Denmark is known for its good licorice. It's eaten as a sweet and used as a spice - just like in these oatmeal cookies from Ulla Skaaning Mathiesen, which you can enjoy in her Café East & Eden.
Image: DW/L. Ganssmann
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Video: Cooking Oatmeal cookies with licorice, Denmark
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Ulla Skaaning Mathiesen: "You can reinvent yourself when you move"
When you set foot in Ulla Skaaning Mathiesen's café, East & Eden, on Torstaße in Berlin's Mitte distict, it becomes abundantly clear that the owner of this establishment is not only a master restaurateur - she is also a talented architect and interior designer. And designing her café was an absolute labor of love. In 2012, the Danish-born Mathiesen moved from Copenhagen to Berlin together with her family. She had a desire to meet new people and try out running a restaurant, so she opened her café, East & Eden, in 2015. After all, she had loved to bake since she was a child.
Ulla Skaaning MathiesenImage: DW/L. Ganssmann
Café East & Eden in Berlin's Mitte district
The meals include a range of fine delicacies, including of course, delicious cookies, cakes, and tarts. All of the recipes are originals from Ulla Skaaning Mathiesen's own collection, and the dishes are made with love by the owner herself. For anyone who's interested, the café also offers an assortment of Danish licorice treats.
Liquorice cookies – A Danish delicacy
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Oat, berry, and licorice cookies
Ingredients:
125 g butter (room temperature)
100 g brown sugar
15 g molasses
1 t vanilla sugar
55 g egg (1 egg)
100 g flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 1/2 t raw licorice powder
1 t fine liquorice powder
175 g rolled oats
120 g cranberries
Preparation:
Whisk butter, sugar, vanilla, and molasses until white and fluffy.
Add egg and stir until fully combined.
In separate bowl, mix flour, salt, baking soda, oats, licorice powder, and cranberries. Add, stir until just combined.
Wrap dough in cling film and leave in refrigerator for at least four hours (overnight, if possible). Make dough balls weighing around 65 g. Freeze or bake immediately.
Bake at 200° C until light golden (nine to twelve minutes).
Leave to cool.
Enjoy!
East & Eden prepares oatmeal cookies with licorice
Denmark is known for its good licorice. It's eaten as a sweet and used as a spice - just like in these oatmeal cookies by Ulla Skaaning Mathiesen, which you can enjoy in her Café East & Eden.
Image: DW/L. Ganssmann
70 square meters of Denmark
As an architect and interior designer, Ulla Skaaning Mathiesen decorated many boutiques and cafés. But finally, in 2017, she got to decorate her own. Five years after moving with her family to the German capital from Copenhagen, she took on a new project. East & Eden opened up in a former antiques shop. It sells Danish snacks and baked goods.
Image: DW/L. Ganssmann
This side of Eden
"The East & Eden name comes from the book by John Steinbeck, East of Eden. We had a whole list of names. One of them that we really liked was the East & Eden, because it contains the word east, East Berlin, and Eden as the nice place we wanted to make it. So we decided to twist it a little bit and call it East & Eden." - Ulla Skaaning Mathiesen
Image: DW/L. Ganssmann
Guests from around the globe
At East & Eden in Berlin's Mitte neighborhood, Ulla Skaaning Mathiesen offers a small selection - dishes which are easy and uncomplicated to prepare. That's typical of the Danes, she says. As a youth, she did an internship at a pastry shop - a passion which remained with her. She backs all of the sweets here herself - using her own recipes.
Image: DW/L. Ganssmann
Snacks are on the menu in Denmark
"I am lucky enough to have a dentist for a mother. Growing up in the 70s in Denmark, we were not allowed to eat candy or sugar on weekdays. We could only have it on Saturdays. My mother really wanted to encourage us to make food, I realized it was okay for me to bake a cake, and do that with sugar. So every day when I came home from school, I would bake something." - Ulla Skaaning Mathiesen
Image: DW/L. Ganssmann
Danish spiced baked goods
"Using licorice in recipes for me is like using a new spice. I do not even think about licorice when I am using it. It's more like using cinnamon or nutmeg or any other spice. It gives this really nice deep warm flavor. " - Ulla Skaaning Mathiesen
