chocolate cake (again)

this is a pimped up version of a recipe i did last year: a simple chocolate cake. but this time i added brown sugar and coconut shavings. yum!! (also added some baking powder which made it more fluffy*)

chocolate-cake
oven: 200 degrees celcius

2 eggs
 2dl granulated sugar
1 dl brown sugar
1 tsp vanillasugar
1 tsp bakingpowder
4 tblsp cocoapowder
1,5 dl flour (not self-raising)
2 tbsp coconut shavings
1 dl melted butter or margarine
coconut shavings for "lining" the pan

grease and cover a spring pan, about 24 cm or smaller, with coconut shavings.
mix the ingredients, by stirring, not whisking. (i add the butter last so it'll cool down and to avoid making an unplanned omelette)

pour into the pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. when the cake has come of the edges of the pan, it's done. and like the original- wonderful to serve still warm with vanilla ice-cream!

*

(ok, so maybe not THAT fluffy, but still...)

whole wide world

 ever seen that movie "stranger than fiction"? did you get a sudden urge to get a small bakery, a half-sleeve tattoo and bake chocolat chip cookies everyday? me too... so i made cookies. the rest will have to wait.
 the recipe is originally from a swedish book called "tillfällen att njuta en smula" (terese wikström) which i can recommend to all swedes. really beautiful book. anyway, bake this to either the soundtrack of aforementioned film or edith piaf. works either. i added lemon-zest and i think some coarsely chopped almonds would not have been bad..

chocolate chip cookies
makes 12-30 depending on size

2 eggs
200 g butter/margarine
3 dl flour
6 dl rolled oats
4 dl brown sugar
4 tbsp vanilla sugar
1 tsp baking soda 
200 g dark chocolate
pinch of salt
the zest of half a lemon

mix all the dry ingredients together. melt the butter and add that and the eggs and stir into a batter. roll little (or big) balls and place on a baking parchment, not to close since they float out. bake for about 8-15 minutes depending on size. my middle-sized ones took about 13 so if they don't look done leave them for a minute or so.. when they've floated out and set on the surface they're done. let the cookies cool on the baking sheet before moving them onto a rack to cool completely.

foux du fafa

right before christmas i decided to face my great and highly irrational fear of fruits (don't judge). tangerines are ok, but not berries (also in jam) or any other fruit. but, like i said, i decided to man up and make: appleclafoutis. lc made clafoutis with prunes (which i didn't taste at the time. prunes=fruit) and she gave the hard verdict that it tasted like pancakes- in a bad way. so i made mine with some season-appropriate spices. this is a straight-forward recepie, and with things you have at home. so- my version? did i dare? yessir. i did. but some of the applepices were still crisp so i couldn't eat those but it was nice and had some pancake similarity but not overwhelming. also custard. see lc's custard-school.

Apple- clafoutis
oven 175 degrees
serves at least 4

25 g butter or margarine
2 eggs
1 dl caster sugar
1 dl wheatflour
1 dl milk
two-three small apples
about 2 dl blueberries
spices: a pinch of salt, 1 tsp each of cinnamon and cardamom

Butter and bread a pan about 24 cm in diam. Melt the butter, then put aside to cool. Whisk eggs, sugar, flour, milk and spices together in a bowl. Add the butter. Spread the fruit evenly in the pan, pour over the batter, bake for 30-40 minutes until it's golden and has set.
serve luke warm. with custard. nom nom.
(yeah, i know the pics not that great but it i'm but a mediocre photographer)

sylvester

happy new year!
me and lc's been stuffing our faces with pasta and chocolate icecream (me) and chinese food and sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce (lc). if you're nice we might even publish the recipe.

so hope you have a great new year and LOTS of cake and desserts!

Christmas, snow and glögg

So I was supposed to make glögg again so that I had the correct quantity of spices but unfortunately mum and grandma drank what was left of the red wine.
Because of that you'll have to taste as you go but anyway here it is;

Swedish Glögg

4 servings
For about 2 dl red or white (the red is the most classic) wine you need

1 dl water
1 dl sugar
Peal from about half an orange
2 tsp ground clove or about 7 whole ones
2 small sticks of cinnamon broken into smaller pieces
1 tsp of vanilla (aroma or the real thing doesn't matter)
1 1/2 tsp of ground ginger
a little bit of mace

Put the sugar and water in a saucepan and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Ad the spices and boil until you have a relatively thick syrup.

Strain the syrup so that there isn't any bits of the spices left, pour it back into the saucepan and ad the wine, let everything come up to a boil.

Next part is optional but I think it gives the glögg an extra kick; take the glögg from the stove and ad 2 tbsp of gin (or vodka or any other strong booze you like), then you flambé it.

Serve hot with raisins and blanched almonds.

It taste best if you've been outside in the snow and are really cold, but the new trend here in Sweden is to drink it cold with an ice cube in it.

You can also replace the whine with apple juice to make an alcohol free version or just boil the wine until the alcohol has disappeared, but then you might want to make the syrup stronger or buy something called aromatic tincture (the pharmacists sell it).
The glögg can also be seasoned with saffron, lingonberries, chili, mandarin and more...

Tomorrow Herbert is coming home for the holiday and we're probably going to make some Christmas candy.
At the moment we're having trouble with the snow, we almost didn't make it outside today. There haven't been this much snow for a very long time and it's a bit daunting when the snow come halfway up the windows, I think that last night it came about 1 meter of snow.

We'll just have to wait to see what tomorrow brings...

yes i am procrastinating. it's my middle name.

ever had that "ohmygawd-i've-got-to-finish-this-rapport-i'm-suppodsed-to-hand-in-tomorrow-and-i've-been-procrastinating-for-a-month-i-need-some-serious-chocolatcake"-feeling? that's pretty much my day. so i thought i'd make some easypeasy chocolate spongecake with frosting. ha. i've got butter all over my kitchen floor, cause the pan leaked. when i took the cake out of the pan half of didn't come out, so the cake was crooked. the cream cheese fronsting tasted wierd, and daft as i am i added cocoa to it so it looked like... yeah. you know. adding sprinkles didn't help. dusted it with cocoa. didnt help. finally- choconut shavings gave the cake a sort of neat impression. but if you feel like making a chocolatcake i'd recomend using perhaps this: from annie or this from joy or if you can read swedish this one. am 100% sure they tase so much better than mine.

 

actually. it doesn't look to bad. the power of choconut. 

but it also makes me think of this site. unfortunalty it's in swedish, but oh so hilarious.

now, i'm going to continue writing and listening to this.

Teaser

Just to let you know I'm working on a new post, since it's winter and almost christmas I have developed a recipe for the swedish mulled wine called glögg that I'll post soon just a few more tweaks needed. And we're also getting a new guest-blogger, our mother, who will post a recipe on a chocolate mousse cake with pears.

And I do promise the post's will come soon.