Macha swiss roll

Inspired by the recent success of the matcha cake, I used the same almond sponge to make a (much simpler) matcha swiss roll. It was soaked with yuzu syrup, filled with mascarpone cream and raspberries. Delicious!

And yes, I know, the sponge broke because I added too much grounded almonds. But the taste was so much better, I was willing to sacrifice the looks :-)

A different Opera

One has to celebrate a birthday properly.

With a delicious cake. 

So I made a matcha-pistachio-raspberry-yuzu-white chocolate opera cake :-)

I probably don't need to say it was super-delicious!

Buckwheat-chocolate cake

For my birthday I made a buckwheat-chocolate cake, inspired by a recipe for a bûche de Noël from the Patisserie magazine. 

It didn't look as pretty, but it was so so SO rich and delicious!

Every component could be a dessert by itself :-)

Merry Christmas :-)

Merry Christmas everyone!

And we've got six boxes of all sorts of home-made Christmas cookies.

More cakes!

Another weekend, another birthday party, so more delicious food.

It started on Friday already by celebrating the Candlemas with tons of pancakes.

And continued on Saturday with fondue, empanadas and more cakes.

To be more precise, one raspberry-white chocolate-almond tart and one tiramisu.

They were both super delicious but surprisingly, eating them together was even better :-)

And you can also notice the green paper napkins with wild boars. They were brought especially for this occasion from Chambord castle in the Loire Valley.

And there were candles! One cannot properly celebrate birthday without blowing out the birthday candles, right?

 

And yes, there were a lot of them. Oh well...

La bûche de Noël

I wanted to do it for a couple of years now, and this year I finally managed to do it.

Plenty of recipes online, I took the Paul Holywood's one. 

Didn't have very Chrismassy decoration in my local shop. I could chose between pink flamingoes, trucks or these flowers...

It was super delicious and I will definitely make it again. 

The only downside was that after making it, the next day I tested positive for Covid  and lost all the sense of smell and taste :-(

Pre-Christmas baking

MiniMojcek Nr.2 is taking extra cooking classes at school. The other day he brought home the recipe for a chocolate star. Which we of course made at home:

The next time we made it, we replaced the chocolate filling with cinnamon filling (you know, the cinnamon rolls one) 

... and ... 

added some cardamom and lemon juice. 

Now THAT is truly delicious!

Opera Cake

I've never made one before so it was time to make myself an Opera cake. 

Very rich. 

Very caloric. 

But yummy!

My love for all things French continues :-)

What to do Nr. 18

On your marks ... get set ... bake!

We've been eating quite delicious food for the past few weeks as we prepare everything by ourselves. Cooking, baking... at least two to three times a day.

What I always find amusing is how much alcohol I've got at home - for someone who never drinks any alcohol. I only keep it for cooking/baking :-)

 

My collection is larger (and prettier and fancier and more diverse) than MrMojcek's, who does occasionally drink :-)

Happy Easter

This Easter caught me completely unprepared. It's ten days since MrMojček last went shopping and obviously noone thought about Easter then...

We had to improvise.

So I made a poppy-seed potica. And an almond-cocoa one.

The Easter eggs were dyed with red onion skins.

And decorated with mathematical symbols.

Obviously.

The little joys

When you accidentally find yourself using matching mugs and tea tins ...

and they remind you of the time you spent in Portugal and Cambridge ...

and the colour of Le Soleil à Nice matches the yellow of your kitchen walls :-)

and you have this beauty in your kitchen ...

and are always amazed by what these little creatures do for us ...

and you just had a wonderful weekend - one day with the extended family and the other with close friends ...

accompanied by four cakes, five strudels and two tiramisus :-)

and the warm wind that is blowing ...

just makes you happy.

Perfect 10!

MiniMojcek is 10 today!

And for his birthday party I made some Superhero muffins. As we're not huge fans of fondant, I made is as thin as possible, so thin you can almost see the cake through the thin layer. And therefore also every crumb and crack on the muffin. Oh well...

Ironman: chocolate only for the picky kids
Green lantern and Captain America: chocolate with sour cherries
Spiderman: vanilla with raspberries

Random thoughts

1. I saw a billboard today announcing the premiere of Bridget Jones's Baby. And I was wondering why they put the ad so soon as the film won't open till September, several months from now ... wait ... ooops!

2. Within one hour and all within a couple of hundred yards from my home I spoke to one of the national best gymnasts (multiple world champion), sat in a meeting with the singer of the nationally most famous rock band, and met probably the most (nationally) known TV presenter. A funny place, my hometown.

3. I decided to follow this year's Bake Off and started with the famous Jaffa cakes. Well, they tasted really delicious.  Their appearance, however, well ... let's not talk about it.

4. Somehow I stumbled upon Glee radio where they only play Glee covers.  24 hours a day. I mean... Seriously? 

5. Reading Kobo Abe, Herman Hesse, Nick Hornby and John C. Parkin. How many books can one read at a time?

Sour cherries!

You know that Masha and the Bear cartoon where she cooks porridge? And they end up with porridge everywhere?

Taken from Youtube.

This is exactly how I feel now if you replace porridge with sour cherries.Everywhere. In every form.
Sour cherries just picked.
Sour cherries pitted.
Sour cherries frozen.
Sour cherries jam.
Sour cherries compote.
Sour cherries ice cream.
Sour cherries muffins.
And about half of them still on the tree.

Strawberry chocolate cake

Today a friend of MiniMojcek Nr.2 celebrated his birthday in the kindergarten. However, he only had ice-cream and no cake! MM2 was so disappointed that I just had to bake a cake myself. Just for us.

A strawberry-vanilla-chocolate cake it was.

 
I didn't have the time to make it pretty nor did I have the time to take a proper photo. But the cake was delicious :-)

Dedicated flower of fashion

Everywhere I look, everyone seems to be making apple roses. Simple to make, delicious and very pretty.

So - following the baking trends - of course I had to make them.

They really are very simple to make, very delicious and very pretty :-)

Kremšnite!

For reasons unknown, we had a lot of eggs in our fridge. A lot. So I decided to  make cremeschnitte. Kremšnite!

Puff pastry with custard and vanilla cream.

They may not be the best looking but they were very very good. Probably the best I've ever eaten. And I've eaten quite a few...

Even MrMojcek was impressed and admitted that they were surprisingly incredibly heavenly delicious :-)

Tigggerrrr party

Maybe it's time we start behaving like responsible adults. 

Maybe not.

So that we can still have tiger-themed birthday parties.

And cakes like this:

 And birthday presents like this (thank you, He, M&P!)

I was most impressed by what MiniMojcek Nr.1 prepared for me, illustrating my wishes:

That's me in my Peugeot, leaving the house and driving to the airport, where the whole world waits for me.

:-)

Hessian Tiger Vest

What do you do if a friend of yours is celebrating his birthday? Or at least you think he is...

You collect all the tiger scraps you can find in your house and make him a Hessian/burlap tiger vest.

What else, right?

Right?

Well, it turned out it wasn't his birthday at all. His birthday was in May. But he still loved the ... thought? The present.

Recently also MiniMojcek Nr.2 was celebrating his birthday and he wanted a "fruit cake with fruits and cake and cream and raspberries and mandarins and peaches and fruit and cake." So this is what he got!

And he got the truffles as well, although he didn't ask for them!

Update - B

B is for baking!

I'm happy to say that the whole family is very inspired by The Great British Bake Off. Even the kids! So we've been baking a lot in the last few weeks. Some things were simple, some more complex and I must say that although Paul and Mary would have a lot to say, we enjoyed everything. Baking and eating.

Some of the things weren't caught on camera as they vanished within minutes :-) Some are here:

Chocolate fondants with raspberry sauce

Mary Berry's lemon meringue pie

Blueberry and lemon meringue roulade

And lots of different pastries, scones and breads.

My favourite is Paul's soda bread. Although we've made it (and its variations) numerous times, I still haven't got a photo. Who has time to take pictures!