Danish Christmas Delight: Peppercorn Cookies, St. Thomas Cake, Marzipan, and Chocolate Truffles
The requests start coming in at the beginning of November. “I sampled your peppercorn cookies last year at a reception. Could I get the recipe?” Or. “Do you still make those almond paste confections?” It’s rewarding to know that some of my favourite Danish Christmas delights have become part of the Cape Breton holiday table.
Sometimes it can be difficult to find an appropriate translation for some of these holiday delights. For example, one of my favourite Christmas pastries translates to “apple slices” in English. The problem is that they are no longer made with apples. Centuries ago, the Danes developed a cast iron frying pan specifically for making apple slice pastries. The frying pan looks like a round muffin pan. It was placed over the open hearth and a scoop of batter was placed in each of the muffin moulds together with a slice of apple. Today, apple slices are baked without the apples, but served with homemade jam or sprinkled with icing sugar. If you can imagine the world’s most delicious puffed pastry, then you will love the recipe I’ve included.
Peppercorn cookies had their origins in Denmark and Germany as far back as the 1500s. They were made without any rising agent and quite hard to bite. Today, the recipe has been refined and both children and adults alike consume these small cookies by the handful. Like, chocolates, it is impossible to eat just one.
St. Thomas Cake is a regional delicacy in Denmark, mostly baked in western Denmark. It is time-consuming to prepare but one of its best attributes, other than its flavour, is that it can be stored in a cake tin in a cool cupboard for weeks!
Marzipan (the almond paste confections mentioned above) is soft almond paste dough. Outside of Northern Europe Marzipan is best known as a high-end confectionary, used to create perfect replicas of fruit that adorn elaborate cakes. Personally, I like to slice the roll of Marzipan into small cookie-sized servings and top it with a thin slice of nougat (which also comes in a roll or a square.) The result melts in the mouth.
The key to a mouth-watering chocolate truffle is the quality of the chocolate. If you still have any recipes hanging around that call for chocolate to be mixed with paraffin, throw them out and sample the recipe below.
Marzipan/Almond Paste
Ingredients:
1 lb. very fine ground blanched almonds
1 lb. icing sugar
12-20 drops of almond oil
Preparation:
Mix and kneed all ingredients very well. Transfer dough into a thick-bottomed pot and gently heat the dough over low heat for about half an hour. Let cool, transfer into an airtight container, and keep refrigerated.
Danish Apple-Marzipan Cake
Ingredients:
4 medium apples (Gravenstein)
1 vanilla bean
6 fl.oz. whole milk
4 medium eggs
1.75 oz. sugar
2 tbs. shredded marzipan
5.5 oz. all purpose flour
3.5 oz. butter
icing sugar for dusting
Preparation:
Cover bottom of a 9-inch pie pan with baking paper and grease bottom and sides well. Preheat the oven to 300F. Peel and core apples and cut in half-inch wedges. Keep the prepared apples in a solution of water and lemon juice, to avoid them turning brown. Whisk together the eggs, milk, sugar, flour, and the seeds from the vanilla bean. Melt the butter and whisk this into the dough. Pour one third of the dough into the pie pan and bake in the middle of the oven, just enough to let the dough settle, about ten minutes. Turn oven up to 350F. Arrange the apples like a fan and press gently into the bottom dough. Mix in the shredded marzipan with the rest of the dough and pour it over to cover the apples. Bake for another twenty minutes, until nice and golden brown on top. Turn off the oven, open the door and leave the cake for half an hour, then take it out and let stand at room temperature. Just before serving, dust the cake with icing sugar and quickly caramelize the sugar under a broiler, but be careful not to burn the cake.
Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipping cream.
Makes 6 servings
Peppernuts
Ingredients:
4 cups butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
7 fl.oz. whipping cream
1 tsp. cardamom
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. fine ground black pepper
3 tsp. powdered ginger
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda
5 cups flour
Preparation:
Beat butter with sugar until creamy. Add the rest of the ingredients and work the dough into a firm ball. Cut in quarters and roll into one inch ropes. Cut into half inch pieces, roll into small balls and place on a greased baking pan, while pressing gently on top of the peppernut ball. Don’t place them too close since they expand during baking. Bake for ten to fifteen minutes in a 350F oven. Transfer peppernuts to a rack and let cool completely before storing.
Chocolate Hazelnut Truffles
Ingredients:
200gr. 70% dark chocolate
4 tbs. unsalted butter
1 tsp. orange zest
1 tbs. Grand Marnier
4 tbs. fine ground hazelnut
coca powder
Preparation:
Gently melt butter and chocolate in a double broiler. Mix all other ingredients and let cool, but keep an eye that it doesn’t get hard. When cooled down enough to handle, take small a teaspoon, gently roll between your palms, and roll in the coco-powder. Transfer into the fridge and keep chilled at all time until serving time. You can also roll the truffles in the ground hazelnut instead of mixing the hazelnut into the truffle batter.
Makes 20 small truffles.
