It is time to give a try for some traditional dessert and cooking from the Netherlands. It might be a bit early for it as our Company has a 5-year celebration later this year, but as my cream bottle was approaching its ”use before” -date and I couldn’t wait anymore. So this time ”father is baking” -blog takes an international trip to the home of tulips and great sandwiches.

There are different ways of showing respect to Dutch food. You can try some Hollandaise cooking by doing Hollandaise sauce. That is difficult. An easier way is to make a Dutch lunch, which includes bread, lots of bread. Some people eat huge piles of bread. So if you want to make Dutch people happy, have a bread service.

For obvious reasons (for someone who loves hot lunch), I am now concentrating on a dinner service. I start with Griesmeelpudding, a traditional Dutch dessert. In Finland we call it Mannavanukas. During the weekend I will prepare some Beef Rotterdam-style.

Griesmeel is Semolina in English and Manna in Finnish. One of the trickiest parts in preparing the dish was to translate the recipe first to English and then to Finnish.

Vanillestokje=vanillapod=vaniljatanko;  Volle melk=full milk= täysmaito; slagroom=whipped cream=kuohukerma (tai kermavaahto); kristalsuiker=crystal sugar=kidesokeri. I still am not sure if whipped cream is whipped or can be whipped (kuohukerma vai kermavaahto) and whether crystal sugar is normal sugar or something different. To be safe, I whipped the cream and also used some special sugar.

We start by mixing vanillapod (unfortunately not from Madagascar), whipped cream, milk and sugar and heating it until it boils. I used Finnish special milk (Kiehu), which is almost impossible to burn. Without using special milk, I have found it impossible to not burn it even if stirring all the time. After the stuff boils, put in the semolina, and keep it boiliong on a low heat some 5minutes. In the semolina package it says that 10minutes is needed so I went for 7,5 minutes which was based on a applied mathematics problem solving method for solving a famous ”conflicting instructions problem”.

At this moment I realized I am making semolina porridge which I used to eat when I was a child.

Then we  take a cake (pudding) mold and make it a little bit wet and pour the porridge into it. Let it cool down (1h), cover with cling film and put to refridgerator for around 3h (I kept it over night to be safe; normally if you wait something to get stiff, you need at least double time as shown in the recipe wven if you have not made any mistakes in the process).

Then all you need to do is hope to be lucky. I had some trouble getting it out from the mold but with some knife help, it popped out and for my great surprise, I had a very nice looking Dutch Griesmeelpudding on the plate. Added some raspberries and blueberries to get a nice Dutch flag colour and here it is.

The taste of the pudding is not very strong, but it is also not too sweet. The quality of vanilla (Madagascar!) is definitely a factor. I suggest serving with some fruitsauce. Let’s see whether my wife serves it to her guests tomorrow or not; looking forward to hear a report.

Ever wondered if it is The Netherlands or Holland? Check this.