Let's keep this blog alive 2.

Hi everyone!

Hope you are well. Here in Sweden it is getting colder and the leaves are turning red. I think I'm having a small cold going on but exept that everything is good.

The apples are delicious here now and it is not impossible to find different kinds of Swedish apples in the stores now :) I have a cake I like to make if I have apples that are a bit too sour to eat as they are (of course you can take any apples).

Fyri's cake (Apple Sponge Cake)

125g stick margarine or butter
2/3 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoons milk

3-4 medium apples

1-2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Oven temp: 175 C/350 F

Grease and flour a 24cm (10 inch) springformpan.

Melt the butter and let it cool. Beat the sugar into the butter. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Combine the dry ingredients and add alternately with the milk. Pour into the prepared pan.

Peel the apples, if desired, and cut into thin wedges. Puch the wedges into the batter in a pinwheel pattern. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon (or another spice like cardamom, brown sugar works well too, try what you have at home!). Bake on a low oven rack for around 30-40 minutes. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream.

Fyri's cake and coffee = a great fika!

Take care!

Karin

My Love Affair with Peanut Sauce

While you are more than familiar with gado-gado (yeah, the vegetable salad + peanut sauce), my recent trip back home to Indonesia made me realize how much I love foods with peanut sauce! Funnily enough, I'm not a big fan of roasted peanuts and so-so with peanut butter. Both of these are my favorites beyond gado-gado:

Siomay


Ketoprak

Simple 4th of July Brownies

Happy 4th of July. Today is Independence Day in the USA. We Wonder Lake"rs" enjoy the day by going to see the small town parade and our national winning water skiing team!! Tonight there will be fireworks after sunset.

In the meantime, we do our best to bring our families and friends together to BBQ and one of the desserts that is a must is our famous gooey and thick brownies. Check this recipe out.

The Ultimate Brownie is my absolute favorite brownie. It is tall like a cakey-brownie, but is dense like a fudgy-brownie.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

• 8- 1 ounce squares of unsweetened chocolate
• 1 cup butter
• 5 eggs
• 3 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1-1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2-1/2 cups chopped pecans or walnuts, toasted (optional)
• powdered sugar
  

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 13 pan.

Melt chocolate and butter in a saucepan over low heat; set aside. In a mixer, beat eggs, sugar and vanilla at high speed for 10 minutes**. Blend in chocolate mixture, flour and salt until just mixed. Stir in the nuts. Pour into prepared pan.

Bake for 35-40 minutes. (Don't overbake.) Cool and frost if desired, but that is not necessary. Top with a light sprinkling of powdered sugar!

Jordgubbstårta

The perfect dessert for Midsummer!

Cake

4 eggs

2 dl sugar

1 dl flour

1 dl potatoflour

1 teaspoon baking powder

Heat the oven to 175 C. Whip eggs and sugar white and fluffy. Mix the dry ingredients in an other bowl. Mix everything and pour the batter into a round baking pan (butter the pan before). Bake it in the bottom of the oven in 30-40 min. Let the cake cool before you take it out from the pan.

Cut the cake in two (horisontally). Mush fresh strawberries and put them between the layers. Whip cream and put it on top, decorate with a lot of fresh strawberries!

Enjoy!

Es Teler

One of my favorite desserts from hot & humid Indonesia =) Though nothing can beat fresh fruits, canned ones will do just fine!

Ingredients:

Canned jackfruit (drain and chopped into size of a dice)

Canned young coconut (drain and cut in half)

Fresh avocado (spoon into smaller bits)
White sugar

Sweetened condensed milk

(Crushed) ice

Put the fruits in a bowl, add sugar, condensed milk, a little bit of water, and lots and lots of (crushed) ice!

Mix everything together & enjoy!!!

Way Too Easy Peach Cobbler

125 g butter
1 cup (125 g) flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (200 g) sugar
1 cup (200 ml) milk
3-4 tablespoon shredded coconut
1 big can of peaches (circa. 800 g), cut in slices

Preheat oven to 175 C, place butter in baking dish, put it in the oven until the butter completely melts.
While waiting, mix flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, milk, & shredded coconut.
When the melted butter is ready, take the baking dish out from the oven & pour the batter evenly, topped it with peaches.
Bake for 50-60 minutes until brown.

Tips: reduce the amount of sugar if you want to serve the cobbler with vanilla ice cream. Yum!

A picture ....

...say more than 1000 words... =)

Lets go to Lake Mälaren!

Hej! On Saturday, a friend and I rode our bikes to the Lake Mälaren and it was so peaceful and beautiful! Join me next time won’t you =]

And! Did you know there are castles around the lake. Mälarslott is a collection of palaces around Lake Mälaren, that are open to visitors. They all receive groups, and most of them also receive individual visitors. Here are palaces with immence cultural treasures, royal palaces, private castles, palaces that serve as a hotel or as a museum. The span, from Stockholm in the East to Strömsholm in the West, is approximatly 150 kilometers. http://www.malarslott.se/index_eng.htm

DC's very own word clouds

apparently words such as add, yeast, & tablespoons are some of the words we use most frequently in this blog!

if you have nothing better to do go to www.wordle.net & trust me, it's so much fun just to play around with designing the word clouds.

love,
i-know-i-have-lots-of-things-to-do-but-this-feels-better-to-do natasha

title="Wordle: Deli Conversation"> src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/686209/Deli_Conversation"
alt="Wordle: Deli Conversation"
style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd">

Mitt bröd - My bread

Hi everyone!

Here is the "recipe" to my bread. I have to point out that I don't use a recipe when I do the bread..so this is more or less how much I think I use of the different ingredients... ;)

Start with dividing the fresh yeast into small "crumbs", take 25g yeast (half a package). Take five deciliters of warm water ("body temperature" (37 c) not to hot! Then you "kill" the yeast!) and mix it with the yeast. You can heat some milk and have that instead of the water, or mix water and milk...important is that it is 37 c when you pour it over the yeast (it is easy to find out if the water/milk is hot enough -use your finger!).

Then add something sweet (syrup, honey..) about 2 tablespoons. The yeast is "triggered" with the sweet, do not skip it! Also add something fat (oil or butter), if you add butter you first melt it and then add the milk/water to the melted butter and reheat that to 37 c (and then pour it over the yeast etc..). About 2 tablespoons fat too. The last thing to add which is a "must" for the dough to work properly is salt. About a teaspoon.

Now to the things you can vary almost to eternity ;)
Sunflower-seeds, crushed flax-seeds, cumin, other spices like fennel etc and of course flour! Different kinds of flour, use what you have at home. It is good to have in mind that the bread proves best on wheat-flour, I always have some wheat-flour. The amount of flour is about 7-9 decilitres. The dough don't have to be perfect (meaning; absolutely non-sticky) because you can add more flour when making the buns. Leave the dough to rest for about 30 min when you have added some flour.

After 30 min, add more flour if necessary, knead the dough and make buns (in the size you feel is nice). When you are done with the buns, turn on the oven at 200 c and put the buns in the oven - before it is hot. It is a perfect environment in the oven for some more proving/"growing" of the buns. Look at them every 5 min, depending on how fast your owen heats it will take different amount of time. When the bread is done (golden brown surface, and also lift them and look under, should be brown as well) take it out of the oven and enjoy!

And if I have written something that is completely impossible to understand, please tell me!
Kram!

A recipe

..to celebrate that we lived through the (last?!?) home exam ;)

It was a long time ago since I did these cookies, but they are one of my favourites! And the mix of ingredients are just as good as the finished cookes...hehe.. Really easy to make too.

Oatmeal lace cookies

(about 30)

75 g (5 tablespoons) margarine or butter (smör)

1 dl (1/3 cup) flour

1 dl (1/3 cup) rolled oats (havregryn)

1 dl (1/3 cup) sugar

2 tablespoons light cream or milk

2 tablespoons light syrup (sirap)

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Do like this;

Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Add the remaning ingredients. Heat, stirring constantly, until slightly thickened. Spoon mounds onto a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake in the center oven rack for around 5 min, 200 C/400 F. They will float out quite alot, that's just how it is supposed to be :) Let cool.

Mums!

Enjoy and have a lovely weekend!!

Kramar

Something to look forward to :)

Snödroppe - "snow-drop" Galanthus nivalis

Blåsippa - Hepatica nobilis

Snödroppe - Galanthus nivalis

Vintergäck - Eranthis hyemalis

Vitsippor - Anemone nemorosa

Krokus- Crocus vernus

Vitsippa - Anemone nemorosa

Vasaloppet!

Today about 13 000 people are skiing from Sälen to Mora in Dalarna, 90 km. This is broadcasted direct on TV and I have my own tradition concerning this. It is the Vasalopps-breakfast ;) maybe nothing special but I eat my breakfast in front of the TV and cheers for the Swedish skiiers. The start is at 8.00 in the morning and for the professionals the 90 km takes about 4 hours to finish, for the more "normal" people it takes from 6-10 hours. It all depends on the weather and how good the tracks are and of course if you have good stamina and condition.

The Vasalopp started in 1922 and it is a memory of what the king Gustav Wasa did. He skiied, accoding to the story, from Mora to Sälen (but now they ski the other way..). It is a traditional "manhood test", since the 1980's also allowed for women to participate. The women also have their own Vasalopp, Tjejvasan, it is the last 30 km of the Vasalopp.

more info;http://www.vasaloppet.se/wps/VasaCMS/generated/resources.Startsidan/startsidan/en/2.htmltartsidan/en/2.html

Have a nice day!

Kram

One Big Happy Family

say "omelette"!!!

Recipe for the Semla :)

(10-15 semmel-buns)



100g margarine or butter
3 dl (1 1/4 cups) milk
50g (1 3/4 ounces) fresh yeast or 2 tablespoons
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 dl (1/3 cup) sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
scant 1 liter (4 cups) all-purpose flour

Brushing; 1 egg lightly beaten
Filling; 150g almond paste/mandelmassa, crumbs from inside of buns, milk
Garnish; 2 dl (3/4 cup) whipping cream and powdered sugar on top!


Do like this;
Melt the butter and add the milk. Heat to 37 C (100 F). If using dry yeast heat to 45 C. Crumble the yeast in a large bowl and add salt, sugar, milk mixture and egg. Combine baking powder and flour and add, kneading until smooth and elastic. Cover and let rise for 30 min in a bowl.

Knead it on a lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic. Form round balls. Place on a greased parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover and let rise until the size is about doubled. After that brush with beaten egg and bake in the oven (250 C/450 F) for 8-10 min. Let cool.

Prepare the filling and the rest you might remember ;)




If you maybe wonder why this recipe is more detailed than the others you have got from me it is because I have bought a book called Swedish cakes and cookies (Sju sorters kakor in Swedish, means Seven kinds of cookies). A real classic cooking book. First I though I should give it to someone of you, but I couldn't decide who...but then I figured that it would be better if I shared the recipes with you all on the blog instead! Hope you think it is a good idea ;)

Many kramar!

Karin

Happy semla!

Thank you Karin for the amazing semla. You are always so nice to us. Hope we can have more gathering and "delicious" talk. Wish our friendship forever!

Happy belated Valentine's Day Everyone!!

Valentine's Day is not only about being with your significant others!

On this day, we can take time to think about all of those people in our life who make the little differences. These past 6 months, I have met so many caring and loving people and I cannot be more happy than to be spending time with you!!

Love and Hugs *muah*
April
xoxoxox

Delicious Conversation on tour!

To the cold and beautiful Borlänge in Dalarna! :D

We are cooking and working really hard. The hard work makes the food taste even better ;) not like it didn't taste good before though .. haha ..

Hugs to you my friends, you are wonderful!

Happy Groundhog's Day

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning -- meaning 6 more weeks of winter.


I went to high school in Woodstock, Illinois where the movie "Groundhog Day" was filmed. I was a little kid at the time.

The town celebrates "Groundhog Days" at the beginning of every February, including tours of famous filming sites from the 1993 movie. The town now even has its own groundhog named "Woodstock Willie", who essentially performs the same tasks as "Punxsutawney Phil" at the site of the original Groundhog Day festival. Every year on the weekend of Groundhog Day, the Classic Cinemas Woodstock Theater shows Groundhog Day for free.

Let's Keep This Blog Alive

The first month of 2009 is over. Welcome February! If you have any unpublished recipes, now it's time!!!

Pecan Pie Bars

* preheat oven to 175 C

125 g butter
200 g flour
50 g sugar
a pinch of salt

* soften the butter using mixer then slowly add flour, sugar, and salt. continue until the mixture resemble coarse crumbs. press firmly into square pan (first cover the sides & bottom of the pan with baking paper). bake for 20 mins.

2 eggs
180 ml light corn syrup
150 g sugar
20 g margarine melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
150 g chopped pecans

* beat the eggs first then add everything else until well-blended. spread the filling evenly over the hot crust. continue baking for 25-30 mins. let cool and refrigerate for few hours before serving.

Cheesecake Bars

* instead of using pecans as filling, cream cheese will make perfect cheesecake bars!

50 g sugar
225 g cream cheese
15 ml lemon juice
30 ml milk
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 tablespoon shredded coconut

* beat together sugar & cream cheese first until smooth then add everything else. continue baking for 25-30 mins. let cool then refrigerate for few hours before serving.