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
Find it online: https://honestcooking.com/danish-kammerjunker-cookies/
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Frequently Asked Questions
What does “twice-baked” mean for these cookies, and why is the second bake at such a low temperature?
The kammerjunkers are first baked at 350°F for 10 minutes, then cut in half while still warm and returned to the oven at 200°F cut-side down for 45 minutes. The low second bake gently dries them out — like the technique used for biscotti — rather than baking them further. The article notes they don’t get as hard as biscotti; they retain a scone-like quality. 
When should I cut the cookies in half after the first bake?
The instructions say to cut the kammerjunkers in half while they are still warm from the first bake, but to wait until you can handle them without them falling apart. Cutting too soon means the pieces crumble; too late and they harden before cutting cleanly.
What is the coconut milk ganache for and how thick should it be?
The ganache is made by pouring 1 cup of very hot coconut milk over 1/2 cup of semisweet chocolate chips with a pinch of salt, then stirring until glossy. The recipe says you can use it immediately as a pourable sauce or refrigerate it for a truffle-like consistency to spread on the kammerjunkers.
