a little zaftig » Scandinavian Recipes

Lefse

Laura — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:29:26 +0000

It’s thirteen degrees here this morning. The young pines are bending under the weight of heavy, wet snow, threatening to break, and the tall shrubs are splayed out like snow-covered wreaths strewn along the pathway I’ve shoveled to the house. Annie, our little terrier, thinks the snow is a platform across the patio out back; it creaks underfoot until it gives way and she has to tentatively leap her way back to me, falling through the snow. I had my own challenges this morning. My Honey Girl can pull on a cold, wet bathing suit without cringing—not me. But somehow I don’t mind stepping barefoot every morning and evening into the pair of leather clogs I keep by the back door for chicken care. They’re often wet from rain or full of snow. But this morning they were soaked and beginning to freeze. I teetered out in my nightgown and old bathrobe, trying to get settled into them, thinking about socks and whether or not they were worth the trouble. And then, in slow motion, a pitcher full of fresh water in one hand, metal water fount in the other, I stepped onto ice in front of the hen house. Into the air went both legs, both arms, the metal fount, the pitcher, and into the air high above me, the water. Down onto the ice came my back and, onto the snow, my head. The metal fount and the water pitcher followed with a thud, and, like a punch line, the water, which soaked me. At six o’clock on a cold morning, that is a jolt to the bones. I lay there surprised for a moment, and then laughing, as the hens rushed back and forth like a school of fish and Annie harrumphed through the snow to help. I love winter, but mornings like this, I think about California now and then, people eating al fresco with the golden sun beating down on their faces. It seems so civilized and so easy. After a hot bath to warm up and some clean, dry clothes, I joined my Sweet Boy in the kitchen and found him making lefse. California? Watching your 17-year old son making Norwegian lefse on a cold day and eating it together, the last tender pieces fresh from the griddle smeared with good butter and sprinkled with a little sugar, isn’t part of that picture. I’ll stay right here.

Lefse Tips:

Lefse is Norwegian potato flat bread and is made using a few specialized tools. Lacking them, you may make a few substitutions. A potato masher may be used in place of a ricer. If you don’t have a corrugated rolling pin, sprinkle your conventional rolling pin with flour frequently and use a light touch when rolling. If you don’t have a lefse stick, you may use a thin, long spatula. Any smooth griddle will work well in lieu of a lefse griddle; electric griddles which allow you to set and maintain a specific temperature are most convenient.

Use only russet potatoes, also known as baking potatoes. You’re looking for the ones with a dry, dusty brown skin. Using waxy potatoes, such as Yukon gold or red potatoes, adds too much moisture to the dough.

Do not overcook your potatoes. You want them tender, but not waterlogged or mushy.

Do not skip drying the potatoes overnight. It reduces moisture content, which affects the dough.

Be sure your butter is fully melted and cooled a bit before it’s mixed thoroughly into the dough. Little bits of unmixed butter will bubble up through the lefse as it cooks.

The dough will seem dry as it comes together. Don’t fret. It will come together nicely when squeezed in your hand.

The moisture level of potatoes will affect your lefse dough. You may adjust and add a bit more flour or a bit more cream if the dough is too dry or too wet. If it rolls together smoothly in the palms of your hands without feeling sticky, you’re fine. Think of this as a gosh-and-by-golly recipe and relax.

I use a little crimping technique which helps to keep the dough round as you roll. Roll the dough into a ball in the palms of your hand. Then flatten it a bit, patting it into a disc. Place the disc on a countertop and pinch the edges together as you rotate the disc. When you’re finished it will look like a little saucer with slightly upturned edges.

Don’t be shy with the flour when you roll lefse. Your surface and rolling pin should be dusted liberally. Redust your surfaces frequently.

If the lefse sticks, slide your lefse stick under it ever so gently and work to free it. I find that sliding the lefse stick under the dough repeatedly is better than trying to move it side to side.

Roll from the center of the dough, turning it frequently. Use your lefse stick to flip it frequently as you roll.

To turn lefse using a lefse stick, slide it under the dough, lift it quickly and confidently with a swift motion, and flip it over. Leave the stick under the dough, rolling it repeatedly in one direction until the lefse unfurls and the stick is freed.

A hot, clean griddle will create the classic deep brown spots you’re looking for. I set mine on 500 degrees F.

Lefse
Yield: about 30 modest servings

Ingredients:
4 ½ pounds russet potatoes
1/3 c. heavy cream or half and half
½ c. unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 t. salt
3 c. all purpose flour (I prefer King Arthur.)

Method: (The lefse tips above are more detailed.)

Peel the potatoes, cut them in half or in thirds, and place them in a large pot of cold water.

Cover the pot and bring the water to a boil over high heat. Remove the lid and adjust your heat to maintain an even high simmer. Boil the potatoes until they are tender and yield easily when pierced with a fork, about 25 minutes.

Drain the potatoes in a colander and, when they are cool, rice them using a potato ricer.

Cover the potatoes lightly and keep them in the refrigerator overnight.

Add the cream or half and half and the butter and stir to mix well.

Scatter the salt and flour across the potatoes and mix until just incorporated. Do not overmix. The dough will come together when you squeeze it in the palm of your hand.

Heat a lefse griddle to 500 degrees F.

Take an egg-sized ball of dough and roll it in the palms of your hands until it is smooth and uniform. Pat the ball into a disc and crimp the edges, if you wish.

Using a corregated rolling pin, roll the dough on a countertop liberally dusted with flour, turning it frequently with a lefse stick, until it is so thin that you can see the countertop through it.

Using a lefse stick, transfer the dough to the griddle and fry it until deep brown spots appear across its surface.

Flip the lefse and fry the other side.

Transfer each piece to a plate lined with paper or cloth towels and allow the lefse to cool.

To serve, smear the lefse with softened good butter and sprinkle it with sugar, white or brown. Roll up each piece, and cut it in half.

Lefse may be folded into quarters, wrapped in cellophane, and stored in the refrigerator for a few days. It may also be frozen.

Danish Hazelnut Snails (Snegler)

Sophia — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 12:52:43 +0000

A Guest Post by my Honey Girl

Every Saturday morning during high school I would wake up early to bake. I particularly liked recipes that called for the butter to be cut into the dough by hand. I loved the rhythm of the integration and the feeling of pinching those cold knobs of butter into the yeasty dough or soft flour mixture. I would stand at the counter, my hands caked with sticky dough, usually my toes squidging together flour dust and salt– I’d always been a messy baker–and I remember feeling calm. When my hands were kneading in that bowl I felt truly relaxed, a nice respite from my academic anxiety. Eventually my parents would wander out into the kitchen, my dad usually bracing for the inevitable mess, and we would drink cups of coffee or tea while I tidied and my buttery breakfast good baked. One of my favorites to make and to eat was and is Danish hazelnut snails. Made with Danish dough with a sweet folded-in filling, the snails, speckled with hazelnuts, unfurl in the oven revealing their cinnamon innards.

Danish Hazelnut Snails (Snegler)
Adapted from Beatrice Ojakangas’ The Great Scandinavian Baking Book
Yield: 24 muffin-sized pastries

Ingredients:
1 recipe quick method Danish pastry (recipe below)
½ c. softened butter
1 c. light or dark brown sugar, packed
1 c. finely chopped hazelnuts
1 t. cinnamon
1 slightly beaten egg

Method:

Place paper cupcake liners in 24 muffin cups.

Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to make a 20-inch square. Spread with the butter. Sprinkle with the brown sugar, hazelnuts, and cinnamon.

Roll up jellyroll fashion. Cut into 24 slices. Place slices with cut side up into each of the muffin cups.

Let rise in a cool place for 30 to 45 minutes, or cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Brush pastries with beaten egg. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until puffed and golden. Serve warm.

Danish Pastry Tips
We use cream and omit the cardamom seed, mix by hand, and don’t bother with bringing the eggs for the pastry to room temperature or with brushing the finished pastries with egg.

No need to bother with a thermometer for the water. It should feel lukewarm and just above body temperature.

It’s convenient to make the pastry dough the night before you make the snails. Then all you have to do is shape them and bake them the next morning. We chill for the minimum 30 minutes during the rolling and folding of the pastry the next morning and let them rise the minimum 30 minutes.

Quick Method Danish Pastry

Ingredients:
3¾ c. all purpose flour
1½ c. chilled unsalted butter
2 packages active dry yeast
½ c. warm water, 105 to 115 degrees
½ c. heavy cream or undiluted evaporated milk
½ t. freshly crushed cardamom seed (optional)
½ t. salt
2 eggs at room temperature
¼ c. sugar

Method:

Measure 3½ c. flour into a bowl, or into the work bowl of the food processor with the steel blade in place. Cut the butter into ¼-inch slices and add to the flour. Process or cut the butter into the flour until the butter is about the size of kidney beans.

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Let stand five minutes. Stir in the cream or milk, cardamom, salt, eggs, and sugar.

Turn the flour-butter mixture into the liquid ingredients, and with a rubber spatula, mix carefully just until the dry ingredients are moistened. Cover and refrigerate four hours, overnight, or up to four days.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured board; dust with flour.

Pound and flatten to make a 16- to 20-inch square. Fold into thirds making three layers. Turn dough around and roll out again. Fold from the short sides into thirds. This should result in a perfect square. Repeat folding and rolling again if you wish. Wrap and chill the dough 30 minutes or as long as overnight.

Swedish Rice Pudding with Spiced Sour Cherry Compote

Laura — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 23:48:29 +0000

In the Scandinavian countries, it’s traditional to place a single whole almond in the rice pudding served at Christmastime. Whoever finds it receives good luck for the year and a marzipan pig, a yuletide symbol of this good fortune. We usually make this rice pudding for Christmas, but seeing as we’ll be eating it on New Year’s Eve this year, it seems fitting to present the pig as a hogmanay.

Swedish rice pudding differs from other rice puddings in its heightened creaminess and richness. I cook two eggs with additional sugar into the pudding and fold two cups of whipped heavy cream into the chilled rice pudding. It’s pretty heavenly, with or without the sour cherry compote.

This recipe is part of a winter menu (here).

Swedish Rice Pudding with Spiced Sour Cherry Compote

Pudding Tips

I use short grain rice, such as sushi rice or Arborio rice, in my rice pudding. It’s not traditional, but it makes the pudding extra creamy. If you use sushi rice, give it a few rinses in cool water before cooking it.

Tempering means adding a little of a hot liquid to a cooler liquid to before adding the cooler liquid to the rest of the hot liquid. In this case you stir a little of the hot milk and rice into the eggs before adding them to the pudding. If you don’t temper the eggs in this way, you risk forming scrambled eggs in your pudding.

Bear in mind that the pudding will be significantly thicker when it is cold. You only need to cook it until it thickens slightly in the final stage.

The rice pudding and compote will keep covered in the refrigerator for about one week.

Swedish Rice Pudding

Ingredients:
¾ c. short grain rice
1 ½ c. water
pinch of salt
4 c. whole milk
1 c. sugar, divided
1 t. vanilla
2 eggs
2 c. heavy cream (I love Cedar Summit Farms.)
cinnamon for dusting the top
1 whole almond to hide in the pudding

Method:

In a very large pan, bring the water to a boil over high heat.

Reduce the heat to low and stir in the rice.

Cover the pan and simmer undisturbed for 15 minutes, or until the rice has absorbed all of the water.

Add the milk, ½ c. sugar, and the vanilla to the pan and stir them together.

Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove the vanilla bean.

Whisk together the eggs and the remaining ½ c. sugar.

Temper the eggs by stirring a little of the rice and milk into the eggs and sugar. Then whisk the eggs gradually into pan.

Cook on the lowest possible heat, stirring constantly, for a few minutes, or until the mixture thickens. Do not allow the mixture to begin to boil.

Transfer the pudding to a large bowl and cover it with cellophane pressed directly to it. Chill it in the refrigerator.

When the pudding is cold, whip the cream and fold it gently into the pudding.

Transfer the pudding to a serving dish, press a single almond into the pudding, and dust the top with cinnamon if you wish.

Serve plain or with the spiced sour cherry compote.

Spiced Sour Cherry Compote

Ingredients:
20 ounces frozen sour cherries
good red wine to nearly cover
a few glugs of good port
½ c. sugar
pinch of salt
1 vanilla bean
2 sticks of cinnamon
1 star anise
small handful of allspice berries
piece of a whole nutmeg
small handful of red peppercorns
1 T. cornstarch

Method:

Put the cherries into a medium pan. Pour in good red wine ‘til it reaches the bottom of the top layer of cherries.

Pour in a few glugs of good port until the liquid nearly covers the cherries.

Stir in the sugar and salt.

Place the cinnamon sticks, star anise, allspice berries, nutmeg, and red peppercorns on a piece of cheesecloth or a coffee filter. Tie it into a bundle with cooking string and place it in the pan.

Split the vanilla bean down the middle lengthwise and add it to the pan.

Bring the liquid to a simmer over medium heat.

Stir a little water into the cornstarch to make a smooth paste.

Stir it into the pan and simmer for a minute.

If it is not sufficiently thick, make a little more cornstarch paste and add it slowly to the pan.

Remove the spice pouch and vanilla bean from the compote and serve warm.

You may refrigerate the compote if you are going to serve it later.
Warm it over the lowest heat possible and serve it warm.

Winter Supper: Swedish Meatballs, Rot Kraut, Creamy Mashed Potatoes, Fennel and Green Apple Salad with Juniper Berries, & Swedish Rice Pudding with Spiced Sour Cherry Compote

Laura — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 03:56:36 +0000

After two months spent preparing for Christmas, when it’s over the mood in our house is usually a little tired. A long, gray winter lies ahead of us and the magic of Christmas is past. It’s nice, then, to continue the festivities for a few days by making a meal or two like this one. It’s simple, and many of its elements may be prepared ahead, so it isn’t a great deal of work. And it seems to lift everyone’s spirits. Today it is raining of all things! Soon the temperature will fall again and everything will be a sheet of ice. Then another six inches of fresh snow will blanket us, and the temperature will dip to single digits. It’s nice to be gathered around the table with nice food, warm company, and nowhere we need to go.

In the Midwest, recipes for these dishes abound. These are my versions. Tinker happily with them as you wish. There are tips for making the recipes in concert at the end of the post.

Winter Supper: Swedish Meatballs, Rot Kraut, Creamy Mashed Potatoes, Fennel and Green Apple Salad with Juniper Berries, & Swedish Rice Pudding with Spiced Sour Cherry Compote

Dinner Tips
The Swedish meatballs and gravy freeze well. Make them up to a month ahead, thaw them in the refrigerator, and warm them gently on the lowest heat possible, stirring frequently.

When you make the gravy, add the liquids very gradually and stir vigorously to avoid lumps. If you do get lumps, strain the gravy before you add the meatballs.

You may cook the potatoes and hold them in the hot water until you are nearly ready to serve dinner. Then drain them and mash them.

The salad is simple and very quick to assemble. You may make it at the last minute just before you are ready to serve dinner. A benriner is an inexpensive Japanese mandoline. Coincidentally, “Benri ne?” means “Isn’t it convenient?” in Japanese. If you don’t have a benriner or a mandoline, you may slice the fennel and apples with a knife. Just plan more time to do so.

The Rot Kraut may be made up to a week ahead and kept in the refrigerator. In fact, its flavor improves a bit over a couple of days.

The Swedish rice pudding and compote may also be made a few days ahead and kept in the refrigerator.

Swedish Meatballs

Ingredients:
2 pounds ground pork
2 pounds ground beef (80% lean)
12 slices white bread
6 eggs
salt and pepper
1 scant c. whole milk
pinch or two of allspice
pinch or two of ground ginger
pinch or two of freshly grated nutmeg
pinch or two of freshly ground cardamom
butter for frying the meatballs

Method:

In a large bowl, mix together all of the ingredients until they are just blended.

Roll the meat into balls the size of a pingpong ball.

Heat a very large skillet over medium heat. When it is hot, melt a good knob of butter and fry the meatballs until they are golden brown on all sides. Alternatively, preheat your oven to 350 degrees and bake the meatballs in a glass or ceramic dish for 45 minutes. Frying produces better flavor, but is more labor intensive.

While the meatballs cook, make the gravy.

Place the cooked meatballs into the gravy and simmer for 30 minutes.

Gravy for the Swedish Meatballs

Ingredients:
8 T. (1 stick) unsalted butter
8 T. all purpose flour
1 heaping T. grainy mustard
8 c. beef stock (preferably homemade)
4 c. whole milk, divided
½ c. flour

Method:

In a large Dutch oven over medium heat, melt the butter.

Stir in the 8 T. of flour and cook for a minute or two.

Stir in the mustard.

Very gradually add the broth, stirring constantly.

Shake one cup of the milk with ½ c. flour until you have a smooth paste. Stir it into the gravy.

Add the remaining 3 c. milk and stir.

Simmer until thickened, stirring contantly.

Add the meatballs and simmer for 30 minutes.

Rot Kraut

Ingredients:
1 head red cabbage, sliced on a benriner or mandoline into paper thin slices
3 slices bacon, diced
1 large onion, sliced thinly
½ c. natural apple juice
½ c. red wine vinegar
3 T. brown sugar
½ c. red wine (not cooking wine)

Method:

In a very large pan, sauté the bacon until it is crisp.

Add the onions and sauté them until they are soft.

Add the cabbage and all of the other ingredients and stir it all together.

Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Lower the heat to lowest possible, cover the pan, and cook for about 30 minutes, stirring often, until the cabbage is soft and fragrant.

Creamy Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients:
5 pounds Yukon gold or waxy potatoes
6 T. unsalted butter
2 c. heavy cream (I love Cedar Summit Farms.)
salt and pepper

Method:

Peel the potatoes and place them in water to cover in a large pan.

Bring the water to a boil over high heat and reduce it to a simmer.

Simmer the potatoes for 20 minutes, or until they are very tender when pierced with a fork.

Drain the potatoes in a colander.

Place the butter and cream in the pan and warm them.

Add the potatoes and mash them with a potato masher until they are very smooth and creamy.

Season them with salt and pepper to taste.

Fennel and Green Apple Salad with Juniper Berries

Ingredients:
2 bulbs fresh fennel
2 tart green apples
a small handful of juniper berries, crushed with a sharp knife
a drizzle of olive oil
2 T. white vinegar
salt and pepper

Method:

Using a benriner or mandoline, slice the fennel and apples into paper thin slices.

Scatter the juniper berries over the top.

Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Drizzle with olive oil and vinegar and toss.

Swedish Rice Pudding and Spiced Sour Cherry Compote

Recipes here.

Recipes In Concert

1. Make the rice pudding and refrigerate it.

2. Make the Rot Kraut.

3. Add the whipped cream to the rice pudding and refrigerate it.

4. Make the meatballs.

5. Make the gravy while the meatballs fry or bake.

6. Make the compote.

7. Boil the potatoes.

8. Set the table.

9. Make the salad.

10. Mash the potatoes.

11. Serve the meal.

Vanilla Cheesecake with Fresh Lingonberries and Cardamom Whipped Cream

Laura — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:33:14 +0000

Our Honey Girl’s Mr. Right’s parents (Are you still with me?) visited us this past weekend from Alabama. It was Mr. Right’s dad’s birthday, and I had it on good authority that a cheesecake would be something that would make the birthday boy happy. Since they were visiting from the South, I thought it would be nice to put a Minnesota Scandinavian twist on my favorite cheesecake recipe. So I bought some fresh lingonberries to scatter on top, a bracingly tart pop of flavor when they burst in your mouth against the creamy vanilla cheesecake, and added a flourish of whipped cream laced with freshly ground cardamom seeds. I served the cake with the lingonberries in a sugar syrup the first day, and with plain lingonberries after that. It is delicious both ways. The berries’ assertive tartness is softened by a little time in the company of some sugar, and the sugar makes a nice sauce mingled with the juice, but they are also a bright contrast and quite nice plain. This is a crustless cheesecake and gluten free, but you won’t miss the crust. In fact, after making it for the first time 19 years ago when my Honey Girl was baptized, I found the crust on other cheesecakes a distraction from its creamy perfectness. Instead, the top of the cake browns as it bakes, and when you invert it, it becomes a base with a hint of caramel under all that creamy vanilla yummy-ness. This cake can be made up to four days ahead. It’s light and creamy on the first day, and it gets a little more dense each day. My favorite day to eat it is day four, but it’s pretty tough to wait.

If you cannot find fresh lingonberries, pomegranate seeds would make a fine substitute. If prying them out seems like too much labor, sometimes you can even find them already harvested from their ruby orbs. Check the pre-cut produce section. Or serve it plain. It’s delicious without anything extra, too.

Cheesecake Tips
To measure the cornstarch, fill a half cup measure with cornstarch. Then remove one tablespoon.

Scrape down your mixing bowl frequently as you work. If there is cheese and butter at the bottom and on the sides that doesn’t get incorporated thoroughly, you will have an extra-cheesy bite or two in each piece rather than an evenly creamy cake.

When I went to bake this cake deep into the night and long after groceries stores had shut off their lights, I found all of the lemons had disappeared from my kitchen. I substituted some key lime juice I found leftover from summer drink-making and it was just fine. Any acidic citrus juice will serve the purpose the lemon juice, so feel free to substitute.

A bain marie is a pan of hot water. To make one, find a pan one size larger than the 9×13 pan you’re using for the cake. Fill the pan that will serve as your bain marie about 1/3 of the way. It is important that the water be boiling. When your cake is ready to go into the oven, lower it ever so slowly and evenly into the pan of boiling water. The water should come up the sides of the cheesecake pan about half way. Add a bit more water or scoop out a little as needed. The bain marie provides moisture in the oven as the cheesecake bakes and makes for a very creamy cake.

I don’t have a serving tray large enough for this cake, so I made a cake board by cutting a piece of plywood, wrapping it in tin foil, and covering it with clear contact paper. It sounds tacky, but it looks quite professional.

Center the cake before you turn it out onto a tray or board. To do this, use your hands as a guide. The cake should be equidistant from all sides.

Once you have transferred the cake to a tray or board, do not try to shift the cake. It will not move well. If it’s a little off center, pipe a little whipped cream on and around it in a decorative pattern and make it even by creating a false border. It it’s really off center, serve it from the kitchen rather than presenting the whole cake.

It the cake looks a bit wonky, smooth the edges and the top with a knife. It’s very malleable and agreeable to work with.

Cardamom seeds must be removed from their pale green pods. Simply pry them open. The seeds may be ground with a mortar and pestle or in a dedicated coffee grinder.

Pay attention while your cream is whipping and stop when it is still soft.

Vanilla Cheesecake with Fresh Lingonberries and Cardamom Whipped Cream
Yield: one 9×13 cheesecake

Ingredients:
2 pounds cream cheese at room temperature
½ c. unsalted butter at room temperature
1 T. vanilla extract or the seeds and pulp scraped out of one vanilla bean
1 ½ c. sugar
½ c. less 1 T. cornstarch
7 large eggs
2 c. heavy cream
¼ c. lemon juice
…
1 c. fresh lingonberries
1/4 c. sugar
…
2 c. heavy cream
¼ c. sugar
1 T. vanilla extract
1 T. freshly ground cardamom seeds

Method:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and place the rack to the upper 1/3 position.

Butter a 9×13 pan.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the cream cheese and butter until they are smooth and creamy.

Add the vanilla, sugar, and cornstarch and beat well.

Add the eggs one at a time and beat well between additions. Scrape down the mixture frequently with a spatula.

On low speed, gradually add the cream and then the lemon juice.

Pour into your pan, place it into a ban marie (see tips above), and bake it for 30 minutes.

Increase the oven temperature to 375 degrees and rotate the cheesecake 180 degrees in the oven. Bake for 15 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.

Allow the cheesecake to cool to room temperature.

Run a knife carefully around the edge of the pan, place a serving tray or serving board on top of the cake pan, line it up so that it is in the center of the tray or board, and invert both simultaneously. The cake will thud out of its pan and onto the tray or board.

Wrap it in cellophane and store it in the refrigerator until you wish you serve it. It will keep for about five days.

To prepare the lingonberries, simply sprinkle them with the sugar, give them a gentle stir until the sugar is dissolved, and allow them to rest for about 30 minutes. Or serve them plain.

Whip the cream with the sugar, vanilla, and cardamom seeds in the bowl of an electric mixer with a wire whisk attachment.

Spoon some berries onto each piece of cake and pipe or spoon some whipped cream on top.

Almond Danish Kugelhopf

Laura — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 13:56:38 +0000

Making puff pastry is no picnic. The butter has to be the same temperature as the dough. You have to be pretty stellar with a rolling pin. And, at least for me until I’m more practiced, it’s not always a pretty picture. This recipe uses a fake-out puff pastry, which you make by leaving bean-sized butter pieces in the dough rather than a block of butter. You do a couple of turns—rolling and folding the dough—but they can be done in quick succession without resting. And the results are marvelous. You can make individual pastries or a beautiful braid with this recipe, but rolling up the dough and slicing it into rounds which nestle in a kugelhopf pan transforms the pastry. This is so much soft Danish pastry, layered with almond paste filling, crispy at the edges, chewy where the almond paste has oozed out and caramelized, and incredibly buttery. You whip up the dough in five minutes before you scurry off to bed. Then it takes a few minutes of rolling and folding in the morning. It rises while you have a little coffee and then bakes for 45 minutes. Just make it.

A kugelhopf pan is a fancy shape usually reserved for Alsatian kugelhopf, a cakey, brioche-like bread. If you don’t have one, any tube pan or bundt pan will work just fine, too. Since I have my grandma’s kugelhopf pan, I like to put it to good use, and the shape is quite pretty.

Danish Pastry Tips
Cardamom seeds must be removed from their pale green pods. Simply pry them open and then use a mortar and pestle or a dedicated coffee grinder to crush the little seeds.

The water you add to the yeast should feel barely luke warm, just above body temperature. If it’s too hot you will kill the yeast.

When this dough comes out of the refrigerator, don’t panic. It’s okay that it’s kind of a misshapen rock. Give it a few good bashes with your rolling pin on a well-floured surface until it begins to yield. Then begin rolling. It will become more supple as you work it. Keep moving the dough and adding a bit of flour to your work surface as necessary, and use a bench scraper or run a knife under it if it begins to stick.

To cut the dough into eight equal parts, begin by cutting it in half. Then cut each half in half, and each piece in half again.

Find a toasty warm spot in your home for the pastry to rise. I balance mine on a bin of mittens and hats on the top shelf of a closet where there is a heating duct.

Almond Danish Kugelhopf
Adapted from Beatrice Ojakangas’ The Great Scandinavian Baking Book
Yield: one pastry crown in eight parts

Ingredients:
1 ¼ c. chilled unsalted butter cut into ¼ “ slices
3 c. all purpose flour (I prefer King Arthur.)
2 packages active dry yeast
¼ c. warm water, 105 to 115 degrees
½ c. milk at room temperature
½ t. freshly crushed cardamom seeds
2 eggs at room temperature
1 t. salt
¼ c. sugar
…
½ c. sugar
½ c. unsalted butter at room temperature
½ c. almond paste
1 t. almond extract
½ c. sliced almonds (optional)
confectioners’ sugar for dusting the top (optional)

Method:

Place the butter slices and the flour in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until the butter is the size of small beans. If you don’t have a food processor, cut in the butter using a pastry cutter or two knives, or by pinching it together with your fingers.

Turn the mixture into a large bowl and chill it while you proceed.

Measure the yeast into a medium bowl and add the water. Allow it to rest for five minutes, or until it is foamy.

Add the milk, cardamom, eggs, salt, and sugar and mix well.

Pour the liquid over the flour and butter and fold together carefully just until the flour is moistened throughout.

Cover and refrigerate four hours or overnight.

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and dust it lightly with flour. Pound it and then roll it out to a 20” square. Fold the square into thirds, so that it is shaped like an envelope.

Turn the dough so that the short end faces you. Roll it out a bit longer and fold it into a square. Allow the dough to rest while you make the filling.

To make the filling, in the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the almond paste, butter, sugar, and almond extract and mix until smooth.

Roll the square of pastry into a rectangle 11” by 14” and smear it with the almond filling almost to the edges.

Roll up the dough so that you have a long roll and slice the roll into eight equal parts.

Butter a kugelhopf or other tube or bundt pan well with butter, sprinkle in the sliced almonds if you are using them, and nestle the pastry slices into the pan

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Place the pan in a warm spot to rise until it is doubled, about one hour.

Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown.

Tip the pastry onto a serving platter while it is still hot.

Dust it with confectioners’ sugar if you wish and serve it while it is warm.