Day 191 -- Random stuff in Denmark

As I kill time before I leave for the airport for Amsterdam I thought I would do a quick update on a few Danish things.


First off,  I have been trying out new Danish recipes.  These come to me from a facebook page I "like" that gives me a new Danish recipe each day in the month of June.  I am embarrassed to say I have only tried two recipes so far.

The first is for the hindbærsnitter, with hindbær meaning raspberry. I only had a little bit of raspberry jam on hand so mine became half of a hindbærsnitter and half of a jordbærsnitter (meaning strawberry).  I have seen this in every bakery near me and thought it looked like a giant poptart so I figured, I like pop-tarts, why not try it.

For proportion-sake this is about 8 in x 12 in

 The snitter consists of two pastries made with a LOT of powdered sugar.  After they are cooked, jam is spread over one of them and then the second is placed on top like a sandwich. The whole thing is covered with a powedered sugar icing (again, this is a LOT of powdered sugar) and then covered with sprinkles or non-pareils.  In my opinion they were a bit too sweet (I am not generally a fan of ultra sweet desserts), but they did get better with time.  Collin brought a bunch into work and was told they tasted very much like the real thing (which, sadly, I have never tried).   So I guess I was successful but don't know if I would make it again.

The second recipe I made is just called strawberry pie.  I like to call it DANISH strawberry pie since it is so much more than just a strawberry pie as I think of it.  This is made up of a crust which is basically a giant sugar cookie (i'm sensing a theme here, Danes like sweet desserts).  The uncooked crust is topped with kind of a cookie batter made up of butter, sugar and marzipan.  This whole thing is baked.  After it cools it is coated with a layer of melted dark chocolate.  Then it is supposed to be topped with some sort of custard involving ingredients I wasn't really sure about (sounded like just a box of custard mix maybe?) so instead I made my own vanilla custard and put that on top, followed by cut strawberries.  The main impetus for this pie is that June is strawberry season in Denmark, and Danish strawberries are absolutely delicious.  They tasted like you just picked them off a strawberry farm, dark red and juicy and just the right amount of sweetness.   I also made strawberry shortcake with them but as that was not a Danish recipe I don't have any pictures here.  This recipe I will probably try again...maybe baking the bottom just a tad bit longer though.

I am running out of time before I have to leave for the airport so I will leave Sankt Hans celebrations and high school graduations for next time.  But I will end with some pictures of my really stylish work-issued lab shoes.  Technically I am allowed to wear sandals in the lab but that goes against all my training so instead I requested these beauties for days I wear sandals to work.  they are actually very comfortable.