Happy Sunday / Giveaway Winner

Hello Sunday,

The weekend has been just great
warm and relaxing
I've been reading
and planting the runner beans to the ground
I didn't wash the windows upstairs
but I baked a meringue cake

And I did draw the winner for my giveaway:
There were 26 participants and the lucky winner
was number 11: Evelyn
I have contacted her via email

For the cake, I made meringue with
2 egg whites + 1,5 dl sugar + 1 teaspoon white vinegar
filling is whipped cream with a bit of sugar, vanilla and lemon juice
I sliced 1/2 pear and a few strawberries, too
would serve 4-5 persons
super easy and tasty

I hope you had a wonderful weekend!


xx
minna

Happy Holidays

I baked gingerbread cookies last night
this time from a store bought dough
tiny elephants [looking like mini mammoths to me]
and cute penguins
these cookie cutters I found in Japan,
who else would come up with tiny cookie cutters like these!
Aalto vase cookie cutter is from Iittala store
it looked quite inspiring to me

Wishing a happy and peaceful holiday to you!




I'm now off to bake a date-carrot cake...
What's your favorite cake this season?

Happy Independence Day

It is our Independence Day today DEC 6
Cooking, baking, lightning candles, watching the ball on tv
I wish a peaceful day to everyone

Kiitos Suomi ♥


carrot lingonberry cake

4 organic eggs
150 g butter
300 g organic grated carrots
2 dl lingonberries
2 dl organic dark sugar
1 dl white sugar
4 dl organic white flour
1 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoons cardamom
1 teaspoons cinnamon


frosting:
2 dl drained plain yoghurt [or cream cheese]
3 dl powdered sugar

howto:
Preheat your oven to 175 celsius
Grease and flour a pan 24-26 cm in dia
Beat eggs with sugar, mix in flour, baking powder and spices
Add grated carrots and lingonberries
Pour into pan
Bake about 50 minutes, let cool the pan
Combine drained yoghurt or cream cheese with powdered sugar
Frost the cooled cake, top with lingonberries
Enjoy!

Sweet Sunday

Gooseberries from the garden
+sugar
+eggs
+flour
+butter
+cardamom
+coconut flakes
+crushed almonds
+icing sugar
=lovely pie, perfect for this Sunday


Recipe via Kodinkuvalehti
Contact me if you need the translation!

Sunday & Birthday Celebration

Today we spent a day at H's sister's home. She had organized a birthday party for their Mom who turns 70 right next week. The closest ones (children and their spouses/girl and boy friends + grand children) were there. We had a lunch, coffee and cakes and as many of their family members are musical talents we heard some singing performances. Kids also jammed with quitars and bass, it was fun!

Here are our little surprise gifts we brought along. It was Palm Sunday today.

A basket was full of cookies we baked last night.

I embellished a chocolate Easter egg for a girl who loves cats.

H draw a skull and a dino for little guys. They were a success!

It was a nice afternoon with good homemade food and warm atmosphere. Next weekend is the Easter here. Looking forward to taking a couple of days off and relax a bit. Maybe we'll bake more of those cookies for ourselves, they turned out fine. As they are filled with an orange flavored cream cheese they fit the Easter season just perfectly. I'm calling them Easter cookies now.

I hope you had a great weekend too!

Sunday Love

I wish I could lay on the sofa as my kitten does! But I'm terribly busy making things for my upcoming craft show. It starts next Wednesday and lasts until Saturday, this is the longest one I have ever attended so it adds a bit of stresss I have to admit.

A couple of days ago I baked rhubarb muffins. I have lost track on how many rhubarb pies I have made this summer so I decided to give a try for muffins for a change (you might have noticed that I have an excess of rhubarb). Muffins turned out pretty good! If you want to try them, you can follow my blueberry muffin recipe I posted here. Just replace blueberries with rhubarb, add a teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of grounded cardamom. I think I used a bit more flour on these (something like 3 dl) and added even 1/2 dl milk. I never write my recipes down so these are estimates but I don't think my experiments never failed tremendously so you should be safe too. Oh, and once you serve them you can add either whipped cream or vanilla sauce on top of them (dairy products neutralize the oxalic acid in rhubarb).

Have a lovely Sunday!

Baking Theraphy

I haven't been feeling very good this week, there are too many things bothering my mind. I hate it when negative feelings become so strong that they prevent me gaining daily happiness which keeps one running and ables focusing on essentials. After almost three days in a gloomy mood I'm now getting back to normal. As baking is something I find relaxing and rewarding I thought I would like to share this nice recipe of blueberry muffins with you. They are one of my favorites and so easy to make. And you can use any berries (rasberries are extremely good) if you don't happen to have blueberries on hand. Enjoy!

Blueberry Muffins

100 g (3.75 oz) butter
2 eggs
1 1/2 dl (2/3 cup) sugar
2 dl (1 cup) wheat flour
1/2 dl (1/4 cup) oat bran
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of vanilla sugar/extract
200 g (7 oz) blueberries

Howto: Melt the butter. Beat together eggs and sugar. Mix the flour, oat bran, baking powder and vanilla sugar/extract. Add them into butter-sugar mixture. Add the melted butter and blueberries as well. Pour mixture into greased muffin pan or paper cups. Bake for about 20 minutes in 225 celsius (425 fahrenheit). Makes about 12 muffins. Shift some powder sugar on top if desired!

p.s. If you have your favorite baking recipe somewhere in web, please link me there:)

Sweet Saturday

I'm so happy it's weekend again, time to spend with boyfriend and do cosy things. Lately I've been wishing to bake more, it's such relaxing and nice doing. I've got an old cook book (original written in 1948) pre-inherited from my Mom. It's full of lovely recipes (some are a bit difficult to understand because of old phrases but it's just a charming character of this book). Today I made spoon biscuits, not the best choice if you're on a diet I have to warn you! Here's how it goes.

Spoon Biscuits

200 g (7 oz) butter
150 g (5 oz) sugar
2 teaspoon vanilla sugar
250 g (8 1/2 oz) wheat flour
for filling: marmalade or jam (I used home made apple and rasberry jam)

Howto: Melt the butter on a stove in a pan, add sugar and stir until sugar has dissolved. Take the pan off the stove and let it cool. Mix baking powder and flour in a bowl, add and mix (by sifting) with butter sugar to make the batter. I always do this by hand, using wooden spatula. Pre-heat the oven to 175 C (347 F). Take some batter to a teaspoon and form the biscuits, place them on a baking sheet with parchment paper. Bake them for 15 minutes. After they have cooled comes the best part! Assemble biscuits by adding jam (about a teaspoonful might be good amount) between two pieces. As a finishing touch I sifted some powder sugar on top of them.

Happy weekend to all of you!