Hi, I am Chef Zara. In this post, I will guide you through the Danish Cookbooks.
I love exploring new foods and recipes and cooking with friends and family. One of the most common questions that I often get is for cookbook recommendations. I have created this guide for friends, family, and new friends alike. I hope that you enjoy our site.
A little of the Nordic Flavor ❄️
In the following reviews, you will find a variety of Danish cookbooks with their own special stories to share. Featuring sensational selections of wonderful danish cooking, helpful how-to’s, colorful photographs, authentic recipes, and Danish history, each of these cookbooks is a must-have, if only to see the culinary beauty of a region and its people while exploring Danish cuisine from your home.
You can’t miss these 10 Danish Cookbooks we’ve selected for you! 👇
1. Scandinavian Comfort Food
Review 📖
Everyone needs a little comfort food, and this wonderful Danish cookbook, Scandinavian Comfort Food: Embracing the Art of Hygge, will provide just that. In the Danish lingo, hygge indicates a state of being comfortable and cozy, and the recipes in Trine Hahnemann’s book exemplify this. This is more than just a typical Danish cookbook. Hahnemann brings us into her world of Scandinavian cuisine in a way that makes us feel like we’re a member of the family. She stresses the importance of enjoying all foods responsibly, which is to say that it’s necessary to eat those vegetables and grains, but there is nothing wrong with the occasional glass of wine or slice of cake. For Hahnemann, life should be enjoyed and the foods of Scandinavia are a big part of that!
About the Author ✍️
Trine Hahnemann is not only a recognized cook and author; she also runs her own company that feeds roughly 3000 people a day in Copenhagen, Denmark. She has written ten books in all, including four written in English, and remains in high demand as an expert on Scandinavian cuisine.
2. Modern Scandinavian Baking
Why We Love It ❤️
It contains helpful tips, including how to store your baked goods and how to adjust recipes for allergens. This cookbook goes into great detail in breaking down the ingredients that are special to the art of Scandinavian cooking and baking. If you’re looking for some modern twists on traditional baked goods and old-world recipes and for some tempting desserts to try, this is the right book for you to take the leap into Danish baking.
Review 📖
Daytona Strong uses Scandinavian baking as a metaphor for how we all might better accept and love those around us, something that is apparent in her masterful Danish cookbook, Modern Scandinavian Baking: A Cookbook of Sweet Treats and Savory Bakes. While Strong will show you the tools and techniques necessary to create delicious servings of vanilla-flecked butter wreath cookies or saffron-scented St. Lucia buns, it is the love and caring behind the preparation of these recipes that remains equally important to the ingredients themselves.
About the Author ✍️
Daytona Strong is both a journalist and a food writer and has spent more than a decade expressing her interest and love for all things Scandinavian baking. She has remained dedicated to her Scandinavian heritage and takes great pride in her family history. She specializes in Nordic cooking.
3. Danish Dinner Party: Traditions and Recipes
Why We Love It ❤️
He includes songs sung by the guests and the tobacco to be smoked (yes, people used to smoke at the dinner table!) Richly illustrated, this cookbook should be on the shelf of anyone interested in the traditions as well as the food. Just don’t forget to read the section on how to give a proper toast!
Review 📖
Everyone loves a dinner party! While most Danish cookbooks focus on recipes, Richard E. Klein takes things a step further with Danish Dinner Party: Traditions and Recipes. As the name states, this book is just as much about the formalities and rituals of a traditional Danish dinner party as the recipes that make up Danish cuisine and Danish culture. Klein leads the audience through the preparation of authentic Danish recipes like Reger Dobbelt Belagt (Prawns on buttered rye bread), Brunede Kartofler (Sugar browned potatoes), and Risengrod (Rice pudding).
About the Author ✍️
Richard Klein is an author of Danish descent with a focus on altruism and positivity. This Danish cookbook was the result of a Danish dinner party Klein held as a way to share his heritage and pride in all things Scandinavian.
4. Authentic Norwegian Cooking
Review 📖
For Astrid Karlsen Scott, life is about grain, meat, fish, and milk. Give her these ingredients as a base, and she will work her magic to create Scandinavian recipes just like those in her cookbook, Authentic Norwegian Cooking: Traditional Scandinavian Cooking Made Easy. This book covers everything from the basics of soups, salads, and sauces to baked fillets of flounder and the like. And, of course, you will find your favorite traditional Norwegian recipes like Kjottkakepinnemat Swedish meatballs and Sardinpalegg (Sardine spread).
About the Author ✍️
Astrid Karlsen Scott is an award-winning author and expert on Norwegian culture. Besides her writings, she is also the president of the Norwegian cultural institution “Nordic Adventure.”
5. Smörgåsbord
Why We Love It ❤️
Wait, the first images in this cookbook are of light and airy vegetables, shrimp, and hard-boiled eggs? Fear not! Recipes for meatballs, burgers, cakes, and pastries also fill the pages of Johansen’s wonderful work. This cookbook has shifted from the older traditions of meals designed to feed field workers to meals geared towards the younger, more health-conscious generation who prefer their salads, fish, and veggies with lighter ingredients and smaller portions. Johansen does a marvelous job of merging the old with the new.
About the Author ✍️
Signe Johansen is not only a Scandinavian cookbook author with numerous books to her credit, but she is also an avid whiskey enthusiast who works to motivate more women to get into the art of spirits.
6. Nordic Family Kitchen
Review 📖
Mikkel Karstad takes us on a trip from his childhood farm in Copenhagen, where, as a young man, he gathered up vegetables and herbs for dinner, to his time as a father, where he continues the same practice with his children. In this cookbook, you will find recipes for herb-grilled garfish and elderflower, rosemary pancakes, elderflower lemonade, and more that make up the Nordic Family Kitchen. You will also be treated to unique experiences and insights into all that is modern-day Scandinavian cuisine.
About the Author ✍️
Mikkel Karstad is a chef and the author of four books on Nordic cooking and heritage. Karstad approaches his work from a naturalist perspective using only the freshest, organic ingredients whenever possible.
7. The Nordic Baker
Review 📖
From the very beginning of this cookbook, Sofia Nordgren stresses the importance of finding the best possible ingredients—organic vegetables, stone-ground flours, and items that are locally grown—because she recognizes and understands the love and care that comes with harvesting and utilizing such ingredients. She then goes on to detail the many varieties of those flowers and grains, the best sweeteners and powders, and the proper leveling agents. And, of course, she didn’t forget the right herbs and spices. Nordgren has taken everything into consideration to prepare her readers to make the finest, plant-based Nordic creations possible with the variety of healthy recipes provided in this book. What could be better?
About the Author ✍️
In addition to her work as an author, Sofia Nordgren also runs a successful blog titled “The Nordic Kitchen,” where she details her love for organic, plant-based baking.
8. Fire and Ice
Review 📖
For Darra Goldstein, cooking is about understanding what’s possible when there is snow on the ground eight months out of the year. This means there must be exact preparation in order to have the ingredients necessary for her Nordic cuisine. As her Danish cookbook shows, such diligence is carried over in Goldstein’s recipes for soups, porridge, and salads, along with the many dishes of meat, fish, and poultry. She emphasizes the importance of curing, culturing, drying, and fermenting, practices common to the region leading to the creation of cooking traditional Danish dishes. Cooking is about understanding, and if you wanna understand more about Nordic food.
About the Author ✍️
Darra Goldstein is world-renowned as both an author and a food expert. She has written an astounding 17 books and is in demand as a public speaker on everything food related.
9. ScandiKitchen: Fika and Hygge
Review 📖
Bronte Aurell goes out of her way to provide the reader with a plethora of Nordic baking recipes that cover the spectrum of both technique and flavor. She offers basic baking recipes but also gives the reader a glimpse into par-bake and no-bake options. She also goes into detail on achieving the best bread, along with a section on biscuits and cookies. Along with many of the authors on this list, Aurell makes sure to mention the importance of hygge in everything she does in her Nordic historic-inspired café.
About the Author✍️
When Bronte Aurell isn’t busy writing books, she owns and runs a popular Nordic-inspired café in London that features the foods and cakes of her homeland.
10. Tina Nordström’s Scandinavian Cooking
Review 📖
This cookbook is a walk back to the childhood of its author, Tina Nordström, as she grew up under the tutelage of her parents and grandparents, who instilled in her a wealth of knowledge of Scandinavian cuisine. Nordström is now passing on this knowledge with a wide variety of simple recipes you can make at home. Where this Nordic cookbook stands out is in the many insider tidbits Nordström provides about picking the right vegetables. For example, she suggests you “choose the ugly mushrooms,” meaning mushrooms that are slightly shriveled with less water content, and roasting instead of boiling your carrots, as the former provides more flavor.
About the Author ✍️
Tina Nordström is an author, television personality, and expert on Scandinavian cooking and baking.
Final Thoughts
The Nordic region is made up of people that not only have to live through winters lasting most of the year but also have taken on the task of traversing mountainous land with limited ability to plant or harvest crops. Not only have they persevered, but they have also done so with a genuine concern for others. This is evident in the love and care that drives their incredible cuisine. The authors of these cookbooks have more in common than just a desire to create dishes for others to enjoy, they are just as invested in educating others about the art of hygge so the recipes they share will be created with the same love and care for others.
About Danish Cooking 🌟
A running theme you may have noticed in these European and Danish cookbooks is the art of Hygge. Hygge is a way of life and a state of mind for those who hail from this part of the world. To take part in hygge is to gather those you know, and even those you don’t, around a place of comfort where all are encouraged to relax, converse, and have a good time.
The same idea is carried into European and Scandinavian cuisine, from German to Icelandic, an idea that stresses all food is made with love and that caring for others is rooted in the process. When you prepare food in this region, you are preparing it with care, love, and consideration.
