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 :-)

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.

02022020

I know the traditional proverb says When in Rome, do as the Romans do. But what about if you like something so much that you adapt it as your own, even when not in Rome?

That's why I am totally adapting the French tradition on Candlemas, which is to eat pancakes.

So we had savoury galletes for lunch and sweet crepes for dinner.

Both with caramelised apples and flambées with Grand Marnier. And obligatory Bourbon vanilla ice-cream and more salted caramel (with beurre de Bretagne, demi-sel).

I didn't have the time to photograph the fire, but the results were de-li-ci-ous.

Any other French traditions that we can adopt :-)

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.

A month sans sucre

I've made it!

I've made it through all of May without eating any (added) sugar.

Or stevia.
Or sweeterns.
Or dextrose.
Or added fructose.
Or whatever food industry adds to make everything taste better.

I did have difficulties finding food with ZERO added sugars, because things like ham, salami, cornichons, mustard, crisps ... all contain (added) sugar. I won't even mention sweets like fruit yogurt, corn flakes, baked beans ...

But I've made it.

And how do I feel after a month?

Relieved.
Hungry.
Grumpy.
Miserable.
And I've lost 7 pounds.

Looking forward to tomorrow :-P

Time flies ...

It's the end of November already and I cannot believe how quickly time flies. It's probably even consistent with the general relativity to say that the time flies with the speed of light, right? At least it feels this way.

Anyway, the Christmas decorations are up. The nativity scene is up. The Three Wise Men are already there! Ok, granted, Baby Jesus is still well in the womb but come on, people, it's Novemeber. NOVEMBER.

Another thing related to the beginning of Christmas season is the SILA charity bazaar where several countries sell typical produce/products/stuff. This year I bought - among other thigs - also some Japanese sweets.

 

My kids were not impressed. And honestly, neither was I. Sorry...

But that design... Seriously?

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!

White Christmas!

Well, we have no snow but we still have a white Christmas!

And for the first time, we have a proper Christmas tree, with lights!

And of course home-made Christmas cookies!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Sour cherry cake

What do you do if you have a large sour cherry tree growing in your garden? You can't really eat sour cherries - at least I can't - but I can surely make a cake. Basic chocolate sponge cake, sour cherries and filling made of yogurt, cottage cheese, gelatin (and vanilla, sugar, lemon juice, and cream). Delicious!

I really need to find another way to use those sour cherries, I can't make dozens of cakes!

Delicious!

This weekend was very busy for us. On Saturday Mr Mojcek arrived home after being away for almost a month and on Sunday I was celebrating my ahem-th birthday.

As a welcome present/surprise, we made MrMojcek some locally very famous cream cakes:

They were delicious!

And on Sunday instead of making a cake, I made raspberry muffins.

Tiger cake

Two of my friends were celebrating their birthdays meaning that a present had to be made. A bunch of us gathered, baked a cake and decorated it accordingly. Mind you, this was the first time any of us worked with fondant - or sculptured a cake, but we're all very very happy with the result: a tiger cake.

Photo not by me. I hope the author allows me to share it.

Happy Easter

I'm officially losing sense of time: there are Easter bunnies in the shops but I still have Christmas decorations at home. Where did the four months go?!?

Anyway, it's time for Easter eggs and potica.


I found an interesting motive in the used gloves:


Following last year's success with potica I decided to make another one this year. A chocolate-coconut potica:


Unfortunately I fell very sick and could not really enjoy the holidays. Or potica. Oh well.

Raspberry cake

About two months after my birthday we actually got around to celebrating it. And every birthday party needs a cake!


I made a yogurt-raspberry cake:


With a bit of grated white chocolate...


No need to say the cake is gone by now :-)

Ninjago sweatshirt

MiniMojcek Nr.1 is celebrating his 5th birthday!

I decided to make him a Ninjago sweatshirt. In red - just like his favourite ninja. I got fleece in very German colours: red, yellow and black:


I sketched the eyes...


I cut the fabrics and sew the eyes


Added the 'face' of the ninja onto a very simple raglan fleece sweater.


When he got the sweathirt, he said that he will never take it off again. In the last week, he only took it off when taking a bath... In a way, I'm happy :-)

With a red ninja goes a red strawberry cake:


A delicious strawberry-yoghurt cake!

Happy Easter!

Easter is rapidly approaching as you can see by
- the stuff MiniMojcek Nr.1 makes in the kindergarden:


- the traditional "butarca" sold at the local market:


- the smell coming from the kitchen.


For the first time in my life, I decided to make a traditional Slovenian Easter dish: potica. I got the recipe from my cousin Katarina, who got it from her mother, who... Anyway, it's not picture perfect as I didn't have the suitable baking tin but good enough for the first try, I'd say!


Happy holidays!

Heaven! - updated!

OH MY GOD!

I found the recipe for home-made Nutella. Only that it's far better than the "real" Nutella. The real one consists of 55% sugar. Our consists of 70% hazelnuts :-)

The funny thing is that it is really easy to make. The ingredients:
300 g whole hazelnuts
100 g powdered sugar
10 g Bourbon vanilla sugar
30 g cocoa powder
2 tablespoons of hazelnut oil

1. Toasting nuts: Preheat the oven to 170 deg. Spread hazelnuts in a single layer on a baking pan and toast them for 15 minutes (they turn almost black). When they're done, wrap them in a kitchen towel and rub them until the skins come off. I removed the remaining skin by hand.


2. Process the toasted nuts: We used a Braun hand-mixer to chop the hazelnuts. Then you just keep on chopping them until they turn to liquid :-) Seriously. It only takes a couple of minutes. It turned out that a decent food processor (you know, multipraktik :-) is the way to go. If you process them with one of those, no additional fat/oil is needed.

3. Add the (sifted) sugar and (sifted) cocoa powder. Mix.


4. Carefully add the hazelnut oil to make the mixture spreadable. Mix.


5. Enjoy!

6. As the taste is VERY rich, we added a bit of milk to the mixture just before using it. It was just to strong for MiniMojcek Nr.1. Probably cream would be even better but we didn't have it at home.

Good Food

Just to make your mouth water...

Orange nougat cakes:


Citrus poppy seed cake:


Raspberry fairy cakes:


16 pieces were made: I got 1, MrMojcek got 2, MiniMojcek Nr.1 got 13 of them.



First recipe is taken from Lidl Christmas Book, the other two from BBC Good Food 101 Cakes and Bakes.