The Cookie Monster Cupcakes

Noone who is interested in baking could possibly miss the cookie monster cupcakes that are all over the web. And why shouldn't they be? They're adorable, look professional and so easy to make, so I went to the store to pick up a few things needed, but to my surprise there were NO blue sprinkles or mint kisses or anything that could make eyes. So I created a monster...

...behold cookie monster's girlfriend!

I haven't come up with a good name for her yet, but isn't she pretty? ;)

I used a random good chocolate cupcake recipe that I had close by, covered them in pink vanilla butter cream, dunked in strawberry sprinkles and used white buttercream and non-stops for eyes. Simple. =)
Cutting the chocolate cookie in half proved to turn out the best, and leaves you with chunks of broken cookies to snack on!

Pumpkin pie

So I finally went around and made my first pumpkin pie. I've only had pumpkin pie once in my life so I was unsure how this would turn out, and what a normal pumpkin pie should look like when it's done and so on. I have to say that I'm pretty pleased with the results. It's been a long time since I really enjoyed one of my own pies this much.

Pie crust:
3 dl flour
200 gram butter
3-4 tbsp water

Mix flour and butter.
Add water until good consistency.
Wrap and store in fridge until it's time to roll.

Pumpkin filling:
750 gram pumpkin
1/2 dl brown sugar
1/2 dl sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 eggs
3 dl half & half

Dig out the seeds and everything unwanted from the pumpkin, cut off the skin. Chop the meat into chunks. Try to make sure that you have about 750 gram of pumpkin chunks. Put the pumpkin in a pot and boil for about 20 minutes. Drain the water and puré the pumpkin meat.

Mix pumpkin puré, brown sugar, sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg in a bowl.
Whisk together eggs and half&half then add it to the pumpkin mixture.

Line a pie dish that is about 20 cm in diameter with pie dough, not too thick. Pour in the pumpkin pie filling.
Bake for 15 minutes at 250 C then another 40-45 minutes on 200 C.

If your pie, like mine, gets too much color towards the end - cover it with tinfoil but make sure that the tinfol does not touch the top of the pie or it might stick to it. I solved this by putting a rack in the oven and placing the tinfoil on that.

Day of the Mudcakes!

Today is the day of the mudcakes, kladdkakans dag.

I didn't know this until after I made this cake but now that I do I just have to share it with you.
When I was testin out another type of cake in the kitchen I had some pie crust dough left over and I felt the need to get creative so I pulled out my little portion sized creme brulé cups and went for it.

Pie crust:
1 dl flour
70 gram butter
1 tbsp water

Mix flour and butter.
Add water until you have a good consitency.
Wrap and store in the fridge.

Mud cake filling:
1 dl sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla sugar
50 gram butter
1/2 dl flour
1 1/2 tbsp cocoa
pinch of salt

50 gram chopped dark chocolate

Whisk together eggs, sugar and vanilla sugar until white and fluffy.
Add flour, cocoa and salt and mix until combined. Add the butter.

Chop the chocolate into fairly large chunks and set aside.

Take your pie dough and line four small portion sized, oven safe cups. You will probably have some dough left over.
Divide the chocolate batter between the four cups and sprinkle the chocolate chunks on top.

Bake at 175 C for about 15 minutes. Let cool, preferably over night, before serving.

Why complicate things? Sugarpaste

I've seen stores that sell special trays and tools for putting your cut out sugarpaste flowers and such on while they dry up and harden. Some people are clever enough to use empty egg cartons. That works well with larger flowers, but with the smaller ones it can be hard to get them back out without breaking them and the depth of the box can make the flower look odd - like the petals are out to get you!

This time my solution was this: have you ever seen the really tiny cups, not the ones for mini cupcakes but the really really small ones? I always end up storing a box of them for years way back in my cupboard - there are just so many of them in one package! So i grabbed a few and flattened them out leaving just enough depth to make the perfectly curved sugarpaste flowers. No fuss. =)

Swedish bakes: Semla

In Sweden we have some strange traditions. Don't get me wrong, I love most of them, but alot of our traditions seem to have slowly faded and all that's left of it is the tradition to eat a certain food on a certain day. This baked goodie is one of those things that most people don't remember why we eat it, they just eat it.

Originally the Semla was eaten before or during the fast that led up to Easter. Some believe that it was invented during that same period by the exception that you were allowed to eat white bread during the fast. According to some, the people cheted on their fast by hiding other goods inside the bread - where noone could see it!

A semla is a piece of white bread(bread roll) cut open, filled with almond paste and whippd cream and dusted with powder sugar. This recipe contains spelt flour and a home made sugar free almonst paste with hazelnut. I made this during my low-GI period that I had earlier this spring and they turned out pretty good. Definitely more filling than the original.

Semla - bread:
50g fresh yeast
3 dl milk
2 tsp sweetener(+ 1 tbsp of sugar to feed the yeast if you want them fluffy)
75 g butter
1 egg
7 dl spelt flour
1 dl whole meal spelt flour
1 tsp whole cardamom
1 egg to coat the buns

How to:
Pestle the cardamom seeds. Heat the mlk to 37C. Dissolve the yeast in the milk.
Add sweetener(and sugar), butter, a lightly pre-whisked egg, flour and cardamom. Work the dough until it's got the chewing gum consistensy(about 5 min with a machine). Cover the bowl and let rest for 30-60 minutes until it's about doubled in size.
Split in 16 pieces and shape to balls. Put them on trays, cover and let rise for another 30 min.
Set the oven to 250C, coat the buns with a lightly whisked egg. Put the bread in the oven and lower the temperature to 225C. Let them bake for about 10 min. They're done when they feel light of sound hollow if you tap the bottom.


Almond hazelnut paste:
2 dl whole almonds
0.5 dl whole hazelnuts
1 egg white
1 dl sweetener

How to:
Boil some water and drop the almonds in for about 10-30 seconds. Take them out and let them cool just a little bit before you peel them by squeezing one of the ends of the almonds.
Put all ingredients in a mixer and blend until smooth. Scrape down if needed. Pack the paste in plastic and shape into a log. Keep in the fridge until you're ready to use it.

Assembling:
Whipping cream
sweetener(or sugar)
powder sugar
(milk)

How to:
Cut a the top off the bread.
With a fork, scrape out a small hole in the bottom half of the bread. Mix the scraped out bread crumbs with some of the almond paste. I added some milk to my almond-bread mix to make it softer and easier to work with. Take some of the mixture and lightly squish it down into the hole in the bread roll.
Whip up some whipping cream and sweeten it, either with sweeteners or with sugar. Pipe(or just splat) some whipped cream onto the bottom of the bread roll. Put the small lid back on, preferrably at an angle and dust your piece of art with some powder sugar.

It's that time: graduation

The summer is definitely here. Yup.
Every day I hear cars honking and beeping randomly, loudly, happily. For people have graduated! It's hopefully one of the best days of their lives.

One of my best friend's mom asked me to bake the cakes for one of her daughters that is graduating this semester. I must say that it was a great honor that they trusted me with this task, instead of turning to a professional bakery and so I was very nervous!

I have covered and decorated cakes before but let's be honest; covering dozens of cakes in a professional kitchen with professional tools and machines is no match. This however took some more skills and patience, but I did it! And I must say that I'm fairly satisfied with the result and befinitely proud that I pulled it off.

The request for flavours were chocolate, vanilla and strawberry and for the decoration to be like a traditional Swedish graduation cap. When the mom tasted the cake she said it was the best cake she's ever eaten - that really warmed my heart. I better save the recipes in case she asks me to do it again. :p

Here's what they ended up looking like:

Lemon Curd

So, what took me so long you ask? Everybody else has already gone bonkers over lemon curd and it's deliciousness. I have no good answer to that question, but this weekend it finally happened... and the bowl was scraped and licked empty(not by me, I promise).

The recipe couldn't have been more simple. I found one that required no separating of eggs and no moment-of-thruth-omg-hurry-! steps. I urge you to try.

All you need is to buy
2 eggs
1,5 dl sugar
2 lemons
50 g butter

and

Put a pot with some water on the stove, set on medium heat to simmer.
Zest the lemons. Squeeze the lemonjuice.
Add eggs, sugar and lemonjuice to a heatproof(metal) bowl, beat it lightly.
Put the heat proof bowl over the simmering pot of water and whisk continiously until it thickens(about 10 minutes), don't let it boil(it will curdle).
When it's thickened enough, pull it off the heat and add the butter, small cubes at a time. stir until the butter has completely melted.
Set to cool.

Ta da!
That was hard, wasn't it? I know, right?

Here's a picture of my first ever lemon curd. Sadly my camera doesn't handle yellows very well.. but it still looks mouth-watering nummy!

Oh, oh, I almost forgot!
If you make this you HAVE to try it with fresh, sweet strawberries. There's no two ways about it! It's amazing! <3