Christmas cupcakes

Here in Jönköping it is a beautiful winter's day. There aren't many things more beautiful than the sun shining on a winter wonderland!


Today we're getting out all of our Christmas decor and we're going to get our little home ready for Christmas. Christmas is such a great time of year here in Sweden as it is so beautiful and cosy and cold…The wonderful thing with spending Christmas in Sweden is that it is usually a white one...but there are times when I really miss being in South Africa during this time of year. It's so funny seeing people running around in Santa outfits and sweating from the heat, spending the afternoon at the beach or lounging around the pool! But this year will be a white Christmas for me again. So I will light my candles and bake my pepparkakor (gingerbread men) and enjoy every minute of this lovely season!



This week-end the whole of Sweden is celebrating the first advent, so I made some yummy Christmassy cupcakes to enjoy with some Glögg, a warm, spicy drink that most Swedes love. I don't love it as much...but at least I can enjoy the cupcakes ;-) !
To see this recipe in Swedish, click here.

Cinnamon Cupcakes:
3½ dl flour * (just under 1½ cups flour)
½ tsp baking powder
1 pinch salt
1½ tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla essence
125g butter or marg
2 dl sugar (just over ¾ cup)
2 eggs, room temperature
1 dl sour cream (just under ½ cup)
50 ml milk

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Line muffin tins with cupcake liners.
2. Sift all the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
3. Cream the butter and sugar together until white.
4. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla essence.
5. Mix in half of the dry ingredients, then the sour cream and milk, and finally mix in the rest of the dry ingredients.
6. Fill the cupcake liners ¾ fill. A tip: Pour the batter into a piping bag with a 1 cm hole and “pipe” the batter into the liners…a very easy, mess free way of making cupcakes!
7. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes in the middle of the oven, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
8. Cool.

Cream Cheese frosting:
It’s important that all the ingredients for the frosting are at room temperature before you mix them. This helps to give you a smooth frosting that looks and tastes yummy.

100g cream cheese
50 g butter
3-4 dl icing sugar (about 1½ cup)

1. Beat the cheese and butter together until very smooth.
2. Add the icing sugar, 1 dl at a time until you get your desired consistency. The more icing sugar you have, the firmer the frosting will be…and the sweeter the icing will be.
3. Pipe onto the cooled off cupcakes. I used the same bag (washed) that I used for the batter to pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes.
4. Mix 1 tsp cinnamon with 1 tsp sugar and sprinkle over the cupcakes.

Happy baking!

*1 dl=100 ml, so 3½ dl = 350 ml flour etc…

One-bowl cupcakes

This is one of my favourite recipes of all time...mostly because it is SOOO easy! Even someone like me, who loves to bake, also loves easy recipes sometimes. The lovely thing with this recipe is that it can be made in one bowl! All the ingredients are poured into a bowl and mixed...it's that simple!

The other great thing with this recipe is that it can easily be made chocolate or vanilla...just by substituting some of the flour for cocoa.

I found this recipe years ago in my mom's tried and tested recipe box and it's stuck with me since. The amount of times it's been baked in our house and the memories that it brings are endless. Some of those best memories have been with my sisters, late at night, mixing the batter and then eating it...yup, you read right, we ate the batter…and still do ;-) ! It is DELICIOUS!

One more great thing with this recipe is that it can easily be made cupcakes or it can just as easily be a cake. And just about any frosting works with them.



Lazy housewife’s cake
Ingredients
-120 g marg – melted (125ml)
-2 eggs
-140g cake flour ( 287ml)
-40 g cocoa ( 100ml) ( add 40 extra flour for a vanilla cake)
-125ml milk
-140g( 175ml) castor sugar
-Pinch of salt
-10ml baking powder
-5 ml vanilla essence

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners.
3. Place all ingredients in a mixing bowl mix for 1 minute.
4. Fill the cupcake liners 3/4 full and bake for 15 minutes.



One secret...make sure not to leave them in the oven for too long...otherwise they will get too dry.

Happy baking and happy thanksgiving to everyone! Thanksgiving is such a wonderful tradition. There is so much in life to be thankful for! I’m thankful for being blessed with a lovely husband and the world’s cutest son and the best family ever!

What things are you grateful for in your life?

Castle cakes and open doors

Outside the wind is blowing and the snow is falling. Perfect weather to be inside. And perfect weather to sit down and look through some older photos. In the spring (March) I made a birthday cake for a little boy who was turning 4. He loves knights and castles so I made a castle cake. There was a lot of preparation that went into the cake as all the walls had to be measured and made in advance, as did the towers and the flags. But it was a really fun cake to make. The cake itself was a chocolate cake with a oreo cream filling. Yummy!



Hope the rest of your day is filled with laughter and fun and remember:
"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us."

- Alexander Graham Bell

A burger with a difference...

Early this autumn we went up to visit my in-laws in Tidaholm and we spent the day out picking mushrooms and blueberries. On our way home we stopped to look at these...

...big, beautiful buffalo's...very big! There is a farm in Gate that has buffalo...you can even go on a buffalo safari. We went up to the shop to see if they were open. They were and this is what they were selling...

...lots and lots of meat! So we bought a piece of buffalo steak and then we bought these...

...buffalo burgers. The roast we made when we got home. It was delicious! Buffalo meat is a red meat that is healthier than beef as the meat is less fatty. Because of this though, it is important to not cook the meat to long as it can easily dry out.
Recently we decided to make the burgers and they were very tasty, very different to beef burgers but very tasty.


Fry the patties and serve them with some tomato, lettuce and some fried onion and mushrooms on a hamburger roll. I basted the patties with a BBQ sauce before I fried them, which added a nice smoky flavour.

The buffalo farm in Gate is definitely worth a visit if you are ever in the Tidaholm area. And buffalo meat is definitely worth a try some day!

To find out more about the buffalo farm, click here.

Cars Party

Tomorrow is Elias's second birthday. I'm so grateful for my cute, precious son! He is such a blessing!
We had a great time at his party on Saturday, fun times shared with fun friends. We went car-crazy! The children had hotdogs, robot biscuits, chocolate car bars and fruit sticks to nibble on. For the adults we made simple sandwiches, chips and dips and cake pops. We ended off with a chocolate cake with oreo cream and caramel cream filling. Click here for the cake recipe. It was similar to the baby shower cake, but had oreo cream (crushed oreo biscuits and whipped cream) instead of chocolate mousse. I tried to get the wild, cactussy, Radiator Springs feel for the decor. The tires, cones and cactuses were made from fondant. It was yummy!






Stay tuned for a very different type of burger...coming soon!

Have a wonderfully fun day!

Baby Showers are fun!

Baby showers are not a very common thing in Sweden...but tonight I was at a super sweet baby shower for a super sweet lady! It was a lovely chance to get together with other ladies, eat good food and play fun games. Life is so much more fun when you can share the special moments it brings with other people!

I made the cake for the baby shower...it was the first time I have attempted modelling a person...it came out pretty cute, if I can say so myself;-)


The cake was made up of layers of cake, chocolate cream, caramel cream and covered with a white chocolate icing. I love the look that a cake covered in fondant gives, but fondant is unfortunately very very sweet. So i'm trying to find ways to cover cakes with icings that aren't as sweet, yet still look good. The biggest challenge with icing is getting it perfectly smooth. But practise makes perfect! The little polka dots and the lady were all made from home-made fondant.

The cake recipe is SOOO easy...4 simple ingrediants:

4 eggs
1½ dl (just over ½ cup) sugar
1 dl(100 ml) flour
½dl(50 ml) cocoa

Beat the eggs and sugar together very well until light and fluffy. Sieve the flour and cocoa into the egg mixture and CAREFULLY fold it in until mixed. Bake at 200 degrees for 10-15 minutes and you're done ;-)
For tonight's cake i made 2 of these, cut each one in half and layered it with dark chocolate cream and caramel cream.

Dark chocolate cream:
200g dark chocolate, melted over a water bath
3½ dl (1½ cup) cream.

Whip the cream and mix in the cooled, melted chocolate...it's that simple.

And the caramel cream...it was AMAZING! I could eat it just like it is. But to get that recipe you'll have to come back some other day ;-)

I have another cake and party project coming up on the week-end...for my son. He's turning 2...and he loves cars...so guess what kind of party we're having...

Sleep tight and sweet dreams everyone!
Happy baking!

South African inspired bean curry

Winter is here…today has been the coldest day of the year so far. I woke up and the world was white with frost, and even though the sun was shining, the frost stayed put all day...it was COLD! And on a cold day there's not much better than a real spicy curry, so today I made a bean and potato curry. It was DELICOUS. The smell of curry frying is one of the most appetizing smells I know. This curry can be made as mild or hot as your taste buds can handle. The secret with a good curry is using a good curry powder which can be bought at certain specialised stores. Or you can use Garam masala which can now be bought in Swedish grocery stores. The second secret for a good curry is to fry the curry powder first for a while. This recipe feeds about 6-8 people, and is a good economical meal. So heat up your stove and let the aromas flow.



Ingredients:
- 2 tbsp oil
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp curry powder (a good quality garam masala) – for a spicy but not hot curry
- 2 onions, chopped
- 5 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 tsp salt
- 375 g red kidney beans
- 1 cup (250ml) red lentils, rinsed
- 375 g cannellini beans
- 1 tin (400g) crushed tomatoes
- 1 cup (250ml) water
- 5 potatoes, chopped in large chunks

Method:
1. Put the oil and butter in a big pot and fry it until it stops bubbling.
2. Add the curry powder and let it simmer on medium heat for 7 minutes. Add the onions and half of the crushed garlic and fry until soft (about 10 minutes).
3. Add the beans, lentils, tomato and water. Bring to the boil, lower the heat and simmer for 2 hours with a lid on. Stir every now and then, adding more water if needed.
4. Add the potatoes half an hour before serving. Serve with some pita bread and a carrot salad.