Darina Allen: My foodie trip to Copenhagen — and the summer strawberry cake that has everything
I have just returned from a few action-packed days in Copenhagen, and it’s still a super exciting food town. I’d been invited to join a friend’s table at NOMA, René Redzepi’s internationally acclaimed restaurant, which has been named the best restaurant in the world for three years in a row in the World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards.
Having achieved all possible accolades, René has decided to follow in the footsteps of Ferran Adrià of El Bulli in Spain so this will be the last season of NOMA. He’s working on a new project yet to be revealed. The whole NOMA experience is unforgettable from the moment you arrive, walking up the beautiful borders of swaying grasses and perennials interspersed with fresh herbs to the restaurant, a planting plan designed by Piet Oudolf who created the garden on Manhattan’s Highline.
René and team greeted us warmly with a glass of sparkling fizz, and 15 memorable vegetarian courses followed – I would have no idea how to create any of the complex, multi-ingredient dishes with up to 5 or 6 people working on each course. Many are willing interns anxious to learn in this famous kitchen. NOMA on your CV, certainly opens doors but nowadays questions are frequently being asked about the future of this practice.
Some of the produce and herbs come from the gardens and glasshouse beside the kitchens and the fermentation and pickles are a revelation.
The restaurant is credited with starting the Nordic food revolution and transforming Copenhagen into the culinary capital of the world, and in the pandemic, it opened Popl, a very successful burger joint selling fat, juicy patties of organic grass-fed beef.
But the city is not just about NOMA and I particularly love the little cafés and bakeries, wine bars and cocktail bars all serving delicious small plates.
Lille Bakery is in an old industrial part of town and was started in 2018 on a shoestring by Jesper, Mia and Sara who met at 108, Redzepi’s other Michelin-starred restaurant.
Their sourdough bread, flaky croissants, cardamom buns and sausage rolls are exceptionally delicious. I was thrilled to find one of our past students, James Lang, who baked his first loaf of sourdough in our Bread Shed at the Ballymaloe Cookery School, was one of the bakers in this tiny but exceptional bakery. I also loved their typical Danish breakfast, a ham and cheese sourdough sandwich slathered generously with butter and I’m still dreaming about the Berliner, a doughnut filled with rhubarb cream and topped with a little smidgeon of meringue.
Alice Café is another hidden gem with, some say, the best hand-crafted ice cream in Copenhagen. The notice board on the wall tells the times when the sourdough buns, flaky croissants, tebirkes (poppy seed pastries), cardamom twist and teboller (buttermilk buns) are coming out of the oven.
We also visited the Hart Bageri owned by Richard Hart, originally Chad Robertson’s partner at Tartine (in California) and later head baker at NOMA.
His bread is legendary and he has specialities: burnt basque cheesecake; cardamom croissants; and spandauer, a black sesame cookie to die for!
When I arrived at Trine Hahnemann’s Køøken, she was teaching a group from Brittany how to make a selection of Danish smorgasbord (see next weeks column) but then she showed me around her café/bakery which produces a truly sensational selection of cakes, pastries and bread, all made from 100% organic ingredients. Here is her recipe for a summer strawberry cake that has it all.
Trine Hahnemann’s Traditional Strawberry Cake
This cake has got it all: marzipan, chocolate, cream, vanilla, and strawberries.
Servings
12Preparation Time
60 minsCooking Time
25 minsTotal Time
1 hours 25 minsCourse
BakingCuisine
DanishIngredients
125g (4 1/2oz) marzipan (real marzipan with 60% almonds), grated
125g (4 1/2oz) caster sugar
125g (4 1/2oz) soft butter, plus extra for greasing
3 eggs
40g (generous 1 1/2oz) plain flour or corn starch
For the cream
1 pod of vanilla
200ml (7fl oz) single cream
2 egg yolks
3 tablespoons caster sugar
1 tablespoon corn flour
200ml (7fl oz) heavy cream
For the chocolate glaze
200g (7oz) dark chocolate
4 tablespoons heavy cream
For the topping
500g (18oz) strawberries
2-3 tablespoons red currant jelly
Method
Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5.
Beat the grated marzipan with the sugar in a mixing bowl (you get the best result using an electric mixer), then add the butter and beat again until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating between each addition, until the mixture is even and smooth, then fold in the flour or corn starch.
Pour the dough into a buttered round baking tin 24 centimetre. Bake for 25 minutes.
Remove from the oven and cool down.
Now melt the chocolate over steam, add the butter and mix well.
When the marzipan base is cooled down, spread the chocolate evenly over it.
When the chocolate has set on the marzipan base, it is time to make the cream.
For the cream: Cut the vanilla pod in half lengthways and scrape out the seeds with the tip of a knife. Put the vanilla seeds with the single cream in a saucepan and heat until steaming hot.
Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a mixing bowl until the mixture turns pale and fluffy, then whisk in the corn flour.
Stir one-third of the hot cream into the egg mixture, then pour the egg mixture into the saucepan. Stir over a low heat until it starts to thicken. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.
When the cream filling is cold, whip the double cream until it forms stiff peaks and fold it in the cream.
Carefully rinse the strawberries in cold water, remove the little flower and cut in half, dry them carefully. Place the red currant jelly in a piping bag.
Whip the cream quite firm, fold into the cold custard, place on top of the chocolate 2 centimetres from the edge, form into a little pyramid shape.
Cover it with the strawberries, place small dollops of jelly in between the strawberries, decorate with flowers. Serve right away or keep in refrigerator until ready to be served.
Lille’s Cardamom Buns
This treat is made with remonce, a Danish word for pastry filling that's basically a brown sugar and cardamom buttery filling that’s whipped, spread across sheets of croissant dough which is rolled up like a Swiss roll and portioned. This dough can also b
Servings
25Preparation Time
4 hours 45 minsCooking Time
25 minsTotal Time
5 hours 10 minsCourse
DessertCuisine
DanishIngredients
For the remonce:
500g (18oz) soft butter
225g (8oz) brown sugar
225g (8oz) caster sugar
5g (scant 1/4oz)
12g (1/2oz) cardamom (blitzed)
For the dough:
833g (1lb 13oz) plain flour
83g (3 1/4oz) sugar
16g (generous 1/2oz) salt
33g (1 1/4oz) fresh yeast
50g (2oz) soft butter
500ml milk
360ml water
500g block of square butter
Method
For the remonce: Put the soft butter into a bowl with the sugars, salt and ground cardamom. Whip until light and soft. This makes 500g (18oz) of filling, it could be halved but keeps well and can also just be spread on some Brioche toast or eaten on its own!
For the dough: There is no big secret with this dough either. Put all the ingredients into a mixer (except from the extra 500g/18oz butter block). Mix with a dough hook for 5-10 minutes on a low to medium speed to a smooth texture. Wrap the dough and immediately transfer to the fridge. Leave overnight. The laminating begins the next day….
Roll the butter between two sheets of greaseproof paper to approx. 20cm x 20cm (8 x 8 inch) square.
Flour the worktop and roll the risen dough into a square (approx. 40cm x 40cm/16 x 16 inch). Place the square of butter into the centre of the dough and fold the dough over the butter. Press gently to seal the edges.
Next, make the first lamination…. Flour the worktop lightly, roll the dough into a rectangle. Brush off any excess flour and fold in 3 lengthwise. Give the dough a 90° turn, seal the open edges with a rolling pin.
Re-roll the dough towards the open end into a rectangle. Fold in 3 once again. Cover tightly with greaseproof paper. Refrigerate for an hour. Then repeat this process, cover and refrigerate the dough overnight.
Next day, roll out into a long rectangle 30 x 12cm (12 x 5 inch), slatter with cardamom remonce (you won’t need it all), then roll it up to form a Swiss roll log shape.
Portion into 100g (3 1/2oz) pieces. Place the buns on a lined tray, cover lightly and prove until the layers have begun opening up a little, approx. 3-4 hours.
Bake at 210˚C/410˚F/Gas Mark 6 for 18-25 minutes until golden brown and crispy on the bottom.
Food writer Joe McNamee and hosts Grub Circus food stage at All Together Now music festival (29th – 31st July), in Portlaw, Co Waterford.
An umbrella event, Up Close … And Far Away: Addressing the Challenges of Climate Change from a Food Perspective, includes a strand entitled, Grain of Truth, an interactive workshop and demo which shows how to create a circular food network for bread making in Ireland, from growing the grain, to milling to baking. And, yes, there will be bread!
Featuring: Darina Allen (Ballymaloe Cookery School); Sarah Richards (Seagull Bakery, Tramore); Keith Bohanna (Real Bread Ireland); Emma Clutterbuck (Oak Forest Mills); James Kelly (young grain farmer, Ballymore Organics)
- For more information, see www.alltogethernow.ie
Gather at around 11am to walk around the organic farm and gardens in July.
Come along to collect eggs, feed the pigs, visit our cows and pygmy goats.
We’ll also taste new season’s raspberries, veggies, forage for wild foods and learn how our food is produced.
Phone the Ballymaloe Cookery School Farm Shop on 021 4646785 to reserve places.
