How to make Pebernødder

A well known treat in Denmark for Christmas is ‘pebernødder’ or directly translated pepper nuts! Danes offer them during Christmas and sometimes they put them in small paper baskets and hang them on their Christmas tree. There is actually neither pepper nor nuts in them, but a lot of spices and they look like nuts. 

Image here

Do you want to try to make them yourselves? 
We found a simple recipe for you to try!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 cup packed brown/white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder plus 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. freshly ground cardamom
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ginger
• 1/2 tsp. cloves
• 1 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

1) Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. 

2) Beat the butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Mix in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Stir in the cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt until well blended. Mix in the flour, one cup at a time, the baking soda and baking powder until the dough gathers together. With floured hands, pinch off small, 1/2 teaspoon amounts of dough, roll into tiny balls, and place on a baking sheets (you will probably need more than one).

3) Bake in preheated oven until bottom of cookies are light tan, 10 to 12 minutes. Cool 15 minutes on baking sheets. Store in an airtight container.

Danes love liquorice and we will never know why

The Danes love liquorice. They love it.
The chew it, they eat it, they cook with it, they consider it a candy, they put it in chocolate, in your lunch, in your drinks, everywhere! When you eat something you always need to pray that it will not contain liquorice. I have a colleague sitting next to me. Each time i will go to the toilet or to a meeting without my glass of water, he will throw a tiny piece of liquorice in it just to tease me. His name is S. and one day i will get my revenge.

I repeat: The Danes love liquorice.They are obsessed with it.
We will never understand why. Never.
The only thing we can do is observe them and accept this fact.

Denmark.dk visited the world´s smallest liquorice factory "LAKRIDS" in Tåstrup, DK and filmed how they produce this salty substance which Danes love so much.
Here is the video:

Æbleskiver: The Danish Christmas Donuts

Aebleskiver is a Danish dessert, somewhat similar in texture to American pancakes but light and fluffy like a donut. Traditionally served with glogg during December. Cooked in a cast iron pan that resembles an egg poacher. Served hot with syrup, jam or powdered sugar.

Check out how to make your own aebleskiver below:

Julehjerte: Christmas Danish heart :)

The pleated Christmas heart is a special Danish tradition.It is said that the famous Danish author Hans Christian Andersen invented the braided heart, since the oldest known gloss paper heart was made by him in the 1860s. Christmas hearts consist of 2 pieces of glossy paper, which are braided together. 

The video below shows you how to make your own Julehjerte - enjoy it :)

Risalamande: The Danish Christmas rice pudding

Risalamande is a dessert traditionally served on Christmas Eve in Denmark. It is a kind of rice pudding, usually served cold and warm cherry sauce is poured on top (kirsebærsauce).

Portioned from a large bowl at the end of the Christmas dinner, a whole almond is hidden in the bowl of the pudding. The one who finds the almond wins a gift. The fun is to hide the almond in your mouth as long as possible so that people will keep taking seconds and thirds in an attempt to find the almond and win.

Have you ever tried Risalamande? Time to make your own! Kathrine from Metropolitan University College shows us how to make Danish rice pudding in the below video - enjoy it :)

Living and working with the Danes

Before coming in Copenhagen i have read a lot about working in Denmark.

How people are working in teams, how there is no clear hierarchy and that everybody's opinion matters..

Nothing could prepare me though for what i would really encounter here...

First of all, let me clear out something. I am a short girl coming from a southern country: even if i hate stereotypes, this actually means that i have dark hair, dark skin and since my country is under "crisis" i am used to work like a slave. My personal life was never a priority and my "rights" as an employee could be described as limited (if not non existing).

STEP 1: First impression

When i first arrived in this wonderful country, Danish people were just huge. White, blond and huge. They were looking at me from up there (since there is clearly a significant height difference) like huge white giants and they would start speaking as if they were puking (yes! the way they pronounce "d" sounds like puking in my ears. Try out the word "hedder" and you will get the point..). I was terrified. 

STEP 2: A closer look

Taking a closer look at the Danes, the first thing i observed was their relation with "time". My thought back then was that since they were so huge they are looking "time" from above. From up there. And even though looking things from up there should make time look tiny, thus not enough, Danes still feel as if they have loooads of time ahead. And that is why they never hurry. Some of them think they are anxious. But in reality and to my small southern eyes, they are never anxious. They take their time = They plan ahead = They avoid mistakes = They are efficient.

 

STEP 3: Getting to know them better and better

Danes have rights that are earned long time ago and noone can just cancel or challenge this fact. They have the right to have a personal life, which will always be their priority number one. And they do not need to fight for that. They work to live and not live to work. And whoever tries to challenge that, he will simply just fail. In this country people know that they have the right to smile and just say "No, thank you!".And that is accepted from all: boses, colleagues, managers, supervisors..

In the majority of this world's countries, people have a formal way of speaking to those they do not know or to their "superiors". Thus they are using what in english is the formal "you": a polite plural that expresses respect towards someone. Well, Danes do not use this formal way of speaking. Everyone is equal. Your boss is equal with you. There is no "Dear Mr. Andersen". There is "Hi John" instead. Even a giant Dane and a tiny dwarf like me are equals.
Their cities are made for them. They have the right to enjoy them. Whenever the sun is out, they forget that tomorrow even exist and they lie naked in the parks. They grab their bears and they stroll laughing around the lakes.

GENERAL CONCLUSION:

Danes have understood what is important in this life: living it. 

And we should learn something from them. 

Don't panic, stay calm, smile more, live the moment :)