Most of my knowledge of Nordic cuisine comes from PBS, specifically the program New Scandinavian Cooking on their ‘Create’ station (which I miss dearly, Comcast) With their infectiously happy and gregarious hosts, cooking outdoors in beautiful, if not blustery surroundings, the inherent magic of the North is hard to deny. I was tasked to immerse myself into, specifically, the Danish food culture. What I found was that inherently, Danish food does not really cater to vegetarians or vegans. While more restaurants are popping up in Denmark, offering options in the form of innovative tacos and curries; Danish vegetarian (vegetar) cuisine seems at its roots, a bit Spartan. What I can always rely on, however, are baked goods; as this blog dicatates quite clearly, I eat them for morgenmad (breakfast), frokost (lunch), and middag (dinner).
From rich cakes like Othellolagkage (Literally Othello cake with layers of macaroon, marzipan, and ganache), to the tantalizing donut-like æbleskiver, to holiday pebernødder, I am definitely at home with Danish sweets. When I came across kammerjunkers, I felt a kindred spirit. The kammerjunker, and yes I’m going to say it like it’s today’s magic word, is a biscuit like cookie that is twice baked. Ring any bells to you? Kammerjunker may very well be the Danes answer to biscotti, bringing them even closer to my Italian heart. Typically, kammerjunker are found in a dish called koldskål (containing milk, buttermilk, and yogurt) for breakfast. While anything in a bowl and covered in milk is defined as breakfast, I chose a different route with my abundance of peaches, and made a jam to match.
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Danish Kammerjunker Cookies
- Total Time: 1 hour 25 mins
- Yield: 24 cookies 1x
Description
Kammerjunker are twice-baked biscuit-like cookies that are often served with milk and yogurt for breakfast but here are topped with jam or ganache for an extra-sweet treat.
Ingredients
Kammerjunker
- 2 1/2 cups (600 ml) Flour
- 1 Tblsp Baking powder
- 3/4 tsp Ground cardemom
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 1/2 cup (120 ml) Sugar
- 7 Tblsp (105 ml) Earth Balance (cold and cut into chunks)
- 1/3 cup (80 ml) Coconut milk
- 2 tsp Vanilla paste (or extract)
Farmer's Market Peach Jam
- 3 Peaches, peeled and diced
- 1/4 inch of fresh ginger, grated, or 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- Pinch of salt
- 1/2 cup (120 ml) Brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (120 ml) Strong brewed Earl Grey tea
Ganache
- 1/2 cup (120 ml) Semisweet chocolate chips
- 1 cup (240 ml) Coconut milk (hot)
- Pinch of salt
Instructions
Kammerjunker
- Preheat your oven to 350° F.
- This is not your standard pastry method, or even creaming method. Dump the flour, baking powder, cardemom, sugar, and salt into a large mixing bowl, and mix to incorporate everything.
- To this, add your earth balance and work into the dough, until you get a pebbly consistency.
- Once you’re there add your coconut milk and vanilla to form a somewhat sticky dough.
- Form into ping-pong sized balls on a lined baking sheet. If you want a softer end product, make them more toward the golf ball side of the spectrum, as such.
- Bake these for 10 minutes, then remove and set aside. You now want to cut the kammerjunkers in half while they’re still warm. Wait until you can handle them without them falling apart, or you’ll be forced to eat the evidence. By no means do you have to explain an uneven number of tops to bottoms.
- Lower the oven to 200° F and continue to cook the kammerjunkers, cut side down, for 45 minutes to dry them out further.
- The cookies do not get as hard as biscotti per se, and have almost a scone-like quality to them.
Peach Jam
- Combine all the ingredients in a sauce pan and heat on medium. When the sugar begins to melt, keep your eye on it! This sucker likes to froth like nobody’s business.
- Let this reduce until you get the consistency you want. I let mine go on medium low heat, with monitoring and stirring, while the kammerjunk baked.
Ganache
- Place the chocolate chips and salt in a heatproof bowl. Heat the coconut milk in the microwave, or on stove top if you feel fancy, until very hot and steamy. Pour the hot coconut milk over the chocolate, steep for a moment, then stir stir stir until it comes together in glossy goodness. You can use it as is, or refrigerate for a truffle-like consistency on your kammerjunkers.
- Prep Time: 30 mins
- Cook Time: 55 mins
- Category: Baking
- Cuisine: Danish
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 110
Frequently Asked Questions
What does twice-baked mean here and why is the second bake at only 200 F?
First bake: 350 F for 10 minutes to set the cookies into ping-pong-sized rounds. Second bake: 200 F for 45 minutes cut-side down to slowly dry them out. The low temperature is the whole point. You are not baking them more, you are dehydrating them. Think of it like biscotti, but the finished texture stays closer to a scone than a hard biscuit. 
When exactly should I cut them in half after the first bake?
Wait until you can handle them without them falling apart, but cut while they are still warm. Too soon and the pieces crumble. Too late and they harden before you can get a clean cut. If you end up with an uneven number of tops and bottoms, just eat the evidence.
Why use Earth Balance and coconut milk instead of butter and regular milk?
This is a vegan recipe. Earth Balance, cold and cut into chunks, gets worked into the dry ingredients until pebbly, then the coconut milk and vanilla paste go in to form the dough. The coconut milk also faintly echoes the coconut in the ganache.
How thick should the ganache be and when should I add it?
Pour 1 cup of very hot coconut milk over half a cup of semisweet chocolate chips and a pinch of salt. Steep for a moment then stir until glossy. Use it immediately as a pourable sauce or refrigerate it for a truffle-like consistency that you can spread. Both work.
