Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Television

- This week on Milk Street, we're taking the European tour-- of desserts, that is.

We start with apfelkuchen, a German apple cake, then speculoos, it's a Belgian spice cookie.

They're thin and crispy.

And, finally, Danish dream cake has a thick, gooey coconut topping.

Please stay tuned as we do some of our favorite European desserts.

Funding for this series was provided by the following.

- For 25 years, Consumer Cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect.

We offer a variety of no-contract plans, and our U.S.-based customer service team can help find one that fits you.

To learn more, visit ConsumerCellular.tv.

- You know, the Germans do know a lot about baking and beer.

Everything that begins with "B."

And apfelkuchen, or German apple cake, is just a standard cake batter, usually with some almond paste in it.

But it's a little tricky because you got to get the fruit not to sink down in the batter.

You have to have the whole thing cooked evenly throughout.

So our expert baker, Erica, you're gonna figure out how to do this because it's one of my favorite cakes.

- Yeah, this is wonderful in its simplicity, and it's a wonderful way to showcase fruit, whether it's in the summer or in this case in the fall, because we're doing apples.

So the star of this cake is, of course, almond paste.

This is basically a mixture made of very finely ground almonds and a little bit of sugar.

And it's not to be confused with marzipan.

You want to make sure when you're using it's very moist and pliable, because if it's dry and crumbly, if it hasn't been stored properly, or wrapped really tightly, it won't incorporate really well into the batter.

We're gonna add four ounces of almond paste to a cup of sugar and one half-teaspoon of kosher salt.

- And you better put those in fast 'cause I have been known to snack on almond paste because I love it.

- And we just want to mix this on low speed to break up the almond paste into the sugar a little bit.

Okay, that looks good, Chris.

Do you mind turning off the mixture for me?

Okay, now we're gonna add eight tablespoons of softened butter so it'll incorporate well into our batter.

Now I'm just going to start this off on low speed so that all that nice almond paste sugar mixture doesn't fly out of the bowl.

Now, I'm going to go ahead and increase the speed all the way up to medium-high, and we're going to essentially cream it and incorporate a lot of air.

It's going to take about three minutes until it's light and fluffy.

(whirring grows louder) Okay, Chris, this looks great.

It's nice and light.

And now I'm going to go ahead and add the eggs.

I'm going to do this on medium speed.

And I'm going to add one egg at a time and let it mix about 20 seconds after each addition.

Okay, now is a good time to scrape down the sides of the bowl because that almond-butter mixture was a lot thicker and you kind of get a layer of it that gets stuck.

- We should also mention adding eggs...

I know that, years ago I... was it Susan Purdy or somebody's cookbook said 20 seconds for each egg.

I used to give it about four seconds 'cause I'm impatient.

- That's not surprising.

- That's not surprising.

And I found it actually made a difference, giving it more time.

You get better texture, more aeration.

- Yeah.

Essentially, you want the eggs to emulsify in with the butter and you want to give it time to do that.

And now we're just gonna add two teaspoons of vanilla extract, and we're going to keep mixing it, again on medium for about two more minutes longer just to make sure everything's really well incorporated.

Okay, this looks great.

You can see how light and fluffy got just by allowing it to mix a little longer with the eggs in there.

And now, last, we're just gonna add our flour.

Here we have one cup of flour mixed with a teaspoon and a half of baking powder I whisked together really well to incorporate it.

We're going to go ahead and mix this gradually on low speed, again, so it doesn't fly out of the bowl.

And we want to mix this until it just comes together, no longer; it only takes about ten seconds.

So we're done.

And you can see the batter's very thick, which is what we want.

- Why does your batter always look perfect?

Maybe you've done this before, is that it?

- (chuckles) A few times.

And I'm just going to finish it by hand just to make sure there's no pockets of flour at the bottom of the bowl.

Now, if you wouldn't mind, handing me, this is a nine-inch springform pan.

It's been sprayed with baking spray and then dusted with flour.

- Now can I ask you, there's been a big debate here in the kitchen about dark pans versus light pants versus middle of the road pans.

So would you pick a light-colored pan for baking all the time because you don't want to overcook the outside, or does it make no difference?

- I do find that darker pans generally will bake more quickly.

- So I guess the answer is yes.

- Yeah, I just... yeah, just keep an eye on it and maybe you check it at like five minutes earlier than you normally would.

- Okay.

- Now, because this is a thick batter, I like to use a small offset spatula.

Just spread this into an even layer.

Looks good.

And so now we move on to the apples.

Here I have Granny Smith apples, which we really, really liked because they're so tart and they worked really well against the sweetness of the almond paste in the cake.

So I'm going to go ahead and peel this.

- And they also hold their shape in baking.

- They do, they bake... they're a good baking apple.

- By the way, did you know this little fact?

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away," which is the old saying.

You know, that was a marketing slogan for the Apple Council?

- Oh really?

- I thought that was true.

You know my... all these years, I thought, like, "Hey, they're really healthy."

- I had my apple, I'm doing great.

- Someone made that up.

- So now I'm going to core them.

And this is a little trick that I like to do, especially if the core of the apple doesn't run exactly straight up and down through the center.

If you turn the apple upside down it's a little easier to go straight through.

And you don't want to do this part too far in advance of making the batter, because if you let your peeled apples sit, they will start to brown.

There is a special way to cut the apples for this cake 'cause you want them very thinly sliced so that they will cook all the way through.

I'm gonna slice the apples in half.

Okay, and now I'm going to slice them into one-eighth-inch strips crosswise.

And in order to keep the slices together I sort of do a backward slicing motion with the knife and hold on to the slices with my finger.

All right, and then what we're gonna do is we're gonna separate them in half, and then we're gonna press them down with our hand just to fan them out.

- Easy for you to do.

- Yeah-- no!

- Look, I mean I do this and it's like, look, everything's perfectly spaced.

- It's a good trick, too, if they're doing like a nice cheese plate.

I like to do apples or pears this way.

All right, so here we have our eight apple fans all ready to go.

And, again, like to use the offset spatula, and we're gonna lay them on the cake.

You don't want to press the apples down into the batter because the batter, while it's baking, is going to rise up and around the apples.

And we want to get seven of these around the outside, and it is a little bit of a tight squeeze.

So it's okay if they slightly overlap.

- This is the part that goes horribly wrong for me.

- Oh really?

- Well, I mean, first of all, you have to get the wide slices on the outside, Not the inside.

- It does help.

- I did that once.

Then I went like, "Oh."

- It does fit a little bit geometrically this way.

- And you're gonna do it perfectly, which is just gonna be... - I'm not done yet.

(laughs) And then we're gonna put the last one right in the center.

Now the last step we're gonna sprinkle the beautiful apples with two tablespoons of sugar, and that's it.

And now we are ready to go into the oven, which is set at 375 degrees.

It's going to go right on the middle rack, and it's going to bake for about 50 to 60 minutes.

You want to look for the cake to be really nicely golden brown, and when you insert a toothpick into the center, it'll come out clean.

- Okay.

- Okay, Chris, so this has been out of the oven now for 30 minutes and we can eat it.

(chuckling): So... which I know is good news to you.

- "We can eat it"-- my four favorite words in the English language.

- It's also very good room temperature, but I really like it warm.

So I'm just going to loosen the cake from the sides by running a paring knife around.

(unclasps latch) And now you can really see the beautiful color, which is great, because, you know, color equals flavor.

And then all we need to do now is just dust it with a little confectioner's sugar.

- You know, I do that, every time I pull a cake out the oven that doesn't look good, I just... - You're like, "I know what to do with this."

- "Well, I know what to do with this.

Get the confectioner's sugar."

But this did not need confectioner's sugar-- no.

- I'm just gonna transfer it over to the serving platter here.

Excellent.

- Mm.

- Okay, now we're going to go ahead and dig into this now while it's warm, but I will tell you a little secret, this makes an excellent breakfast.

- That was not a secret.

- If it lasts that long.

- No, this one does not make it more than 24 hours.

- Right.

- Mm... You know, apples, almond paste, cake... - And you can really feel how incredibly tender and moist the cake is.

- So German apple cake is really a category of cakes.

Cake batter fairly typical with creaming the butter, adding the eggs.

Almond paste, of course, which has that wonderful flavor and moisture.

And then fruit-- in this case, apple.

Very easy to make, and if it lasts more than 24 hours in your house, I don't think that's possible.

German apple cake.

Excellent.

- Now my wife, Melissa, grew up in Brussels, as a teenager.

And that's why, I guess, she loves spice cookies.

I always wondered why, because they were essentially invented in Brussels at a place called Maison Dandoy in Butter Street.

It's like we're in Milk Street, we must be connected to them.

It's our sister city.

And they are made in molds, actually, shaped in molds.

In some of them-- and this is true in medieval London as well-- some of the cookies were like three-foot tall.

We won't make a three-foot tall... - Thank goodness.

- ...cookie.

But it's a spice cookie, that's light, but has just the right amount of crunch.

It's quite exquisite, actually.

- It is.

It's one of those cookies that I make, and they're cooling on the counter, it seems like a second passes and I've eaten five of them.

They're really addictive, and it... it's partly because of that texture.

It's light, and airy and crisp, without being crunchy.

It has this really nice spice flavor with some caramel notes.

So in the bowl here I have cinnamon, coriander, and allspice.

We're also gonna add some clove to that, but we wanted to add a little extra something to our version, as we like to do.

So we're going to make a little spiced sugar that we're going to sprinkle on the cookies before we bake them.

- Okay.

- So a little bit extra crunch.

I'm just gonna whisk these guys together.

And I'm going to take a teaspoon of that out... and add it to two tablespoons of granulated sugar.

And I'm going to set that aside.

In the meantime, we're gonna talk about the other dry ingredients.

We're going to add these spices.

This is going to be the spice flavor in our cookie.

I've got the cloves in here already.

We didn't like the clove in that spice sugar, so it's added to the cookie itself.

One-and-a-half teaspoons of baking soda and then we have two and two-thirds cups of cake flour.

- Hm.

- Cake flour's pretty unusual in a cookie.

I'm sure you haven't seen it very much either.

There's a pretty big difference between the flour in Belgium and the flour here.

It's a little bit softer, a little lower protein content.

So cake flour's a little bit closer to that, and that's what's giving us that kind of crispy, airy texture.

- Is it called cookie flour or cake flour?

(laughs) - I... right?

- See?

It's very confusing.

- I know, you wouldn't use cake flour in like a chocolate chip cookie.

It would make it really crumbly.

But we actually like it here because it's giving us that airy texture.

All right, we'll set that aside until we need it in a little bit.

Move to the mixer.

So I have 12 tablespoons of salted butter because we're gonna really, really cream this butter with some sugar.

In Belgium, they use beet sugar, and to make brown sugar, they add caramel to the beet sugar.

Here we use cane sugar and we add molasses.

So that flavor difference was pretty significant.

Molasses is bitter-- a little malty.

Caramel is delicious caramel.

- Is delicious and not bitter.

- So, we're using a cup of light brown sugar, and we're gonna combine it with two tablespoons of dark corn syrup.

- Huh.

- Dark corn syrup has that sort of caramel note to it.

And you want to make sure it's dark corn syrup because the light stuff doesn't have that flavor.

So I'm going to add the brown sugar.

- Well, light corn syrup has... is just sweet.

- Has no flavor.

- Has no flavor.

- Really.

Yes.

And a half a teaspoon of kosher salt.

Just gonna mix this together a little bit.

So now we're gonna really crank this up to medium-high and let this go for a full five minutes.

We're really trying to cream this butter and sugar together until it's super light and fluffy.

That's going to create those little air pockets in the cookie, make it really nice and light.

(mixer whirring) Okay, I'm gonna add that two tablespoons of dark corn syrup.

And then two tablespoons of water.

And then we'll add the dry ingredients.

We just want to see this come together into a dough.

So you want to flour the countertop pretty liberally.

This can be kind of sticky because we've really creamed it a lot.

I'm just going to knead this a couple times until it's a really cohesive dough.

- This one's for me.

I can tell, right here.

- Jumped right in there and took that.

- Any piece that escapes is mine.

That's the rule.

- We'll cut this in half.

I'm gonna set this piece aside.

And then this piece, I'm going to flatten into a rectangle.

Flour our pin...

So we want this to be about an eighth of an inch, which is pretty thin.

Then we're gonna use a two-inch cookie cutter to cut them.

In Belgium they use a mold.

We have this beautiful fluted cookie cutter.

So you want to cut these as close to each other as possible.

This is like Tetris.

You ever played that game?

- Yes, I used to when it came out.

(Lynn laughs) - This makes six dozen cookies.

- Really?

- Yes.

So it's perfect for, like, a cookie exchange.

So we'll finish these off, and then we'll come back, and we'll do all of the special decorating we're gonna do.

- And I'll eat some scraps.

- No, I need the scraps!

(Chris laughs) So, as I said, these are usually done with a mold, so they have an imprint on the top.

So we're going to do the same.

So you just want to use a cookie cutter that's slightly smaller than the one that you used to make the cookies.

And that's gonna create a little border on these cookies.

Now, when you do your imprint, you don't want to go all the way through the cookie.

You just want to kind of give it just a little poke.

This is more decorative than anything else.

You ready?

- Oh, you're handing over the controls?

- I'm handing the controls to you.

You're gonna do that side for me... - Okay.

- While I poke this side with a toothpick.

And this actually does serve a purpose.

We're gonna poke three holes in the cookies.

And that allows steam to escape so you don't get a puff.

It's almost like docking a pie crust.

- Oh... - You do the poking.

- I'm gonna take my glasses off.

And remember that spiced sugar we made earlier?

- Mm-hmm.

- We're gonna sprinkle the top of the cookies with the spiced sugar.

Wanna sprinkle?

- Yeah.

Okay.

- All right, so these are gonna go in the fridge for 15 minutes while we prepare the second sheet of cookies.

After the 15 minutes, these will go in the oven at 350 for about 16 minutes or so.

You want to turn your sheet halfway through and then repeat with the second sheet tray.

- So you're putting them in the fridge just to firm up the dough so it doesn't melt.

- Exactly.

We worked with ease for a little while here so they've gotten kind of soft.

We just want them to be a little more firm before they go in the oven.

So... (Chris sighs) (chuckling): I know.

- It makes 72 cookies, so it's really not that much work for six dozen cookies.

- Right.

You have cookies for a month.

- A week.

(Lynn laughs) - So these are still cooling.

- I'm just gonna eat.

(crunches loudly) - These are still cooling on the sheet.

They need to cool on the sheet for ten minutes.

And then we transfer these to a rack to cool completely, and now we're going to eat them.

Someone has jumped the gun.

- I have.

Mm... Well, the type of cookie is so light and small, you've eaten six or eight in... - It's like eating one.

- Well, there's spice in them, but they're not spicy.

- Mm-mm.

- And they're buttery, but they're not greasy or heavy.

- And that brown sugar with the dark corn syrup adds those little caramel notes in there.

- So from Brussels to Boston, from Butter Street to Milk Street, we have Belgian spice cookies.

Had to change out the flour to cake flour to mimic the flour you'd find in Europe.

We used American brown sugar but added some corn syrup to get that special extra flavor.

Belgian spice cookies, I think, absolutely in the Christmas tin.

Then don't give them away.

- Yes.

- Keep 'em.

- Keep 'em for yourself.

- Yeah.

- At least keep some.

- You know, I really love sweet surprises, especially when they're totally unexpected.

And that happened to me not too long ago when I was interviewing Nadine Redzepi.

She's the partner of and also married to Rene Redzepi of the Noma Restaurant in Copenhagen, Denmark.

And she wrote a book called Downtime, recipes that she makes for her family.

Obviously, also for Rene.

And one of the dishes she has is something called Danish dream cake.

Now that's usually a snack cake you give to kids after school.

She upgraded it to make it more of an adult cake.

So it's a one-layer cake with a creamy toasted coconut, caramelized coconut topping.

And we really fell in love with this recipe.

It's simple and just has great texture and great flavor.

So we started by sifting a cup and three-quarters of cake flour with some baking powder.

I like to use parchment paper.

It makes it really easy to get the flour into this bowl later.

It's very hard pouring from a bowl to a bowl, especially with a stand mixer.

And this recipe depends heavily, of course, on beating eggs and sugar.

We always add salt to all of our desserts and some vanilla.

We'll start out low and slow.

Low power, maybe for 20 seconds, just to get the sugar and the eggs started.

Then, we'll move up to medium high, and this is going to be for four or five minutes.

It's really important to do this long enough so the air gets really incorporated into the sugar-whole egg mixture, and it gets very, very pale yellow.

It starts to ribbon.

(mixer whirring stops) So it's really nice and thick.

Now we're gonna add a third of flour.

This is why the parchment paper is so nice.

Put that down.

Put that on low and just mix for about ten seconds to incorporate.

Add half of the milk.

Add another half of what's left of the flour.

Add the rest of milk-- another half cup.

And the rest of the flour.

(mixer stops) And I'm gonna finish doing this by hand, so I don't overmix.

Don't worry if you see just small streaks of flour in any kind of a cake batter.

When it bakes, those will actually disappear, magically.

So now we have a nine by 13 baking pan.

We sprayed it with nonstick spray, added some flour, so you have a nice coating there.

This is not a super thick cake batter.

We preheated the oven to 350.

So this goes into that 350 preheated oven for about 20, 22 minutes.

You can use a toothpick in the center.

I like to actually press a fork down on my finger and it should just bounce back.

And you don't want to overbake.

You don't want to underbake.

But if it bounces back you know it's ready to go.

As that cools we'll make the topping.

Three-quarter cup of milk.

A lot of brown sugar-- a cup and a half of brown sugar.

And, finally, a stick and a half of salted butter.

We always use salted butter here.

If you don't have it, you can use unsalted.

Add about an eighth teaspoon of additional table salt.

And we're gonna get that up to simmer and cook it for four minutes.

Then we'll take it off heat and add three-and-a-quarter cups dried coconut.

This is not sweetened.

You definitely want to make sure that you combine thoroughly.

So that's thoroughly mixed.

It's still warm.

The cake's still a little bit warm as well.

So we'll start putting the frosting around the sides.

When you're frosting a cake you really need one of these.

It's a small offset spatula.

They make really big ones, too, but for most cakes, you want something small.

So, as I said, we put the frosting around the sides to start because the cake is nice and sturdy there.

Then we'll work towards the middle.

And, by the way, we're not done with this.

It's going under a broiler for two to three minutes.

You want it nice and brown and caramelized on the top.

Make a little bit crispy and then it's gooey underneath that between the cake and the top layer.

So this has been out of the oven for about half an hour.

Now we found something that really helps the topping stick to the cake, which is to cover this with aluminum foil during the cooling period.

And that way the topping does actually adhere to the cake.

Otherwise it sort of pops off.

This is a fairly sturdy topping, so we're gonna use a serrated knife for this.

The top is almost hard.

It has a wonderful caramelized topping to it.

That's because of the broiler.

Then, just underneath that, is a creamy, coconutty layer, which I really love.

And then you can see the cake is extremely fluffy because we took the eggs and sugar and beat them until they actually ribboned in the mixer.

So sort of a hard top, creamy, chewy center underneath that, and then a nice light cake.

So, thank you, Nadine Redzepi for the Danish dream cake-- originally a kid's snack cake, now an adult cake any time of day.

You can get this recipe, all the recipes from this season at Milk Street, at MilkStreetTV.com.

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- The new Milk Street cookbook is now available and includes every recipe from our TV show.

From authentic lasagna Bolognese and roasted cauliflower with tahini and lemon, to Indian butter chicken and flourless French chocolate cake, the Milk Street cookbook offers bolder, fresher, simpler recipes.

Order your copy of the Milk Street cookbook for $27, 40% less than the cover price, and receive a Milk Street tote with your order at no additional charge.

Call 855-MILK-177, or order online.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

- For 25 years, Consumer Cellular has been offering no contract wireless plans designed to help people do more of what they like.

Our U.S.-based customer service team can help find a plan that fits you.

To learn more, visit ConsumerCellular.tv.

- Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to be the first to welcome you to Tel Aviv... - Welcome to Oaxaca's airport.

- Welcome to Beirut.

(man speaking Hebrew) (speaking world language) - Bonjour, je m'appelle Chris.

- We call it supa kanja.

It's the word for gumbo.

- Christopher, you have to make the authentic, original cotoletta alla Bolognese for me.

- So this is the Eduardo Garca blender.

- This is the no electricity.

- Next is dessert.

- That is really good.

- I notice when you cook sometimes you add a little bit of something and then you just put the whole bowl in.

- I like to be generous with my food.

Generosity is important in cooking.

- That's true.

- Can start building bridges and food is definitely a perfect common ground.

- This is a generational thing.

It's... it's something that you inherit.

- Yeah, that was great.

(woman speaking Mandarin) - What was this for-- what did she say?

- You get one more chance.

- Salut.

- How is it?

He's speechless.

- I'm speechless.

That's so good.