Swedish-ish Almond Cake

Tradition demands that my mad friends and I get drunk on Eurovision night. So we have motto parties every year to accommodate this tradition. :)

This year’s Eurovision Song Contest host country was Sweden, so we had an Ikea-themed party. I dressed up as a hex key, a costume I can definitely recommend to anyone who is desperate to feel really uncomfortable for an evening!

And I baked a Swedish-ish almond cake:

It’s Swedish-ish firstly because I didn’t stick to any original Swedish recipe but made my own variation of it. The reasons for this are threefold:

1. I can.
2. See above.
3. I had a very specific idea for the “interior look” of my cake, which required a specific texture etc.

And this is also the second way in which my cake is only Swedish-ish: my beloved food colouring has let me down! The blue colouring made the cake turquoise. :(

I like to think, however, that seeing as the whole event was in no way PC, a turquoise-and-yellow Swedish flag just goes with the theme…

Texture was mentioned earlier – I was surprised (and a bit disappointed) how much the weight of the top two layers squashed the bottom layer. The top and the bottom layers were originally of equal height. I must make a note of this for future flag cakes…

Oh, and Denmark won this year’s Eurovision! Vikings ahoy for next year’s party!

Dagobah Cake for Star Wars Day 2013

Eat the swamp you must!

 

Happy belated Star Wars Day!

I am late blogging this but I sincerely hope you all had a very Star-Wars-y day last Saturday!

A few friends and I got together, threw some meat on the barbecue and pretended it was fresh Ewok ;) – and then we watched The Empire Strikes Back and ate lovely swamp cake.

Last year, we watched A New Hope, and I made Death Star Cakes.

For this year’s project I baked a chocolate tray bake and created the swamp from several layers of thickened green custard and chocolate cream. I loved how “swampy” the result looked!

And I accessorized the cutlery to go with the cake:

Finally, my friend’s son contributed his fighter to make the ensemble perfect:

What more could you want for a proper celebration of this very special holiday!? :)

 

May the Fourth Be With You!

 

(Yes, I am already making plans for next year’s Return of the Jedi Cake. How’d you guess!?)

This is not even baked! How dare she post this!? (Cookie Dough Balls)

In case you are as shocked and angry as whoever wrote the title of this post, let me explain: I am such a rebel I even break my own rules! Or I keep forgetting the rules I’d made up. One of those two.

So. I have a friend who’s done me more favours and helped me out more often lately than I can count. Not that I can count very high… But still. She’s helped me out big time. Again and again. And she was there when others let me down.

And saying thank you is nice, but saying thank you with cake is nicer. Or with cookies. Or cookie dough! :)

This friend I’m talking about shares my passion for pinching bits of cake batter or cookie dough. (You HAVE to do this. Constant quality control is the key to success, and you never know when the batter or dough is going to go bad!) She claims she could just eat a whole bowl of cookie dough instead of actually baking cookies. So I made a batch of cookie dough balls for her.

I hear cookie dough balls have been around in the United States and elsewhere for quite a while but I had never had or even seem them outside the blogosphere. They’re not to everybody’s taste. They do really taste like uncooked dough. I liked them! And so did my friend. Mission accomplished!

Brokkoli & Smoked Trout Strudel with Wild Garlic!

Let me tell you a sad, sad story with a happy ending!

Last Thursday, I received sad news indeed. Friday’s training session was cancelled. No boxing on Friday night! Don’t cry for me, though, dear reader, for I came up with an alternative. This alternative couldn’t make up for the missed boxing training but it lead to the happy ending of my wonderful story: I went cycling on Friday morning. And after about 30 minutes, I found myself in the woods and overwhelmed by the loveliest smell! Either I had died and gone to heaven (part two not being bloody likely! ;) – or it’s wild garlic* season!

* aka ramsons, buckrams, broad-leaved garlic, wood garlic, bear leek or bear’s garlic. Or so Wikipedia says.

There was wild garlic everywhere. So I got off my bike, gathered as much of the stuff as my bicycle basket would hold, and then cycled home smelling slightly garlic-y.

Great story, isn’t it? :)

And in the evening of that lovely day I made:

brokkoli & smoked trout strudel with wild garlic

Much more yummy looking (and yummy!) in real life. Sorry you missed it! :-P

I used store-bought puff pastry. The filling is really just cooked brokkoli, smoked trout, chopped-up wild garlic, some cream cheese and a handful of kalwanji seeds. The strudel was extremely easy to make, and it tasted so. Flipping. Nice.
Seriously.

The hardest part was standing my ground in the discussion with two males from Northern Germany who had never heard of savoury strudel. Barbarians! (They liked the result, though. I win!)

Oh, and 48 hours later I think I can safely say that apparently I picked little to no lily of the valley or meadow saffron leaves with the wild garlic. (Both these leaves look very much like wild garlic but are highly poisonous!) I win again! :)

By the way, I went back to the woods and gathered some more, MORE, MOOOOOOOOORE. Expect me to smell of wild garlic for the next two weeks. :)

 

St. Patrick’s Day Muffins!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day all around!

This year, I have celebrated with a lovely St. Patrick’s brunch at a friend’s house. And I brought green muffins – now there’s a surprise. ;)

They are white chocolate and almond muffins. My friends say they’re very nice, and they’re my friends so you know they are very wise people. 

Unfortunately I can’t show you a picture of how lovely and green they were on the inside (e-numbers are still my friends! ;) but here’s a picture of pretty green muffin batter!

If you haven’t celebrated St. Patrick’s Day yet I’d say it’s not too late! Got get some green food and/or green beer and/or Guinness and/or whiskey now! :)

 

Update!

My wonderful friend just read my post, and she still had a muffin left from this morning, so she cut it up and took this photo so you too can marvel at the inner greenness! :)

Thank you Tina!

 

Breakfast muffins with apples and raisins

 

You should know by now that I am a very versatile woman. I don’t just throw dinner parties, I also throw breakfast parties. Rock’n'Roll! :)

So I had friends round for a nice big breakfast including Vietnamese weasel coffee (Seriously yum!) and a little something  I couldn’t resist to bake:

Breakfast Muffin with apple and raisins

The photo is not overwhelming, and neither is there any baked gore. Hope you’re not too disappointed. (The time will come again!)

I have promised to blog more, and I think this is a very nice recipe if you want to bake for a small crowd and if you have little time and/or a students’ kitchen, i.e. one without good scales or an electric mixer. Hence this post!

Breakfast Muffins with Apple and Raisins

Ingredients (makes six muffins)
1/2 big apple
4 tbsp raisins
5 tbsp milk
1 dash ground cinnamon
4 tbsp sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp Golden syrup
5 tbsp oil
6 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 – 4 tbsp rolled oats
1 tbsp sour cream

Method
Peel, core and grate half a big apple. Mix the grated apple with the raisins, the cinnamon and the milk. Look at the contents of your bowl and think to yourself that this looks waaaay too healthy. Therefore, set this one aside, take a new bowl and start with the sugar. Mix it with the egg and the Golden syrup. Marvel at the sugary goodness in your bowl. You may want to add the oil at this stage as well to compensate for all the fruity and oaty healthiness you are having to deal with for these muffins. Then add all the rest of the ingredients on your list. Stir well. Finally, add the apple-raising-milk mixture and give your muffin batter one last stir. You don’t need a hand mixer for this, just use your big wooden spoon and your manly man muscles. :)
Fill the batter into 6 holes of your muffin tin, which you have previously lined with muffin liners. (Don’t you just hate it when they do this in recipes? Can’t they just tell you the steps in their correct chronological order!?) Bake at 175°C for roughly 25 minutes. Nom.

Wheat-free Black Forest non-gateau

I am still alive and kicking! And baking! Sometimes both at the same time! :)

So this blog has been neglected for aaaaaaages. Life did very much get in the way of baking blogging, I’m afraid. Much has changed in these past months – but like I said, still kicking and baking. So no need to worry. :)

I threw a little dinner party last week and the crowd was small enough so I didn’t want to bake more than one cake. (No, I said no need to worry. I also made a trifle-like dessert. There were two desserts. Even for a small crowd. I’m still me after all!) And I still like my challenges, I must say. That’s why I invited friends with food allergies/intolerances. I have intolerant friends, now there’s a surprise. ;)

So I went and looked for a recipe that would meet three criteria:

a) Black Forest gateau(-ish)
b) wheat-free
c) as little white sugar as possible

And would you believe it – I found one! And would you believe it for the second time – the stuff was really good, too!

Wheat-free Black Forest non-gateau

It’s not a proper gateau; I made a tray bake and there’s only one layer of cake. But no-one seemed to mind, I must say!

This recipe uses corn starch instead of flour, and I was quite sure you’d be able to tell the difference. The texture of the cake was really nice though and very much regular-cake-like, really.

That’s it for today. I hope I am leaving you craving for cake – and craving for more monsterbake. I shall endeavour to go about my blogging with new vigour. Monster’s honour! :)