December Daring Bakers Challenge : Whoopie pies

The December Daring Bakers' Challenge had us all cheering - the lovely and talented Bourbonnatrix of Bourbonnatrix Bakes was our hostess and challenged us to make fun, delicious and creative whoopie pies! Delicious little cake-like cookies sandwiching luscious filling in any flavors we chose... What else is there to say but "Whoopie!"

Merry Christmas and truffles

Merry Christmas everybody!! 
Yesterday evening we celebrated Christmas here with great company, lots of great food and lots of great presents! It was soo nice :) I made some sweets this year too : truffles and whoopie pies. These here are the truffles

Gingerbread cake with lingonberry jam

Tomorrow we celebrate Christmas here, so what is more Christmassy than gingerbread? I like the gingerbread cookies but I love soft gingerbread in the form of cake and I think it is perfect for Christmas morning. Lingonberries give something extra to it. Lingonberries are very common here and lingonberry jam is everywhere, I haven’t seen it in any other countries that the Scandinavian ones, but to me it is pretty much like cranberry. This cake is like a classic sponge cake but with buttermilk, jam and spices.  So, here is the recipe:

Vanilla and peppermint Marshmallows

There are only 3 more days left until Christmas! In Sweden Christmas is celebrated in the evening of Christmas eve so it is only two days for me here! So, I decided to make marshmallows, one of my favorite candy. Well, the homemade one is even better, so soft and so fluffy and you know exactly what the ingredients are. It is easy if you have a Kitchen aid or something like that but people like me with a hand mixer, need to be extra patient because it takes a pretty long time to beat it. But I think the result is worth the effort.  Here is the recipe.

Anders Birthday Trilogy #3: Chocolate-Cherry Cupcakes

The last treat I made for Anders Birthday was these cupcakes. They are chocolate cupcakes with cherries in rum, Vanilla Swiss Meringue buttercream and a glace cherry on top. They had a very nice taste, some moist from the cherries and the frosting was delicious. I love everything that has to do with meringue and it also holds its shape very well. 

Anders Birthday Trilogy: #2 Nutella-Chocolate balls

 

The second treat I made for Anders birthday was these amazing chocolate balls filled with nutella, hazelnuts and chocolate wafers. It is again very easy and also delicious. Who doesn’t love Nutella? The finished chocolate ball reminds a lot Ferrero-rocher chocolates. Very nice and it could also be very nice as a Christmas treat. I found the recipe on this site, it is made by this girl who has a very nice blog and is always making very nice things.

Anders Birthday Trilogy: #1 No-Bake Strawberry Cheesecake

On Sunday it was Anders birthday, so, we had a party on Saturday to celebrate among friends and family. I made strawberry cheesecake, cupcakes and nutella-chocolate balls. This cheesecake is my boyfriend’s favorite and it is also very easy to make. I have made it a few times and experimented with the ingredients, until I managed to achieve the proportions we prefer. So, here is the recipe:

Lussekatter ( Santa Lucia saffron buns)

On Friday in Sweden it was Santa Lucia’s day. Children get dressed as Lucia and everybody’s baking and eating lussekatter, saffron buns. They are very nice and fluffy with a nice saffron aroma and taste, very enjoyable with a glass of milk and reminding you that it is soon Christmas. 

Caramel Cookies (kolakakor)

Christmas is almost here and I am in a holiday baking fever. So, today let’s start with something very quick and easy to make but also delicious. It is a Swedish recipe or I think so, because I have only eaten them here in Sweden. I like the buttery taste of these cookies with the hint of caramel from the golden syrup and their texture. They are perfect with a nice hot cup of coffee and you only need about 15 minutes to make them, baking time included.

Banana Oat Bars

Sometimes, I feel the need to make something "healthier" or at least more nutritious and also, I love oat bars. They are perfect for breakfast or as a snack. These oat bars are soft and not too sweet, they are just as much as they need to be. The recipe is coming from my favorite Greek pastry chef and maybe the most famous one in Greece: Stelios Parliaros. He makes all kinds of things from easy to very difficult. I love making his recipes because they always have a perfect balance of everything and some flavor combinations I wouldn’t think about.

This recipe is a really easy one. The original was with mashed strawberries, but my ripe bananas needed to be used instead. They made a great couple with the chocolate chips and I bet they would be also great dipped in chocolate.

Almond paste, orange and chocolate buns & cinnamon buns (kanelbullar)

Here in Sweden, bullar (sweet buns) are the most usual company for coffee. It is a sweet yeast bread with usually, an intense cardamom aroma. There are a lot of different kinds of bullar. The classic one is kanelbulla, the cinnamon bun that you can find everywhere. Of course the homemade version is always the tastiest. This time,except the classic cinnamon buns I made a successful experiment with almond paste, orange and chocolate filling that it has now become one of my favorites. For the dough I used a recipe that I found behind a flour package.

Apple and cinnamon muffins

I love the combination of apple and cinnamon and when I saw this recipe in Nigella’s book, I had to try them. The result was these yummy, moist and great smelling muffins. I did overfill the paper liners though, but they are still delicious. Overflown but delicious.

Almond Biscotti

Sometimes simple things are the best and these biscotti prove that. Their aroma and flavor are amazing and they are perfect for your afternoon coffee or with a glass of wine. Another thing that I love about them is that they keep well for several weeks in an airtight container. The recipe comes from a very nice cookbook: Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies by Alice Medrich.

Chewy Flapjacks

When I first tried flapjacks I didn’t really care about them. But then I ate once more and once more and every time I liked it more and more. I had only tried the ones that you can find in the supermarket so, I decided to learn how to make them on my own. I read some recipes and I saw that the main idea was 1 part sugar, 1 part butter, 1 part syrup and 2 parts oats. So, I gave it a try with Lorraine Pascale’s recipe  and the result was these delicious, chewy bars. I like that they are sweet because they remind me a little of baklava that I miss here! I kept it simple for now because it was the first time I made them but I think I will experiment more with these treats because we absolutely love them! They are great to pair with a cup of  hot black coffee.

Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies

Christmas is not yet here but it feels a little Christmassy to me when I look outside my window and everything is covered with snow. Also, some people have already put on Christmas decorations to their houses and stores. So, to complete my Christmas is coming feeling I baked these cookies. They have an amazing smell and the chocolate with gingerbread is a delicious combination.

The original recipe is from Martha Stewart, but I followed Patricia’s adaptation from here, firstly because I didn’t have any fresh ginger and secondly because I speak metric better and it was easier to me. So, here’s the recipe:

Chicken Pie

Chicken pie is one of my favorite pies and I make it quite often. This dough is a fluffy bread like dough with yoghurt and the filling is with béchamel sauce and chicken and I add whatever else I have available every time. It is also a great and delicious way to use your leftover chicken. So here comes the recipe:

Kladdkaka ( Swedish sticky chocolate cake )

Today it is my name day!! In Greece name day is almost equal to birthday and it is a tradition to celebrate it. You get to eat sweets and you get a gift and people can visit you to wish you Happy Name Day and eat a sweet. Since I am in Sweden now, where name days are not celebrated, I don't get to celebrate it but at least I made a sweet for us to make this day a little more special.

This sweet is a brownie type cake, very common here in Sweden and easy to make. If you don't want to cover it with chocolate ganache you can just put some confectioner's sugar on the top. This is the common way to eat kladdkaka anyway and you can serve it with whipped cream or ice cream. So here goes the recipe:

Chocolate filled rabbit cookies

Well, I wanted to make some cute cookies for the christening so I found this page. It has so many cute things. So, I chose a recipe for petit-beurre cookies and then filled them with a ganache of my own. They turned out really nice and chocolatey because I maybe put a little too much filling. Perfect  with a cup of coffee and even better when you dip them in cold milk.

Truffles

Truffles are one of my favorite sweets and they were a hit in the christening. I love chocolate and even more melt in the mouth chocolate. They are very simple and easy to make, the only thing that takes time is the leaving time in the fridge and also, if you want to coat them with chocolate, but in my opinion it's worth the effort.

Raspberry Mazariner

Mazariner are a classic “fika” (something like a sweet with your coffee). The version that I made with raspberry jam is called “Catalan”. So, if you want to make normal, usual mazariner just skip the jam and the pink colour on the glaze.

Christening in Norway

 

The weekend that passed we went to North Norway for the Christening of my boyfriend’s niece.  It was nice and cozy inside and very cold and snowy outside. There were ten different kinds of baked goods and also four cakes. A lot even for 50 people. Everything was pink and tasted great though. I made three of them: chocolate truffles with white chocolate coating, mazariner which is a type of tart with almond paste filling, mine had also raspberry jam and rabbit cookies filled with chocolate ganache. Recipes follow.

Fluffy Pizza

Who doesn’t love pizza? Pizza is one of our favorite dinners here and of course, homemade pizza is always the best. I have tried a lot of pizza dough recipes. This, is the one that I prefer when I want my pizza to be fluffy (that is most of times). The Italian herbs and the garlic give the dough a nice aroma. You can skip it if you want but I recommend you give it a try.

Apple filled cookies

I found the recipe for these cookies in this amazing blog. Whatever I have baked from there was always a success. These cookies are like small apple pies and smell and taste amazing!! So, here is the recipe.

Rum & Raisins muffins

Autumn is officially here. Sky is gray most of the time, it is raining almost every day here and all these are creating a sense of sweet melancholy which I love.

These muffins, I believe go well with this Autumn feeling and of course a cup of hot coffee.