Kammerjunker is a dry Danish biscuit traditionally eaten with a cold dessert soup called koldskål, made with lemon and yogurt or buttermilk. It is commonly sold together in Danish restaurants and eaten in summer. Homemade kammerjunkers can be made or store-bought cookies can be used, while koldskål must be prepared from scratch.
A kammerjunker is a type of dry, crunchy biscuit – or “biscuit”, in British English – from Denmark. Kammerjunker is sometimes translated “rusk” into English, although this translation may not be any more familiar than the original Danish. It is traditionally eaten with a cold dessert soup.
By itself, the kammerjunker isn’t a particularly savory biscuit, consisting simply of milk, egg, butter and a little sugar. It can sometimes be accented with lemon zest or cardamom for added flavor, but more commonly it is not eaten on its own. The traditional way to eat kammerjunkers is to dunk them into a bowl of koldskål, which is a yoghurt- or buttermilk-based dessert soup that simply translates to “cold bowl.”
Koldskål is made with lemon, which causes the yogurt or buttermilk base to be sour or curvy. It may contain a number of other ingredients, such as beaten egg whites or vanilla extract. It is almost always served with kammerjunkers, but can sometimes be mixed with brown sugar and drunk by the glass. The biscuit-and-soup combination can sometimes be sold together in Danish restaurants under the moniker koldskål med kammerjunker. Since it is served cold, this dish is eaten almost exclusively in summer.
Someone living outside Denmark who wants to approach koldskål with kammerjunker has a few options. By going the homemade route, she might find an authentic kammerjunker recipe or a rough one with a recipe for another crunchy butter cookie. Alternatively, this individual could use store-bought cookies. The closest equivalent to the kammerjunkers sold in the average American grocery store is generally accepted as vanilla wafers. There is no commonly available equivalent of koldskål in the United States, so it must be prepared from scratch. Fortunately, however, it’s quick and easy to make as the ingredients are simply mixed into the base and chilled for an hour before serving.
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