Citronfromage
Citronfromage is a classic Danish dessert, a familiar old friend to all Danes. It can of be served any time of the year but I associate it with long summer days when the sun sets late in the evening. The mousse is a beautiful pale yellow color and it is filled with air making it a very light dessert. The tart lemon flavor is complimented with sweet whipped cream which gives it nice contrast. Make sure to serve the Citronfromage cold with a dollop of whipped cream and enjoy!
Disclaimer: this recipe is made with raw eggs, and as we all know, these days eating raw eggs is frowned upon due to a potential risk of salmonella food poisoning. You can certainly use pasteurized eggs for this dessert but I chose to use fresh eggs lade the old fashioned way by a happy chicken. For more info on safe handling of eggs check out this FDA site, it has a lot of good information.
Citronfromage: serves 6
Ingredients:
For the Mousse:
1 tablespoon granulated gelatin
3 tablespoons cold water
3 organic lemons, juiced
1 teaspoon lemon zest
3 eggs, separated
1/3 cup superfine sugar
generous 1/3 cup heavy cream
For Serving:
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon confectioners sugar
For Candied Lemon Zest:
1 lemon
1/3 cup superfine sugar
1/4 cup water
Directions:
To make the Mousse: Place gelatine and cold water in a heat-proof bowl and let sit for 5 minutes. Meanwhile in a small bowl, using an electrical mixer, beat the egg yolks and sugar until thick and pale in color. In the bowl of your stand-mixer with the whisk attachment (or using a large mixing bowl with clean beaters), whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form. In another bowl beat the heavy cream until soft peaks form.
Place the bowl with the softened gelatin over small saucepan of simmering water to melt gently. Once gelatine is melted, add lemon juice and zest. While continuing to beat the egg yolks, add the gelatine/lemon mixture in a thin stream. Fold the stiff egg whites and whipped cream into the egg/gelatin mixture until smooth. Pour into individual serving dishes or a large serving bowl, cover with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator to set for at least 3-4 hours.
To make Candied Lemon Zest: Using a zester, cut the peel from the lemon into long strips. Squeeze the juice from the lemon and set aside. In a small saucepan add water, sugar, lemon juice and lemon peel, bring to a boil and continue to simmer for 5 minutes. Remove the lemon strips from the hot liquid. Separate the lemon strips from each other and spread them out on a baking sheet, allow to cool.
To serve: whip the remaining 1/2 cup heavy cream with confectioners sugar until soft peaks form. Serve the lemon mousse cold with the whipped cream and candied lemon zest. Enjoy!
Citronfromage
Source: adapted from The Scandinavian Cookbook
Gitte, thank you for your beautiful and valuable website! Four years ago my Danish grandmother died at age 99. We all remember her wonderful Danish dishes, almost all of which were made without written recipes for us to replicate. Thank you for supplying them here in English and with ingredients and measurements we can follow.
We’ll be making your Citronfromage as the dessert for our family’s traditional Torsk Christmas Eve dinner.
Mange tak!
Thank you so much for your kind words and I hope you and your family enjoy the citronfromage 🎄
Friends coming to Sunday lunch. Wanted to make this lovely dessert. My mum used to make this too – many years ago now, Thank you.
Judy, it’s a wonderful choice for a dessert this time of year. I hope you enjoy it.
My mom used to make Citronfromage all the time. She would top it with a layer of whipping cream as well. I just loved the tartness of the lemon.
This mousse seems to be the very epitome of light, tangy and delicious 😀
I love the lemon flavours and your presentation is exquisite!
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
ups forgot the receipe in dansk
Med udgangspunkt i denne opskrift (http://bit.ly/IPvXVW) og fremgangsmåde har jeg ændret en smule for at få mere smag ind i fromagen. Her er min bedste citron fromage opskrift, till date.
Ingredienser
4-5 blade husblas
4 bægere pasteuriserede æggeblommer (bægere af 1,5 æggehvide)
3 bægere pasteuriserede æggehvider (bægere af 1,5 æggehvide)
100-150 g sukker alt efter størrelsen på citron
3-4 økologiske citroner
Skal’en skæres af de vaskede citroner med en fin-skræller og samles i en skål sammen med saften. I denne væske blendes skalen til atomer – 5-10 min blending.
Nogen gange (størrelse på æg og citroner varierer) kan fromagen ikke bære al den gode saft og så kan man istedet for at lave en æggefromage lave en ægge-fløde-fromage, simpelthen ved at indpiske lidt flødeskum indtil fromagen får den form man ønsker.
Evt 2 dl piskefløde + lidt ekstra til pynt
Forvent ikke rester, men såfremt, kan det fryses ned med held.
Mange tak Henrik 🙂
I’m crazy with citronfromage – started to make the basis citronfromage, but now I’m trying to enhance the lemon-taste to make it stronger. So instead of 1 lemon I use juice from 3 lemon and then I blending the lemon-peel with the juice, which gives a very very strong lemon taste – super-citronfromage-on-steroids :- )
For us Citron Fromage was always a Christmas treat. Always had this on Christmas eve. I made it with some Meyer Lemons I’d grown the last time I made it, and it was soo good. I love the candied lemon peel you put on top, I’m going to try that the next time.
I have never had citrus in the form of a mousse, but by the looks of this I have been missing out. When I think of mousse the chocolate is the first to come to mind and it is nice to find a mousse with a lighter clean taste of lemon-yum! Delicious post.
Thank you Tina, it is very light and delicious.