Swedish shortbread cookies

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home, recipe, pictures, baking, cookies, food, bilder, chocolate, swedish, alexandra, allmänt, recept, cinnamon, raspberry, shortbread, småkakor

I made cookies today, yah! Aaaannd they turned out delicious! I only made half the batch because I almost got a heart attack when I realized how much butter a shortbread cookie contains ha ha! I also got the latest issue of Elle Interior today, and this day became a really good Friday :)

Here comes the recipe:

150g butter (or margarine)

1 cup sugar

1 3/4 cup flour

1 Tbsp cold water

1 tsp vanilla

With and electric mixer, mix the sugar, butter and vanilla until light and fluffy. Sift in the flour. Use a spoon, or the dough hooks and mix until the dough starts to come together, add the water and make a ball of the dough with your hands. I made some with raspberry jam, roll the dough into balls and make small indentations with your thumb, spoon the raspberry jam into the holes; Some with chocolate, substitute some of the flour with unsweetened cocoa powder, roll the dough into small balls and flatten them out on a plate with “pärlsocker” on. I don’t know if you can find this type of sugar outside the nordic countries?; And some with cinnamon and sugar on them. Roll the dough into balls and flatten them out in sugar and cinnamon (see the picture above).

Preheat the oven to 350F or 180C, bake for 8-10 minutes depending on size. Let them cold on a tray.

Baking inspiration

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home, recipe, pictures, baking, cooking, bilder, alexandra, inspiration, allmänt

I looked through the posts I have liked and found some posts that inspired me.

PS. If you have a recipe that you think I have to try :) write a comment, and add a link..

These cupcakes are just too cute, I have to make them. Read the post on Mammahannah’s blog

Ok, this isn’t really a recipe, but a really good idea from The Veggie Vore.

Kate & co had done this really cute cookies, why can’t it be Easter twice a year? :)

Look at this cake, I love the idea to decorate with flowers, check it out on The Single Housewife’s blog 

Banana cookies sounds really interesting if you ask me, I think I have to make these too :) Have a look at the recipe on Buttercream and Chantilly Factory

On the blog Eating for England I found this flourless chocolate cake, a great idea! I bet it’s really moist, and it’s perfect if you can’t eat gluten.

It looks like I have to start baking ;)

 

One Batter Two Swiss Rolls

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baking, banan, banana, cake roll, chocolate, choklad, food, hazelnut, home, life, månadens sötsak, pictures, recept, recipe, rulltårta, swiss roll

Coffee syrup

Doesn't look very good, but tastes very good :)

..filled with raspberry jam

I didn’t think I liked swiss roll..but I was wrong :)

I don’t know if Swiss roll/cake roll is the correct translation of rulltårta, but I think so.

Yesterday I came up with the idea to make two kinds of rulltårta at the same time. I made “boxes” out of baking paper, and poured the batter in them.

One of the swiss rolls is filled with raspberry jam, and the other one is a banana cake with chocolate and hazelnut filling.

Honestly, I have never really liked swiss roll. I don’t like the sugar that you “coat” it with, but on the other hand it helps the cake from sticking to the paper/plate :). I have to say that this recipe was really good, and after a second thought – I think I like it.

Recipe:

3 eggs

150 ml sugar

150 ml flour

50 ml corn starch (Potatismjöl är bättre om du har det)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla (vaniljsocker)

2 Tbsp milk

(1 ripe banana, mashed)

..

It’ll take no time to make the batter, so set the oven temperature at 250 degrees celsius.

(if you want to make two swiss rolls: make two “boxes” out of baking paper. otherwise just one. I like to do it this way because I don’t have to clean the baking sheet afterwards :))

With an electric mixer, beat the eggs and the sugar until light and fluffy. Combine flour, cornstarch and baking powder.

Fold in the flour mix into the egg mixture. Add the milk.

(Divide the batter into two bowls. Add the mashed banana to one of the batters.)

Put in the middle of the oven, they’re done after maximum 5 minutes.

When they’re done (check with a tooth pick) – sprinkle with sugar, turn them upside down, and remove the paper. Let them cold when you make the filling.

Filling:

1 Tbsp butter (softened)

2 Tbsp cream cheese

2 Tbsp coccoa powder (not sweetened)

4 Tbsp of powder sugar (you might need more, add more until you think it’s thick enough)

(1 Tbsp coffee syrup, see the picture above)

Mix all the ingredients with an electric mixer.

Spread jam or chocolate filling, and gently roll the cakes. It’s hard to explain, but it’s easier to roll them if you us the baking paper to do so. It seems like the cake doesn’t crack then.

Store them cold.

I think the idea with the cream cheese filling was pretty good, it’s not healthy, BUT it’s better than butter cream :)

 

Swedish pancakes (recipe)

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food, home, pancakes, pannkakor, pictures, reception, recipe

Today we made pancakes. I only post about food these days haha!

Here comes the recipe:
Mix 250 ml of flour with 300 ml milk. Add 3 eggs and whisk. Add another 250 ml of milk + 1 Tbsp melted butter + 1/2 tsp salt.
Fry in a frying pan, you shouldn’t need extra butter/oil.

Serve with jam, ice cream, fruit or something else you like :)

We had pancakes with ice cream for lunch. Erik has a sore throat so we (he) found a very good excuse to eat ice cream :)

Vegetarian pasta bolognese

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bolognese, food, home, life, pasta, Quorn, recipe, vegetarian

We are trying to eat less meat, which today resulted in a vegetarian pasta bolognese. Instead of ground beef we used Quorn.
We fried onion, quorn and grated carrots. Added freshly chopped tomatoes, fresh thymes, canned tomatoes, 1 Tbsp tomato paste, 1/2 cube vegetarian stock, dried basil, salt pepper, water and red wine. Then we let it simmer for about 20 minutes. The difficult part was to get the sauce thick since the quorn is quite different from meat after all. But with some parmesan on top of it it was tasty. :) Bon apetit!

Toffee recipe

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baking, food, recipe, toffee

I thought I could share the toffee recipe. You can see the picture in the post under this one.

150 ml whipping cream
25 g butter
150 g sugar
100 ml light brown molasses
2 tablespoons cocoa powder if you want chocolate toffee.

Put all the ingredients in a saucepan and bring it to boil. Boil for 25 minutes or until: take a glass of cold water drop just a little of the “batter” in the water. Wait 2 seconds. If you can roll the “batter” to a ball it’s ready.. It will become a little harder when it has cooled completely.
When it’s done, put the toffee batter on a sheet of baking paper, but don’t spread it out too much because it tastes better when they’re thicker haha!
After like 45 minutes cut it into pieces and wait until they’re completely cool. Wrap them in paper if you want to. Done :)

…And then I Made a Carrot Cake.

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baking, cake, Carrot cake, cooking, food, pictures, recipe

The other day I made a carrot cake, it was delicious! But I need to find a new recipe, because I think the batch was too small. The cake was absolutely big enough, but sometimes I think bigger cakes look better ha ha! The search for the perfect carrot cake recipe continues..

Healthy Muffins

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baking, banana, carrot, cooking, healthy muffins, pictures, recipe

Yesterday, I made über healthy muffins :). I made two really small batches. First one with carrot, apple, and raisins. Then one with banana, raisins and cardamom. I only added one table-spoon brown sugar to the banana muffin batch, and honestly it worked. I eat far too much sugar, but LOVE muffins. I couldn’t find a good recipe, so I had to think myself, and make them from scratch LOL! BUt it was fun, and it worked = good experience for the future. Tastes even better with a little honey on. Yes Honey is sugar, but I read in a book today that honey can actually balance your blood sugar levels if it’s just a little, and did you know that if you eat nuts like peanuts, you speed up your metabolism, and you’ll burn more calories. Nuts also make you feel full faster than when you eat anyting with sugar in it, and even though they consists more fat and calories, they’re not empty calories. 50-100g peanuts or walnuts is ok according to experts, instead of 100g candy/chocolate etc.

And just because.. I’ll share the muffin recipe :)

Healthy Banana muffins

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 cup potato starch

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cardamom

1 Tbsp brown sugar

Raisins (as much as you like, or none at all)

1 egg

1 mashed banana (ripe)

1/8 cup vegetable oil

1/8 cup milk

Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl, and all the other ingredients in another bowl. Mix together until just mixed, don’t stir too much. 200 degrees celsius for  8 minutes, or until ready. (I like that part “until ready” but some muffins live their own life ;) ) And if you want them sweeter, just add 2 extra table-spooons of sugar.

Bakery review. Part One. Muffin.

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baking, blueberry, cooking, home, life, muffin, pictures, recipe, review

This morning I could DIE for anything tasting like chocolate. My thought: I have to go to that bakery and see if they have some delicious buns, or cookies or just something. Most of all I wanted a brownie. So I walked there. It’s Sunday, but it was open. Yah! I go in, I have a look around, but I see nothing that consists chocolate! WHY! So I ask the lady there if they have brownies, she asked me: what is that? Ok, well it’s Sunday so never mind. I say: I take a muffin, is it apple muffins? She says no, it’s blueberry. Damn! I paid 17kr for the muffin, went home and thought, it must be good.

I come home, open the pretty dull paper bag, and when I hold that stupid muffin in my hand it felt like it could have been an orange – it was VERY compact. I put it on a small plate, and tried to remove the paper, it was difficult, I thought I needed a tea spoon - that was not true. It was very crumby, I would have needed a deep plate bowl and a table spoon. I take the first bite: OH MY GOD! It tasted like someone had mixed cheap low quality flour and shortening. Like something you can buy in the shop at a gas station, like something you just mix with water and put in the oven. Something you eat if you HAVE to. There was like 3 blueberries on the bottom. That was it. Do I want to go there again? I don’t think so! Ok, I’m hard, BUT I’m fair. Ha ha ha ha! This is so rude!

Just to be extra clear, and to explain my dissatisfaction: I have lost 1 kg  the last week - when my nose is blocked, nothing tastes good, and I just don’t think about eating, and when I eat, I stop, because it’s not fun, and this also makes me nauseous 24/7.  So the last three days I have pretty much forced myself to eat stuff I usually eat, because I get really tired if I lose weight too fast, which I hate. And this morning I felt like I was worth something that tasted good. The good thing is that the day is not over yet. :) Now I started to think about that I have to go to the grocery store because I have no food at home. There are no word for how boring I think that is, ha ha! I don’t like huge grocery stores, because it takes sooo long time to walk through the place. But I have written a list :).. tra la la! :)

The Making of Knäck – Some Kind of Swedish Christmas Candy

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2010, candy, christmas, december, life, pictures, recipe, recipes

Boil butter, cream, sugar and sirap, molasses? syrup? I added crushed candy canes.

Make your own facial scrub

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recipe, scrub

I found a “recipe” on how to make your own facial scrub.  I don’t know if this is good, but it worked pretty well. Mix your cleanser with table salt, and voila. Use it as a normal scrub. It peels away dead skin cells, but I don’t know if it’s too harsh on the skin. Anyway it worked better than Nivea’s scrub. I finished with a facial mask.

We went shopping today..

Tags

2010, baking, muffins, recepies, recipe, september, shopping

Me and Susanne went to Malmö today because she had never been there before. It was fun, and different in some way. I bought a pair of rubber boots, and I really like them. They are black and pale pink. They were pretty expensive :S. Then we tried on different things, it was fun. It’s fun when you can think, oh maybe in one year I’ll have a job, not an assistant nurse job, but a “real” job! where I can use all the things I have learned. I tried on that jacket and said, this is what I’m going to wear when I get a job. I really liked that jacket, but since I bought the rubber boots that I really needed I couldn’t afford both, because I have to pay for the pair of glasses I have ordered. I liked that dress too. Susanne bought some clothes, she says it’s very different from Germany here because the shops are different, people often wear just jeans and t-shirts in some basic colors, but here people wear whatever they want. I learned a new sentence in German: Kannst du mir mer über deine familje ertzhälen (means: can you tell me more about your family, but I don’t know how to spell the words, and neither can I pronounce them correctly, there is a weird sound that you make with the back of your tongue..ha ha!) then I wanted to say: I can’t see any babies haha! and that is: Ich kan keine Bebis sehen. I thougt it was fun, and I can’t wait until next Wednesday when the Spanish course starts. Next week we are going to learn more about hypnosis, and that sounds very interesting too.

 We had “fika” or maybe more lunch at Espresso House, and I had a Levin sandwich with chicken, pesto, and ruccola, it was very good, and my favorite drink This Water Orange. Then when I came back I made carrot muffins. I have learned that people who only eat proteins (or maybe I should say try to) get very angry when you eat muffins, or anything that tastes good, it makes them furious. Is that good or bad?

Some biscotti, a cinnamon roll, and a latte..

Tags

biscotti, cinnamon roll, coffee, fika, latte, recipe, recipes

Yesterday I had a cinnamon roll and a latte.. mm.. that was delicious, even though the cinnamon roll tasted cheap. I have  discovered that there is a bakery just next to the local grocery store, the only good thing with that is that I NEVER have cash, and ONLY pay with my card. People get very mad at me when I buy something that costs 7 kr (not even $1) and I want to pay with my card.. this means that I’ll only buy something when I have cash, and that is not very often..

Today I made biscotti. I think the others liked them. Usually I don’t add as much sugar as it says in the recipe, because I don’t like them too sweet, but today I forgot to do that. But they taste good anyway.. Really simple to make too, and that’s why I share the recipe. (I use dl, but if you want to convert into cups click here. Ex. if you want to type in 1,5 you have to type it like 1.5 (not comma)).

75g almonds

40g butter

1,5dl white sugar

1 large egg, or 2 small eggs

3,5dl flour (+ some extra)

1/2 table spoon (tbs) baking powder

1 tbs vanilla (I used vanilla powder)

Put the oven on 200 degrees celsius. When it’s hot, put the almonds on a baking sheet and roast them for approximately 5 minutes, but watch them carefully so they don’t burn.

Mix the sugar and the butter until light and “fluffy” add the egg (eggs) and mix. Chop the almonds and add them to the “batter”, add the flour (mixed with the baking powder and vanilla (if you are using vanilla powder). Mix.

Make two rolls (use some extra flour, it should be sticky), put them on a baking sheet (use waxed paper), use your finger tips to flatten out the dough. Put in the oven until golden, for about 15 minutes. Then take out the baking stick, cut the lengths in as big pieces as you like, spread them out, put them back into the oven, but don’t close the door fully. Wait until they are cold (they’ll dry in the oven), if you can. Store them in an airtight container in room temperature.

And then, I just want to show you how everything started. Yesterday, I remembered I had this picture somewhere, and now I have found it. I think it’s so funny! First I look like a boy, second look at what the ladies are wearing!,  I don’t know what to say, it’s horrible. When I was younger my grandma was looking after me when my parents were working. They had these kinds of ”kaffe rep” every week, my grandma (my mom’s mother) and her friends, and I joined in too ha ha! They taught me how to sew too.. This is usually something I don’t talk about because I think it’s embarrassing, but life is about giving and taking, right? (I’m laughing)