickness. Using a 10 cm (4 inch) circle cut out ten circles. Spray five 9 cm (3 1/2 inch) tart forms with cooking spray. Place a round circle of dough in tart form and gently press dough into form. Fill dough tart form with custard up 2/3 to the top and place a second circle on top, pressing down gently to close. Pinch off excess dough around the edges. Makes 5 tarts. Place tarts directly onto the rack in the oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Let cool down completely before removing from tart form and serve. Enjoy.

Cremelinser

Dough filled with Custard

Put a lid on it

Source: adapted from Grydeskeen

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Beef in Paprika Sauce

Posted in Beef, Comfort food, Main course, Stew, tagged beef, mushrooms, paprika, stew, tomatoes on February 21, 2011| 11 Comments »

Beef in Paprika

The nice thing about living in Virginia is that Spring comes early and fall stays late. Our winter is short and yes we did get a fair amount of snow this year but the snow melted away within a couple of days. And so now that Spring is slowly approaching (we have already had a couple of wonderful warm days in the 70’s 🙂 yes we are lucky indeed) but before Spring really takes a hold on us I think we can squeeze in one more dish of what I consider a comfort food. This is a wonderful beef stew with a mild and sweet paprika flavor, onions, tomatoes and tender mushrooms. It becomes even more delicious when served with a slightly perfumed Jasmine rice…my all-time favorite rice. So before the tiny buds burst into brilliant green and we all start sneezing again there is still time for one more hardy meal. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs cubed beef

1 tablespoon sweet Hungarian paprika

1 teaspoon salt

olive oil for browning

1 onion, diced

6 large mushrooms, sliced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 14 oz can diced tomatoes

2 cups chicken stock

3 sprigs fresh thyme

salt and pepper, to taste

2 tablespoon sour cream

water and cornstarch

Directions:

Trim off excess fat and cut beef cubes into bite size pieces. Season meat with paprika and salt. Place beef cubes in hot pan and brown, careful not to crowd the pan. You may have to brown meat in batches. Once meat is browned remove to a plate and set aside.

Add onions to pan and cook until translucent, then move onions to outer edge of pan and add mushrooms. Cook mushrooms until they just start to soften. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute longer.

Add tomato paste, diced tomatoes, chicken stock and thyme. Season with salt and pepper to taste, cover and let simmer for 1/2 to 1 hour. Add sour cream and stir. Mix cold water and cornstarch in a cup to make a slurry and add into simmering beef stew in small increments until desired thickened consistency. Serve over Jasmine rice. Enjoy!

Beef in Paprika

Source: My Danish Kitchen

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Smørrebrød – med Rejer (with Shrimp)

Posted in Danish, Seafood, Smørrebrød, tagged Danish, open faced sandwich, rejer, shrimp, smørrebrød on February 14, 2011| 12 Comments »

Smørrebrød – med Rejer

Sometime during the Fall Joe and I stopped in at one of my favorite stores IKEA to do some shopping. Of course we had to have lunch at Ikea…its a must, you know. They had a wonderful piece of Smørrebrød loaded with egg and shrimp, simply delicious. And so this is my recreation of that wonderful piece of Smørrebrød. It has since then become a weekend lunch favorite at our house. Enjoy.

Ingredients:

1 slice Rugbrød (dark Rye bread)

butter (at room temperature)

lettuce

1 hard-boiled egg, sliced

salad shrimp

1 tablespoon lemon juice

salt and pepper

mayonnaise

Directions:

Place salad shrimp in a small bowl and toss with lemon juice, a pinch of salt and pepper. Spread a thin layer of butter onto rugbrød (if desired) and place lettuce on top. Then top with sliced egg, shrimp and mayonnaise. Enjoy.

Source: My Danish Kitchen

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Red Velvet Cake Balls

Posted in Chocolate, Cookies, Dessert, tagged balls, cake, cake balls, chocolate, dessert, red, valentine, velvet on February 7, 2011| 40 Comments »

Red Velvet Cake Balls

Valentine’s Day is upon us once again. A day for celebrating your affection for your loved ones and for buying massive amounts of chocolate, flowers and Hallmark Cards. The truth of the matter is that I do not celebrate Valentine’s Day. I think it is much more sincere and natural to show your affection in a spontaneous manner….besides I don’t like an overly crowded restaurant. However, I did think it would be fun to make something in a Valentine’s theme and I have been itching to make these Red Velvet cake balls.

The balls turned out very delicious and they were easy to make but a bit time-consuming. If you make cake balls make sure they are thoroughly chilled for easier handling. I worked with 3 or 4 balls at the time so they wouldn’t warm up before i could get them dipped in the chocolate. A tip which worked out really well (courtesy HubPages) was to take a plastic fork and break off the middle two digits which allowed for quicker and better draining off the excess chocolate. So first I rolled the ball in the melted chocolate, then scooped it onto the fork and spooned chocolate over the remaining cake ball and placed it onto a baking sheet to set. I also melted the chocolate in small increments because the cake crumbs make the chocolate thicken pretty quickly.

The best part of making these wonderful Red Velvet Cake Balls was to hear my sons reaction over the phone when he recieved them at his college 🙂

Red Velvet Cake Balls

Ingredients:

1 box Red Velvet cake mix (follow baking instructions on box)

16 oz can Cream Cheese Frosting

2 – 12 oz bags chocolate/white chocolate

1/2 lb colored candy wafers (optional – for decorating)

Directions:

Bake red velvet cake according to directions on box. Allow cake to cool completely.

Break up cake into large chucks, place in food processor and process until fine crumbs. Place cake crumbs in a large bowl. If you don’t have a food processor you can certainly crumble it by hand. Add cream cheese frosting to cake crumbs and mix together. It may be easier to use your hands for the mixing, but a bit messy. Roll cake mass into quarter size balls and place on a baking sheet. Refrigerate cake balls for several hours or place in freezer to speed up the cooling process. You want them very cold for easier handling before dipping in chocolate.

Melt chocolate over a warm water bath or in microwave according to package directions. Using a spoon and fork, gently roll each ball in the melted chocolate to cover, spooning more chocolate over the ball as needed. Place ball on baking sheet or parchment paper until chocolate has hardened.

If decorating, melt colored candy wafers over a water bath or in microwave. Load into a small zip lock bag, cut off the corner tip of zip lock bag making a tiny hole. Drizzle over chocolate covered balls and let set. Enjoy.