Danish strawberry buttermilk soup – aka koldskål

Summer in Denmark means eating lots and lots of koldskål, which is a cold buttermilk soup with vanilla and lemon. There are lots of ready-made variations in the grocery stores, some are better than others so the past few years I have made my own. It’s really easy to make and I don’t have to worry about which preservatives have been added. And I can also make my own variations. Like this strawberry version which is so much better than the store bought strawberry version. You just can’t beat fresh strawberries.

I also baked a batch of biscuits called kammerjunker, which what we usually add to the soup. They are small, light and crunchy biscuits with lots of vanilla. I bake a large batch and store them in an air-tight container so I have enough for the summer.

Ingredients (for the soup)

6 pasteurized egg yolks

50 g sugar

Juice and zest of half a lemon

2 teaspoons vanilla sugar

A few grinds of a vanilla grinder

1 liter of buttermilk

400 g of fresh strawberries – leave a few for serving

Method:

Beat the egg yolks, sugar and vanilla sugar until the mixture is stiff and sugar is dissolved.

Pour in the buttermilk and season with lemon juice and a little grated lemon zest.

Blitz strawberries in a blender and stir into the buttermilk soup.

Serve with fresh strawberries and kammerjunker biscuits or a bit of granola.

 

Ingredients – (for the biscuits) -2 baking sheets, about 100 pcs.

250 g wheat flour

Seeds from one vanilla pod

2 tsp. baking powder

125 g butter

75 g sugar

1 egg

Method

Heat the oven to 175 °C.

Mix the flour, vanilla sugar and baking powder together in a bowl. Crumble the butter into the flour mixture, add sugar and beaten egg, and knead just until you have a firm dough.

Form dough into rolls and cut them into small cubes. Place them on the baking sheet and flatten with a finger.