winter winds

as lc said; sorry but i'm stuck in the woods. literally. no driverslicense and lousy bus-connections makes herbert all work and no play. too further spoil my return to civilization my hometown has been struck with a parasite in the drinking water so i'm not sure i want to risk giong home...

enough with the whining. it's a winter wonderland, on a clear day the temperature crawls down to below 20 celcius.

coconut-tops and even more biscotti- this time with chocolate

coconut-tops are a go-to cake in sweden, like spongecake or shortbread. i used this recipe.

oven 175 degrees celcius
50 g butter/margarine
2 eggs
1 dl granulated sugar
5,5 dl coconut shavings
1 tblsp white rum

 

chocolate 70%

melt the butter and stir in with the rest of the ingredients. let the batter rest for about 10 min. by using two teaspoons (or tablespoons) distribute the batter on a bakingparchment, making little top-shapes. bake for 15 minutes in the middle of the oven. let the cakes cool in the fridge. when they're cool melt some chocolate and dip the bottom (and perhaps on top?) in chocolate.

chocolate-biscotti

 oven 225 degrees

100g softened butter/margarine

1 dl granulated sugar

2 eggs

2 dl chopped almonds

0,5 dl cocoa powder

2 tblsp vanillasugar

3,5 dl flour

1 tsp bakingpowder

beat butter and sugar "fluffy" with a electrical blender (yeah, i know. wierd sentence but you know what i mean). mix in the rest of the ingredients and let rest in the fridge. divide the batter in three parts and make three rolls. place on bakingsheet with parchment and bake for about 10 min. while still warm, cut diagonal pieces about 1-2 wide. let dry in a 100 degree oven for aprox 1 hour. now i was to impatient and didn't let my biscotti dry enough so they where kind of chewy in the middle... so a word of wisdom- if the cakes are still soft, let them dry a bit longer. also, i think mixing in chocolat chips in the batter whould be kinda wonderful. just sayin'.

The Difference

So it's a week since I should have posted this, sorry but I'm a incorrigible time optimist.
If you're wondering whats been up I'll post some pictures at the end of this post, but now moving on to the more important things.





Here in Sweden we usually don't measure with cups when baking, as you might have noticed that in most of the recipes we've posted we use dl.
So why am I bringing this up, well when I first started baking with recipes written in English I didn't know how to translate the measurements but thankfully my mother had a formula on how to change cups into dl. Later on my lovely sister bought me a selection of cup measurements so now I can just use them.

So now I'm gonna share;
1 dl equals 100 ml
1 cup equals 250 ml which is equal to 2 1/2 dl
1/2 cup equals 125 ml which is 1 1/4 dl

And so on...

(hi, herbert here. i'm crashing lc's post. if you are lazy like me and can't be bothered with mental arithmetic (headcounting) or whatever here's a nifty link to a converter..)
Had to change Herberts spelling we do NOT count heads here in Sweden, anymore anyway.

Now on to the recipe I promised:

Chocolate cheesecake brownie

Brownie
150 g butter
1 dl cocoa
3 egg
3 dl caster sugar
2,5 dl flour
1 tsp baking powder
about 50 g dark chocolate
a handful of chopped almonds

Cheesecake
200 g cream cheese
1 egg yolk
3 tbsp caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract

Makes about 20

Start with making the brownie;

1. Melt butter and stir in chocolate and cocoa, leave to cool
2. Meanwhile whisk eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Mix the baking powder with the flour and fold into the egg batter along with the chocolate butter and almonds. (if you want to you can ad a bit more chopped chocolate at this point)

Next, the cheesecake;
4. Stir cream cheese together with egg yolk, sugar and vanilla extract.
5. Line a baking tin with oven paper and pour in the brownie mixture.
6. Spread the cheesecake mixture on top of the brownie mixture and create patterns with the help of a knife or a fork.

7. Bake the cake in the lower part of the oven for about 30 minutes. (It should be sticky but not liquid)
8. Let the cake cool and then cut it into squares.

This is a picture of my second attempt of making macarons, I failed again so no recipe on those...


At November 23 this was not an unusual sight on the island and it got worse...



Last Wednesday the snowing started and it has yet to stop...





The new mittens I bought, they are really warm...


Me with Christmas lighting int the background...

Been sick

Hi everyone
Really sorry that I haven't posted anything in awhile, at the moment I'm getting vaccinated for my allergies and the injections are making me really sick but I'm working on a post with "translation" between cups and dl, it also contains a recipe on cheesecake-brownies and I'll try to get it out there at the latest on Sunday.
The reason for Herberts absence is mainly because she is stuck in the wild doing an internship, but she has promised to post something soon.

Hope you'll forgive us.

Red velvet cupcake with marshmallow frosting

So unfortunately we didn't go to the southern part of the island so there aren't any photos.
But I have something else for you...

Yesterday was Halloween (if my calender is right) however here in Sweden Halloween is a fairly new holiday, we have our own holiday (which is today 1st of November) where we celebrate or rather remember those who has died.
This day is (by my own translation) called all saints day or allsaints but all hallows eve is probably more correct grammatically but because there is a difference between the two days here I don't want to confuse or mix them up.

Since this day is quite a somber day, a day where you reflect on death and remember and miss those you have lost, there aren't any trick or treat, play or masquerades. You go to the graveyard and light a candle for someones soul.

I believe this is the reason for our "adoption" of Halloween, we have seen how much fun it looks like and want a part of it (it doesn't hurt that the commerce profits from it either).
That's why last year my door got egged because I had the wrong day and therefor no candy in the house...

Now don't go feel sorry for us, even though Halloween is new we get our turn to dress up and get candy at Easter. When I was little (which is not so long ago) we used to dress up as Easter witch, which is not a perfect translation but near enough, or in the boys case as an Easter man. (If you want to see how they look, Google påskkärring and påskgubbe for pictures.) This tradition has unfortunately dwindled in favor for Halloween.

Anywho, to get back from that sidetrack; I got very inspired by Annie's eats red velvet cupcakes and What the fruitcake?!s marshmallow frosting so I decided to make some cupcakes (I wanted to do something with Halloween theme, but couldn't be bothered in the end)

Red velvet cupcake with Marshmallow frosting

For the cupcakes you'll need

2 eggs
1 1/2 cup sugar
150 g melted butter or margarine
1 tsp white vinegar
2 1/4 cups cake flour (if you don't have this just take normal flour and ad 2 1/2 tsp baking powder)
4 tbs cocoa powder
1 cup buttermilk (if you like I have problem finding buttermilk, do like this: pour 1 tbs lemon juice in a 1 cup measurement and top with milk to the 1 cup line and let rest for 2 minutes)
1 tsp vanilla
and red food coloring

Put the oven on 175° C.

Beat the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy ad the butter milk and then the dry ingredients (you should have sifted those).

Ad the mealted butter, vinegar and the food coloring mix until the batter is smoth.

Put out 22 cupcake mould's and fill them up to 2/3. (because I've changed the recipe some the batter probably won't make 22 but put them out just in case)

Bake in the middle of the oven for 10 - 15 minutes.

While the cupcakes cool, make the marshmallow frosting;
Caution, this recipe is quite large only half of it will be needed for the cupcakes so if you don't want to make meringue just half the recipe.

4 egg whites
2 cup sugar
2/3 cup water
Blue food coloring (how much depends on how blue you want your frosting)

Boil water, sugar and coloring until it forms a thick, colorless syrup, this takes about 5 minutes and the syrup should have the temperature 115° C, take it of the heat.
Beat the egg whites until soft peaks appear.
While still beating slowly pour the syrup in a thin jet into the eggs. Beat until thick and glossy.

Whit a piping bag, pip the frosting onto the cupcakes and ad sprinkles or other decorations if you wish.

help. i need somebody. help.

ok. so this is a specialpost. i need your advise. when i've been browsing my local charityshop i've found this skillet. now if it were a ordinary skillet there whouldn't be a ploblem. but this one has got me puzzled. i have no idea what it is and i'm curious. it looks like this:

but it has a lid that folds over the top. the pan in the picture i a doughnutpan (i got one so i am going to make danish aepleskiver sometimes soon) but the other one.. is that also a doughnut pan? or something else? got any ideas? (also- should i buy it?)