Vanilla Panna Cotta with Raspberry Coulis

Vanilla Panna Cotta with Raspberry Coulis.

Panna Cotta is one of my favorite desserts. The velvety texture of the ‘mousse’ and the sauce brings a brightness to the dessert. Normally a panna cotta have a caramel on top, but i like the ones with a berry sauce. In Denmark we have a dessert similar to this called fløderand or cream wreath, it was big in the 70’s and 80’s and was served with canned fruit. So it is similar but not really.

Makes 3-4

Ingredienser:

Panna Cotta:

• 500 ml (2⅛ cup) heavy whipping cream

• 50 g (¼ cup) sugar

• 2 vanilla beans, the seeds scraped, or 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste

• 6 g gelatin or 3 sheets of gelatin/husblas

Raspberry Coulis:

• raspberries, fresh or frozen

• 2 tablespoons sugar

• 1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped

• 2 tablespoons water

Topping:

• white chocolate shavings

• lime zest

Directions:

Panna cotta:

If using gelatin sheets, place them in a bowl of cold water to bloom for about 10 minutes.

If using powdered gelatin, sprinkle it evenly onto 2 tablespoons of cold water and the let it soak for a few minutes.

Scrape out the seeds from the vanilla pod, and mix them with a tablespoon of the sugar. This will help distributing the seeds in the liquid.

Gently heat the cream, vanilla seeds, the vanilla bean pod and all the sugar in a saucepan, and heat it to almost a boil, remove from heat. Squeeze the gelatin sheets and add them (or the bloomed gelatin powder) to the hot cream. Whisk the mixture until gelatin is dissolved.

Whisk the mixture until gelatin is dissolved. Pour the cream through a sieve into a jug. Let the mixture chill in the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes, until it is as thick as lightly whipped whipping cream. Stir the mixture and pour it into portion sized serving jars or cocktail glasses. Chill the panna cotta in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours before serving.

Raspberry Coulis:

Scrape out the seeds/caviar from the bean, and mix it with some of the sugar, this will help disperse the seeds.

Heat all the ingredients in a small saucepan until it comes to a boil, remove from heat. Run the coulis through a fine meshed sieve, to remove the seeds. Try to get as much fluid through the sieve as possible, and discard the seeds and the vanilla pod. Cool the coulis/sauce/juice or syrup in the refrigerator until ready to serve the Panna Cotta.

To unmold the panna cotta, gently insert a knife around the edges of the moulds, and dip the mold in hot water for max. 10 seconds. Tip them onto individual plates, pour over the sauce. You can also serve the panna cotta in the glass, and just pour some raspberry coulis into the glass before serving, and decorate them with som white chocolate shavings and some lime zest. 

Enjoy!

London Fog Tea Latte

London Fog Tea Latte.

As a coffee drinker, I’m not up to date with the new tea trends, so this one hit me this year, and its not a new trend - far from. But better late than never. As a teenager I drank a lot of tea, and often I had it with milk and sugar. Slowly I skipped the milk and sugar, and only had it in my tea as a special treat, and we called it Sunday Tea - Søndagste.

The London Fog Tea Latte is what I would call Sunday Tea. A sweet tea with milk, but a gourmet version. And it is highly addictive.

Serves 2.

Ingredients:

• 1 teaspoon loose leaf earl grey tea or 1-2 bags earl grey tea (depending on how strong you like your tea!)

• ⅛ teaspoon dried lavender buds

• 240 ml steamed milk (about 1cup)

• ½ -1 teaspoon vanilla flavored sugar* or ½ teaspoon sugar + ¼ teaspoon vanilla bean paste

Directions:

Brew earl grey tea with lavender buds, letting it steep for about 5 minutes. I use a loose leaf tea filter, so I don’t have to strain the tea. Remove tea filter. Heat the milk until scalding. If you want milk foam on your latte use a frother or immersion blender to make the foam.

Pour the tea into a cup, add the vanilla flavored sugar, and stir. Pour the hot milk from underneath the foam into the cup, and top with the milk foam. You can add more sugar if you like your tea sweeter. Serve immediately.

Vanilla flavored sugar.

Enjoy!

* - I have a little jar with sugar in my pantry. Every time I scrape the seeeds from a vanilla bean pod, I cut the bean up and put it in the sugar. This flavors the sugar with vanilla, and are perfect for oatmeal, tea.

Vanilla Honey Butter

Vanilla Honey Butter

As a Dane growing up in Denmark I didn't know the existence of Honey Butter, and I was ok with that. First time I encountered honey butter was at a brunch, where they served it with biscuit and bacon - and OMG it was a party in my mouth. How could I not know of this????

Now I see that you can use this for many things - like cornbread, American pancakes, bagels, and of course biscuits. The addition of vanilla just makes it even better.

Depending on which butter and honey you use, you get different color and texture. I just used what I had in the house, and that was European style butter, and it was a bit more yellow. I used a dark raw honey, and it made my butter yellow. But you can easily end up with a beautiful white butter - there is no wrong color in honey butter.

ingredients:

• 2 vanilla beans, use the seeds scraped from pods

• 225 g (1 cup) butter, salted and room temperature

• 170 g honey

• 1 pinch salt

Directions:

In a Using a stand mixer, beat all ingredients for a 3-5 minutes until smooth and combined. Serve immediately or refrigerate.

Enjoy!

Hasselback Potatoes

Hasselback potatoes is a Swedish dish invented in the 1950’s created at the Hasselbacken restaurant in Stockholm. And they were very popular during the 70’s and 80’s, but do no deserve to be forgotten. Personally i love them for their crispy outer and creamy center.

Normally I won’t add any flavors to the butter, but fresh herbs like rosemary and thyme goes really well with the potatoes, as do garlic. If you like another flavor profile, you can use other types of fat or oil, like olive oil and duck fat.

Serves 3-4 depending on the size of the potatoes.

Ingredients:

8-10 potatoes, the size of a golf ball, I used Yukon Gold potatoes

60 g salted butter (About ½ stick)

salt

Direction:

Preheat the oven to 400℉ (200℃), and line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper, set a side.
Place a potato up against a handle of a wooden spoon. Slice the potato into thin slices, not cutting all the way through. The handle of the spoon helps you not slicing the whole way through. Repeat with the remaining potatoes.

Place the potatoes on the baking sheet and brush them with the melted butter, making sure to get in between all the slices. Sprinkle with salt. Bake potatoes for about 55 to 60 minutes, brush the potatoes with more butter every 20 minutes. Bake until crisp and tender.

Serve them as a side.

Enjoy!

Lagkagebunde version II - Sponge Cake

Lagkagebunde - Sponge Cake

Danes have Birthday cakes like everyone else, and it’s called a lagkage or layer cake. It is made up of layers of sponge cake with some kind of filling between the layers. Most common is a vanilla or chocolate custard ans some kind of jam or fruit, a thin layer of icing and whipped cream on top. But pretty much anything goes. Growing up I always had a strawberry layer cake. My birthday correlated with the first local strawberries of the year, so my birthday cakes were very simple, 2 layers of sponge cake with smashed strawberries folded into whipped cream between and on the top. Not a picture perfect cake, but extremely delicious. My brothers birthday was during the winter months, so his birthday cakes were more classic with vanilla custard and jam., making it a pretty cake with a nice cut.

Some of my fiends had more interesting birthday cakes filled with chocolate custard, banana and even crushed chocolate meringue. A proof that anything goes in homemade birthday cakes.

I like that this cake have some texture, while being light. But if you want it lighter, use half all-purpose flour and half potato starch.

Makes 1 large sponge cake, to be divided.

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 eggs, room temperature

• 180 g sugar

• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or the seeds (caviar) from 1 vanilla pod

• 160 g all-purpose flour (or use half all-purpose flour and half potato starch)

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1 pinch salt

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350℉ (180℃).

Spray a 9-inch (22 cm) springform. Place a piece of parchment paper in the bottom and spray this too. Set aside.

Whisk the eggs light and foamy with sugar and vanilla bean paste for 10 minutes in a stand mixer, this part is important, you want to incorporate as much air into the eggs, as this is where the most rise will come from.

Mix and sift flour and baking powder together, and set aside. 

Very gently fold the flour into the foamy eggs. Be very careful not to deflate the egg mixture too much.

Pour the batter in the prepared springform

Bake the large cake for about 40 minutes, until light brown.

Cool the cake upside down in the spring form on a wire rack. This will prevent the deflation of the cake.

When cooled completely, place the cake on a sturdy work surface. Using a long serrated knife and using sawing motion, cut the layer horizontally to make 2 or 3 layers. Don't worry if the layers are not perfectly even. The filling and frosting will mask that. 

Use this sponge cake for the traditional danish birthday cake or for any cake or trifle.

Enjoy!