Newest Baby

Gorgeous and BIG book with lots of yummy things I can't wait to bake! BAKED.

photos © Russian Doll

Mint Chocolate Chip ... things/

I'm a sucker for mint chocolate chip things. Can you tell? Especially ice cream!

Friday Sweetness

Just some pretty sweetness to look at this Friday. Have a nice weekend with plenty of treats! X

More coffee!

"Tiramisu Cupcakes
white cupcakes (recipe follows)
espresso chocolate mousse (recipe follows)
1/4 cup coffee or espresso
mascarpone frosting (recipe follows)
cocoa powder for dusting
crushed ladyfingers for garnish

White Cupcakes

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup cake flour (you can use all-purpose if you need)
1 TBSP. baking powder
1 tsp salt
½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup whole milk
5 egg whites

Sift together flours, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.
In a mixing bowl (if using a stand mixer use the paddle attachment), cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Add vanilla extract and beat until incorporated.
In a liquid measuring cup, combing vegetable oil and milk.
Add flour mixture and milk/oil mixture alternatively to the mixing bowl. Beating on low speed after each addition.
Pour mixture into a large bowl. Scrape down to make sure you get all of the batter.
Clean out bowl and switch to whisk attachment.
Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Fold 1/3 of the egg whites into the batter, to “lighten” the batter. Gently fold in the remaining egg whites.
Grease and lightly flour muffin pans. Fill each cup half full.
Bake at 375 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes or until done.
Cool on a wire rack.

Espresso Chocolate Mousse

2 cups chilled heavy cream
4 large egg yolks
4 TBSP sugar
2 tsp espresso powder
8 oz fine-quality semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

Heat ¾ cup cream in a 1-quart heavy saucepan until hot.
Whisk together yolks, sugar, espresso powder, and a pinch of salt in a metal bowl until combined well, then add hot cream in a slow stream, whisking until combined.
Transfer mixture to saucepan and cook over moderately low heat, stirring constantly, until it registers 160°F on thermometer. Pour custard through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl.
Melt chocolate in a double boiler, stirring frequently. Whisk custard into chocolate until smooth, then cool.
Beat remaining 1 ¼ cups cream in a bowl with an electric mixer until it just holds stiff peaks. Whisk one fourth of cream into chocolate custard to lighten, then fold in remaining cream gently but thoroughly.

Mousse recipe adapted from Gourmet December 2002
Mascarpone Frosting

2 cups heavy whipping cream
8 ounces Mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
1 ½ cups powdered sugar

Using and electric mixer, whip the cream until stiff peaks form.
In a mixing bowl, fold 2/3¢â¬â„¢s of the whipped cream into the Mascarpone cheese, along with the powdered sugar.
Add remaining cream. Blend until cream is fully incorporated.
Place in refrigerator until ready to frost.

Assemble:
Using the cone method, fill cupcakes with Espresso Chocolate Mousse filling. Place top back on top of cupcakes. Brush top of cupcake with coffee or espresso. Go light on this as they are fresh cupcakes, and not hard like most ladyfingers. You don’t want to soak them.
Frost top with Mascarpone Frosting.
Sprinkle cocoa powder on top of cupcakes and garnish with crushed ladyfingers."

Recipe and picture quoted from here.

Coffee Mousse Cravings and Inspo.

After spotting these in M&S during the week. I'm reaaaally craving coffee mousse! Don't think I've ever had it but I love mousse and I love coffee even more so sounds like a combination made for me. Above are some inspiration photos that I found online. You can do a lot of pretty stylish things with a coffee themed dessert!

Other heart shapes...

More inspiration for Valentine's Day. Anything is cute in a heart shape.

Thinking about love

I've started thinking of things to bake for Valentine's day for my man and myself. He's not a massive cake fan but he does like pastry! I'm thinking a blueberry millefeuille like lovely Lorraine Pascal made on her new show "Baking made easy" (which I absolutely love by the way!). But maybe I could make it heart shaped like the one below...

Ingredients

• 115g/4oz icing sugar, plus extra for dusting

• 250g/9oz shop-bought puff pastry

• 200g/7oz (or 1 punnet) blueberries

For the sweetened cream

• 165ml/5½fl oz whipping cream

• 25g/1oz icing sugar

• 1 vanilla pod, seeds only (or alternatively 2 drops of vanilla extract)

• 1 lemon, finely grated zest and a squeeze of the juice

Preparation method

1. Line a large baking tray with greaseproof paper. Dust the work surface with lots of icing sugar and roll out the pastry to a rectangle just larger than 27 x 30cm/10½ x 12in, trimming the edges straight. It should be super thin, as thin as you can get it, without stretching the pastry.

2. Cut out 18 rectangles about 9cm/3½in long and 5cm/2in wide and place them on the prepared baking tray. Sprinkle with lots of icing sugar and put in the fridge for 30 minutes.

3. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.

4. Remove the pastry from the fridge and bake in the oven for five minutes, then remove from the oven and sprinkle the pastry with more icing sugar. Return to the oven and bake for a further five minutes, or until the pastry turns golden-brown. Remove from the oven and set aside.

5. For the sweetened cream, put the cream, icing sugar and vanilla in a large bowl and whip until medium-stiff peaks form when the whisk is removed from the bowl. Fold in the lemon zest and juice, to taste, then scoop the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm/½in straight nozzle.

6. Place one of the pastry thins on a serving plate. Pipe blobs of cream over the pastry and put the blueberries between the cream, then put another pastry thin on top and repeat with one more layer. Sprinkle the top layer with more icing sugar and repeat until all the pastry and cream is used up.

Recipe from here.

Close Ups!

Close ups of some of the goodies that put me and my friends in a sugar coma...

photos © Russian Doll

Finally! Pics from my b-day Cake Party :)

We have...
Saffron buns with "Mandelmassa" (Almond paste) and white chocolate!
Rainbow cupcakes
Carrot Cake
Apple Cake
Double Chocolate Chip Cookies
White Chocolate & Raspberry Cookies

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

photos © Russian Doll

Junk Foodie !

This looks like a fun and colourful baking book for all candy and baking lovers out there! I might buy this!

"Got a peanut butter cup, a Fruit Roll-Up, and a bag of chips? Voila--Truffled Berry Praline Purses!

Passing off a snack attack as fine food is as easy as a trip to the corner convenience store with the wildly imaginative culinary creations in Junk Foodie. Featuring fifty-one recipes designed to turn the most outrageous of snacks into delicious(-looking) "gourmet" morsels, you'll be able to fool even the most discerning palates at your next dinner party.

But why wait for a dinner party? Since the ingredients are easy to find in your average vending machine, you can save money—and treat yourself to a sublime snack whether you're on the road, in between meetings, or en route to dinner at a four-star restaurant—(it's important to satisfy your junk food joneses; just don't get caught with sticky fingers)!"

Chocolate made by me.

A few months ago, my mum and I took a chocolate course with the lovely Mia Öhrn at Medborgarskolan in Stockholm. These are the chocolates that we made.
The big round one with a coffee cup on is *surprise surprise* coffee flavoured.
The white one is lemon-white chocolate-poppy seed.
The rectangular one is Rum-dark chocolate.
And the other round one is hazelnut-roasted coconut-milk chocolate.
All yummy! :)

photos © Russian Doll

Just telling you

Just telling you about my third blog on this account. I'm still keeping this one and my Russian Doll blog of course, but just wanted to do this little thing aswell. Check it out here.