Monday, December 31, 2012

Chocolate Crinkles {last minute recipe}

Hi Sweets,


I know it's supper dupper late for recipes and stuff, I just remembered I did not post the Crinkles recipe and it's sooooo good!! When I first saw them, I thought they looked cute and that's it. I'm not the biggest chocolate fan, but I tried them for my love, knowing he would love them. 
If you are skeptical, like me, just give them a try!!! The moist and fluffy interiour will surprise you and you will hardly resist them, ones you tried one... 


INGREDIENTS (Recipe from Laura Adamache)
  • 225 grams of dark chocolate (high quality)
  • 60 grams of unsalted butter
  • 100 grams of caster sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 225 grams of plain flour
  • vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp of baking powder
  • A pinch of salt
  • Caster sugar and icing sugar for decorating

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Mix the flour, baking soda and salt. Whip the eggs with the sugar  until they get a light colour and double their volume. Melt the chocolate with the butter and when it cools, add it to the egg mixture, whip well, then add the flour mix and vanilla extract. Leave the batter for at least 3 hours in the fridge or over night. 


2. Form walnut sized balls and roll them first in caster sugar, then in icing sugar. Place them on a tray lined with baking paper. 

3. Bake them in the oven at 
170°C 
for max. 10 minutes!!! They must keep a moist center so don't overbake them. Let them cool in the tray, because they are still very fragile&soft, then place them on a plate.







4. The cracks come with the baking. 

Don't they look lovely?
xo


Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Have yourself a merry little Christmas...

Happy holidays!!! 
Hope you all get to spend this beautiful days with your loved ones. We couldn't make it to our homeland this year, to celebrate with the family so it's just the two of us.. even though, this Christmas is really magic...

I've been missing lately and I'm sorry my calender got interrupted... we've been a 'lil busy, so we really enjoy this peaceful days, having this festive atmosphere in the house, with Christmas Carols singing all along, candles lighting, cookies in the jars..

So this is what's been going on lately...after starting December with looooots of snow, we had a rainy, warm Christmas / my first pull-apart Cinnamon bread / soft pretzels / 'lil calender filling 
Brânzoaice or romanian sweet cheese pies / delicious home made soy latte / glitter nails / cinnamon stars
Heading to a Russian Christmas party-so much fun! / cheesecake with peach / 3rd Advent weekend / delicious veggie  "meetball" soup

And for the rest days of Christmas...


          ...obviously I baked on the last day before Christmas
                  I'm such a last-minute person..hmm...
  
   More food...some traditions must be held wherever you are: sarmale (forcemeat rolls in cabbage leaves) and our beloved smiling sandviches. When I was little, we allways had friends over for the holidays, so we made tons of sandviches like fingerfood for us, kids. The leftovers taste way better in the morning, ha ha ha!







our tiny, happy, little baby Christmas tree...it's soooo cute!!


Monday, December 10, 2012

Royal Christmas Market

Hi guys!
How have you spent your weekend? 
We visited the Royal Christmas Market at the Castle of Hohenzollern. I'm a big fan of this markets (of any kind of markets actually :p) and how we don't live that far away we made a little trip to Hechingen and visited the castle. 
As one of our lazy habits, we had big difficulties to get out so we only arrived there at 18.30 p.m. Much too late for beautiful pictures but in time for what it had to offer.

As a little pre-information I read that it was supposed to be one of Germany's nicest Weihnachtsmarkt but I wasn't that impressed. By the market. 
The castle is beautiful!!! 
We surely will go back there again, maybe for the Spring Awakening, cause you really have a gorgeous view up there. 
For history lovers, you'll find the artifacts of Prussians as it belonged to them. 
Back to our trip, we were freezing and so happy to find warm bites as pizza&fries. The smell of Glühwein only deceived us, but  in spite of the frost we spent a couple of magic ours, enjoying the festive air. 



   
    Baby's little gift of yesterdays calender

  and a last view of the magic night...



Are you a fan of Christmas markets?

Saturday, December 8, 2012

We've been good!!!

Yes! We've been so good this year, that St.Nicholas came by. Yeey!!! We had a kiddy morning, ejoying our fuuull boots. 
I remember when I was little and really cleaned my boots and the joy of finding them filled... Oh, childhood is such a great period! So, why should we let it end? No way! I don't know how others are, but we are still children :). 

Seee????? We'll never grow up, ha ha ha!

Baby's been soooo good this year! 



me too!

and since I've been so lazy sleepy that night day 7 of our calender was also opened ;) 
Have a blessed rest of the weekend!!! 
xo :)

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Day 4, MY DAY

Day 4 of our calender was my day. My surprise waited on the handle of the door and was a hand-made "coupon" for me from my lovely husband. I could choose how to spend the day, where I wished to eat and he even promised I could drag him in so many stores I wanted. This means a lot! Only yesterday, he told me how awfully boring he finds shopping. No matter where! And this comes  from a man who neeeeever gets bored. 
It was a perfect day, I was in the mood for chinese, and hubby didn't had to bear the shopping-torment :). 




for hubby's sake we only did some window shopping and discovered...bunnies!!?



matchy matchy :)


Hope you all had such a wonderful day! Sleep tight...



Monday, December 3, 2012

3. Day of December, first snow and first OOTD

Hello, hello!
I must confess! We stayed this whole weekend in the cozy house and had no idea what's going on outside. So when I went out today, (cause I had to) I had a shock of how "winter" it was out there... 

So much snow, flurry and that deep winter smell...  
Although I'm not a huge snow-expecter I liked it so much! 

I even had my outfit blended with the winter landscape: all black&white.  It was a good choice for this day, confortable for the many errands I had to make and cozy warm for the cold day.
pants&bag-Pimkie, jacket-Kenvelo, boots-Schuhtempel, hat-H&M and scarf-Mama's gift




the child in me just had to do an angel...ha ha ha!

and my sweetheart opened his first own Adventcalender gift!He's so cute!



I'm ready to donate some snow to all those who wish for it! :)

Sunday, December 2, 2012

1. Advent Sunday = 2. Advent calender gift

What a lovely Sunday...Now how it's December it's ok to listen to Christmas Carols. Actually, you can listen carols whenever you're in the mood too ;). 
I can't get enough of them, have tousands "in stock" so we listened to carols, while outside it was snowing, lit our first candle of the Advent wreath and enjoyed the cozy day.
Speaking of, the 2. "door" of our calender opened and had a task for both of us.

so we had to stop beeing so very sunday-lazy and get crafty..
I almost hotglued my fingers, hubby is still totally confused and having no freakin' idea what this all is about, needless to say the calender is  a huge mistery for him. 
He's like: "Who?!?what?!?how? when?!? gifts?!?huh?!???"
He's sooo cute!!! 

tadaaaaaa 


we chose the color of the candles taupe because we saw some really nice Christmas tree globes in this color so we might use it more this holiday. 

Hope you all had a cozy,lazy,great Sunday and wish you a happy Advent time! 

Saturday, December 1, 2012

First day of December, Advent calender and Happy National Day, Romania!


Hi, winter lovers!
Today was the 1. December! Do you like winter? I.....do... 
Okay, I must admit, I'm not such a winter fan, but since my absolute favourite day is the 24th I love this season. Why  I love Christmas eve so much? You'll see on that day ;) 
For me it would be ideal if winter only would last 1 month.. 'cause this cold isn't too cozy. But with all the holidays and gifts and crafts and just the time spent with our dear ones, you can't fight it, you just LOOOOVE IT! 

Have you made an  Advent calender? 

The first time I saw one was when I was a little girl, back in Romania and some german friends brought us one of those filled with chocolate. Stupidly they only brought us one, so my sister and I had to wait two days, so each could open and eat a chocolate a day. Then we grew and dropped it. 

Here in Germany, the tradition of the Advent calender is SUPER POPULAR, not only for kids. Most commonly if you are a craftperson, you would build one and fill it with candy and little gifts. 

Beside sweets&gifts our calender is also filled with tasks and other surprises like today. 




Our first "surprise" was a candle light dinner with self made Viennese Apple Strudel & Vanilla sauce which was only the start of a cozy evening...


1. December is also the National Day of Romania
So, I wish a happy day to all romanians out there!!!


Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Sweet November {in pics}

Hi, guys!!
I've been so lazy lately.. having a lot of free time is really unusual for me. When I worked 48 hours a week, I always dreamed about having more time to dedicate to my blog. And now..I had so much of it that I couldn't believe it. I thought I would put 3 posts online per day, and I've been just lazy, chilling with my babe and really enjoying this magic days. Sorry for that, I know I'm not responsable enough just yet, but that's also because I hmm.... I wanna be honest, I don't feel like I 100 % connect with my blog. Don't get me wrong! I just need to find my right direction, that will represent me how I am. I'm on it! Promiss :) 

Here are some pics to prove that I'm still alive... and happy! :)  
Oh, yes it was a very sweet November...
                                 LEFT: My official photo-face since I was little
             RIGHT: just kidding... :)

  walking & fooling around (suuuch unsharp photos)

  
  B in the GREEN MOOD :P

    ...and today the cherry on the cake was hubby's birthday. We celebrated through all the weekend and played a lot cause.. "Ohhh, how great that my gift is a toy, and not some sweaaater"- my best half.

            aaaand the birthday cake:


chocolate-haselnuts cake with cherrys and vanilla cream 
=> some self invention... but a succesfull Y.U.M. experiment 







Sunday, November 11, 2012

ECLAIRS.... My post for "Maria sucht..."



Celebrating her Blogbirthday, Maria called everyone who loves to cook or bake to reinterpret one of her recipes. I spent many hours trying to decide which recipe I wanna bake. The finalists were a brownies-cheesecake and THE dessert I am crawing for since I was a kiddo...ÉCLAIRS. 
Yep! I found my winner!! BUT, I must say a was a lil' bit scared of all the threats here around that I would fail. SO what? If I fail...I get to eat them anyway, just more ugly, ha ha. 
I also never took part of  such a contest, so I found my occupation for this dark & rainy Sunday! 


ÉCLAIRS
               (for 6-8 pieces)
80 ml milk
80 ml water
70 g Butter
1 pinch of salt
10 g sugar
100 g flour
2 eggs

200 ml cream
30 g powdered sugar
 half of a vanilla bean

chocolate glaze

1. Put the milk and water into a pot, add the butter, salt and sugar and stir over high heat until the butter has melted. Bring it to boil for 2-3 seconds. Remove the pan from the heat and add the flour all at once into the hot liquid. First carefully fold the flour, then stir vigorously for so long, until the dough is firm. 
2. Put the pot on the stove again. Stir strongly for 30-60 seconds until the dough dissolves from the pot edge and no longer sticks to the spoon. Put the dough into a mixing bowl and let it  cool slightly. Beat the eggs and gradually stir into the batter until it shines strongly.
3. Fill the finished dough into a piping bag with a large opening and spray Éclaires  on a baking sheet. Let at least 3 cm between the dough rollers, so that the air can circulate well during baking.
4. Bake the eclairs like this and you won't fail:
   - for 20 min at 200° C
   - for the next 10 min at 180° C
   - for the last 10 minutes open a small gap (with a wooden  
     spoon stuck in the door) so that air can escape.
5. Let them cool down then fill them with your favourite cream (mine is vanilla pudding) and glaze the eclairs with chocolate.



Later Edit: 170 pictures later I was exhausted, with a kitchen looking lot worse than a battlefield and happy... and   we ate them celebrating hubby's sis' 20th birthday!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HEIDY!!!:*



DE:
Zufällig bin ich auf Marias Blog "Ich bin dann mal kurz in der Küche" gelandet, genau als sie ihre Bloggeburtstagswoche feierte und diesen Contest startete. Sie rief zum Nachkochen oder Nachbacken eines ihrer Rezepte und weil ich auch noch nie bei so 'nem Gewinnspiel teilgenommen hatte, warum nicht?
Das Durchstöbern ihres schönen Blogs hat schon paar Tage gedauert, am Ende waren in meinem Top zwei Rezepte: Himbeer-Brownies-Cheesecake und Éclairs. 
Beide sind Dessert-Favoriten, jedoch ist es eine große Seltenheit gute  Éclairs zu finden. Außerdem war ich ein wenig abgeschreckt wegen ihrer Schwierigkeitsgrades also sah ich es auch als eine Herausforderung. 
Und die Preise sind auch ganz nett, vor allem jetzt, mit der Weihnachtsbäckerei die sich ankündigt... 
Noch mehr Gründe? 
Die sündige Lust diese feine gefüllte Himmels-Teig-Wölkchen endlich zu genießen...seit meiner Kindheit so begehrt...


Das Rezept findet ihr in Marias Küche. Alles ist da so genau erklärt dass ich nichts mehr hinzufügen würde. 


Vielleicht nur ein paar meiner persönlichen Tipps.
  • das Mehl 2x sieben
  • beim Backen die ersten 20 Minuten bei 200° C backen, die nächsten 10 Minuten bei 180° C und für die letzten 10 Minuten die Tür ein wenig öffnen. 
Das war auch alles was ich anders gemacht habe. 
Ach, und die Creme aus  Sahnepudding und Sahne gemischt,einfach weil sie in meinen Kinderträumen mit reichlichem Pudding gefüllt waren. 




Later edit: 170 Fotos später war ich müde, mit einer Küche schlimmer aussehend als ein Schlachtfeld und glücklich...