Saturday, July 6, 2013

Danish Cones with Whipped Cream



This is one of the recipes that is a mystery. Exactly what is it supposed to turn out as? I had never eaten, seen, or even heard of Danish cones, and so had no idea what I was producing.  My Danish cones turned out to be pancakes filled with whipped cream. Very delicious, and received rave reviews from the guests at my friend Mary Alice's party for her daughter Ellen's college graduation. However, I couldn't shake the notion that what I was supposed to have was a crisp cookie like cone filled with whipped cream.
The Internet was not a lot of help here. Only one recipe for Danish cones contained a picture, and that showed a tube-shaped glazed doughnut sort of affair. The recipes were not markedly different.
There is one Danish cone that is produced with a patterned rolling pin, and produces a lacy cone, but that wasn't the recipe I had. If readers would be kind enough to send us their recipes for Danish cones, or merely their reminiscences on the topic, it would be much appreciated.  I know you are out there. My hits have gone way up (for me), but y'all don't comment or write reviews, or tell us all about food in your childhood. Tsk.
It took about an hour and a half to make these. Like I said, they are pancakes. The cook makes the batter, spreads ovals of batter onto a "well-buttered baking sheet" (I used well-buttered parchment paper.) and bakes them in a 300 degree oven for 6 minutes.
Cones, not cylinders
You have to get them off the baking sheet and rolled into cones before they cool and crack. This takes a degree of manual dexterity that I don't have. I told my husband, who is pretty manually dexterous, that he needed to hang around the kitchen so he could be there when the six minutes were up and roll the things into cones. As it happened, when the timer went off, he was nowhere to be found. My screams finally ran him to ground in the basement. In the meantime, I rolled two or three of them into cylinders. Cylinders are not cones, as any third grader in the District of Columbia should be able to tell you.
Bob rolled the remaining pancakes into cones, and we ate the cylinders. The cookbook says to add a little strawberry jam to the center of the whipped cream in each cone. My genius husband took a fair dollop of raspberry jam and added it to the cream as he was whipping it. It was delicious.
One thing I did to the recipe was to add two tablespoons of milk. The first pancakes were thicker than they needed to be, so we diluted the batter a little.
As long as you are not a total klutz, and can enlist someone with nimble fingers to stand by, these are not difficult. Follow the directions about the well buttered baking sheet or parchment paper, or you will have a baking sheet full of adherent masses of pancake.

Danish Cones with Whipped Cream

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup flour
2 tablespoons of milk (or more if you want thinner pancakes.)
one cup heavy cream
strawberry or raspberry jam

1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
2. Melt the butter and stir in the sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and then the flour and the milk.. Drop spoonfuls of the batter about four inches apart onto a well-buttered baking sheet. Smooth the batter into ovals. Bake about six minutes.
3. Remove the cookies with a spatual and quickly roll into cone shapes while cookies are still hot and flexible. (Gloves may be handy in doing this.) Let cones cool.  Rebutter the baking sheet before each addition.
4. At serving time, whip the cream and fill the cones with it. Add a little strawberry jam (or at least 3 tablespoons of raspberry jam) to the cream as you whip it.  Makes about 15.

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