🇩🇰 Denmark
KoldskålDanish buttermilk soup
A cold, sweet Danish soup of buttermilk whisked with egg yolks, sugar and vanilla, usually with thick milk (tykmælk) and lemon or lime, served with small biscuits (kammerjunkere).
Origin and history
The earliest printed Danish koldskål recipe, from 1793, was a thin cold soup of white beer and wine with sugar, cinnamon and lemon, and its name comes from the German Kaltschale. Buttermilk, a by-product of the butter Danish farmers produced for export, became the base from about 1900, and an early buttermilk recipe appears in Agnes Werner's 1903 Husmoderens Haandbog. Buttermilk koldskål moved from starter to dessert in the 1950s, and the first ready-made one reached dairy shelves in 1979.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 4 servings
- Total time
- 15 min
- Hands-on
- 15 min
Ingredients
- 200 g7 oz (8 to 10 yolks) egg yolks, very fresh
- 125 g2/3 cup sugar
- 1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped out
- 400 ml1 2/3 cups buttermilk (kærnemælk), cold
- 350 ml1 1/2 cups tykmælk (Danish thick soured milk), plain drinking yogurt or kefir can replace it
- 50 ml3 1/2 tbsp lime or lemon juice, to taste
- kammerjunkere (small Danish rusks), to serve; crushed rusks or plain shortbread biscuits as a substitute
- fresh strawberries, optional, to serve
Method
-
1. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a large bowl until pale and thick.
-
2. Mix 150 to 200 ml of the buttermilk with the vanilla seeds, strain through a sieve into the yolks and whisk until smooth.
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3. Stir in the rest of the buttermilk and the tykmælk.
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4. Add the lime or lemon juice a little at a time, tasting, until pleasantly tangy and sweet.
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5. Chill until very cold, at least 1 hour.
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6. Serve in bowls, with kammerjunkere scattered or served alongside, and berries if you like.
Notes
- Koldskål is served cold and sweet, as a summer dessert or light snack. It was a starter until the 1950s.
- Proportions differ between Danish cooks: a simpler household version uses about 1 litre of buttermilk with 3 to 5 yolks, 6 tablespoons of sugar, vanilla sugar and lemon juice, with no tykmælk, and a lemon version from an organic box company uses 2 litres of buttermilk, 1 litre of tykmælk, 150 g of sugar, 2 lemons and a vanilla pod. Lex.dk treats tykmælk as optional; the recipe above, from a Danish dairy-and-delicatessen house, includes it.
- Typical accompaniments are kammerjunkere, muesli, rusks, toasted oats or fruit pieces. Pureed fruit, such as strawberries, may be blended in.
- The mixture contains raw egg yolks; use very fresh eggs, or pasteurised yolks.
- Keeps up to 3 days refrigerated in a closed container; whisk again before serving.
Adapted from Løgismose, Hjemmelavet koldskål, Den Store Danske (lex.dk), koldskål, Videnskab.dk, Hvorfor spiser vi koldskål?, and Årstiderne, koldskål.
At the festivals
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