Danish baking re-uses a lot of the same components for pastry making, fine patisserie and general cakes. Here we have added a few of the main go-to recipes for:
- Pastry cream / custard
- Marzipan, homemade
- Remonce filling
If you find this post but not what you were looking for, let us know – we will continue to add to this. Email iloveherring@scandikitchen.co.uk
You may also find additional recipes in Bronte’s books – Fika & Hygge is a great one for go-to baking, as is her new Christmas Book (out in Oct 2018).
Pastry Cream (Kagecreme/marsan)
Making your own pastry cream is easy. Use it for anything from filing for cakes to baked in pastries. Use leftover pastry cream heated on top of cakes and crumbles, too.
The difference between custard and pastry cream is the amount of starch used (pastry cream is quite a lot thicker). Also, custard if often served runnier and warm, where as pastry cream is usually cold (but can be both). You can thin out pastry cream and heat if you want to use it on crumbles and other desserts.
Ingredients
500 ml whole milk
1 vanilla pod/bean, seeds scraped out
1 whole egg plus 1 egg yolk
100 g caster sugar
30 g cornflour
a pinch of salt
25 g butter
MAKES APROX 600g
In a saucepan, heat the milk with the scraped out seeds from the vanilla pod/bean. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar and add the cornflour. Whisk until well combined.
When the milk has just reached boiling point, take off the heat and pour one third into the egg mixture, whisking continuously. Once whisked through, pour the egg mixture back into the remaining hot milk. Return to the stove and bring to the boiling point, carefully. Whisk continuously as the mixture thickens, for just under a minute (this will remove the corn flour taste as well as thicken it), then remove from the heat and stir in the salt and butter.
Pour into a cold bowl and place a sheet of baking parchment on top to prevent the cream from forming a crust as it cools. Refrigerate before using. The mixture will keep well in the refrigerator for a few days.
Make your own 50% marzipan for baking
It’s super easy to make marzipan at home. This recipe works well for baking – it does contain raw egg white.
In a food processor, add 200g ground almonds and grind again until very fine (store bought is usually not that fine, so give it a bit more). Add 100g icing sugar and 100g caster sugar and a tsp of almond extract – and 30g egg white (1 medium egg). Blitz again until a paste forms. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate minimum 1 hour before using.
Remonce Almond Paste
This filling is often used in pastries and cakes in Denmark. Also known as Lord Mayor’s Filling (Borgmester blanding), on account that it is used in a famous version of Kringle called Borgmesterkringle.
In a food processor add:
100g marzipan – minimum 50% almond.
100g butter, slightly softened
100g icing sugar
a bit of vanilla sugar or extract (few drops)
Grate the marzipan and add to the food processor, mix in the rest. Mix well. Filling is ready to use.
Makes approx. 300g.
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