Goodbye 2011!

Time to say goodbye to 2011! Time passed so fast this year and now 2011 is nearly over. I am not sure if I like this year so I am really looking forward to 2012.

New Year's Eve cocktail: Aperol Grapefruit

For 4 glasses:

4 limes
100ml aperol
4 tbsp. brown sugar (or some more, if you like it sweeter)
650ml grapefruit juice (fresh one, if you have time)
ice cubes

1. Store all fluids in the fridge before use.
2. Squash the limes (maybe keep some for decoration).
3. Mix lime juice with aperol, brown sugar and grapefruit juice.
4. Put the ince cubes into the glasses and pour the drin on top.

Hummingbird Bakery's Apple and Walnut Cupcakes

According to the book: for 12-16 cupcakes (I made 12 medium size cupcakes and 24 mini

cupcakes)

For the sponge:                           For the frosting:

80g softenend butter                   600g icing sugar
280g caster sugar                       100g softened butter
240g plain flour                           250g full fat cream cheese
1 tbsp. baking powder                 ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt                                12-16 walnut halves
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
240ml whole milk
2 eggs
200g apples (peeled and cut
in small pieces)
50g chopped walnuts

1. Beat together the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon 

on low speed until the consistency of fine bread crumbs.

2. Whisk eggs and milk and pour 3/4 of the mixture into the dry ingredients. 

Mix on low speed first, pour in the remaining milk mixture and mix on medium 

speed until the batter is smooth.
3. Stir apples and walnuts into the batter.
4. Fill paper cases by about two-thirds and bake the cupcakes for 18-20 

minutes at 190C
5. For the frosting: Beat icing sugar with butter on low speed until 

sandy in texture.
6. Add cream cheese and mix on medium-to-high speed until the frosting is smooth.
7. Decorate the cupcakes with the frosting when they are cooled. Dust them with 

cinnamon and put half a walnut on each.

Roasted apple jam with almonds and raisins

For 3 glasses (each 350ml):


1,4 kg apples
500g jam sugar (2:1)
50g raisins (or more, if you like. I like!!)
100ml cointreau
1 vanilla bean
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
50g chopped almonds

1. Peel and core the apples and cut them into pieces.
2. Mix the apples with the jam sugar and store them overnight in the fridge.
3. Soak raisins in cointreau for several hours.
4. Mash the apples.
5. Cut open the vanilla bean and put it together with the cinnamon, the raisins
    and cointreau and the almonds into the apple mash.
6. Cook for 7-9 minutes until the apples get soft
7. Take out the vanilla bean.
8. Fill into glasses.

Christmas packages

I sent some surprise Christmas packages before Christmas with homemade roasted apple jam with almonds and raisins, sugar canes, some tea and of course some of my cookies.

For the Christmas feeling...

1. Twelve Days of Christmas 2, 2. The snow will never leave. , 3. PolkaDotsAholic !!, 4. christmas cocoa

I love browsing through photos in flickr to get in a special mood.  Unfortunately, there is no snow this Christmas, but when I look at all the snowy and christmassy pictures, I don't mind...

Merry Christmas

Gingerbread light

For 4 small gingerbread lights:

For the dough:                             For the decoration:
150g honey                                   1 egg white
125g sugar                                    1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 egg                                            125g icing sugar
375g wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp. cacao powder
7,5g gingerbread spices
1 heaped tsp. baking powder

Make the dough:
1. Melt honey, 100g sugar and 2 tbsp. of water until all of the sugar is dissolved.
2. Let the mixture cool down for about 10 minutes.
3. Beat the egg with 25g sugar until it gets creamy and mix it with (1.).
4. Mix wheat flour, cocoa powder, gingerbread spices and baking powder and
    sift it onto the honey cream.
5. Knead everything together until you get a smooth dough.
6. Wrap it in cling film and put it for about 30 minutes into the fridge.
7. Roll out the dough and cut out 16 rectangles (about 10cm x 7cm). Use a cookie cutter of your joice
    to cut out a small window in each rectangle.
8. Bake on baking paper for about 15 minutes at 175 degrees.


For the decoration:
1. Beat the egg white with the lemon juice.
2. Add the icing sugar and beat until you get a smooth paste.
3. Create one gingerbread light out of  4 rectangles and put some icing on the edges to get a snowy look.

Filled Linzer Cookies (Gespritzte Linzer)

Layer cake pralinés with cherries (Baumkuchen)

I love this recipe, because the little pralinés look quite impressing but are really easy to make:

For the dough:                                  For the icing:
6 eggs                                                120 g marzipan paste
125 g butter (at room temperature)     3 tbsp. icing sugar
125 g sugar                                        3 tbsp. raspberry jam (I used strawberry 
1 vanilla bean                                      passionfruit jam)
80 g wheat flour                                 350 g dark chocolate ( I used a mix of milk and
1 tbsp. butter                                     dark chocolate) 
40 g corn flour                                   1 tbsp. honey
1 pinch of salt                                    sweetened dryed cherries for decoration (cut in half)
4 tbsp. kirsch

For approximately 50 pieces (I made less, maybe I tasted too much dough inbetween, you never know)

Make the dough:
1. Seperate the eggs.
2. Stir butter and sugar and slowly add the egg yolks.
3. Mix wheat and corn flour with the inside of the vanilla bean.
4. Mix these dry ingridients with the cream from (2.).
5. Beat the egg whites with the salt until stiff and gently fold it in the dough.
6. Preheat the oven at the highest temperature.
7. Put a sheet of baking paper at the bottom of a round baking tin (ø 26 cm).
8. Spread 3 tbsp. of dough at the bottom of the baking tin and bake it golden
    brown for 1-2 minutes.
9. Continue with the next layer of dough (and so on) until the dough is finished.
10. Leave the cake to cool down on a cooling rack.
11. Prick the cake several times with a fork and trickle the kirsch onto the cake.
12. Cut little cakes with a round cookie cutter (ø 3cm).


Make the decoration:
1. Knead together the marzipan and the icing sugar.
2. Roll the marzipan paste between two sheets of baking paper and cut out one
    tiny marzipan circle with the round cutter for every praliné
3. Put a bit of jam on every praliné and put one marzipan circle on top.
4. Let the pralinés dry for about 30 minutes.
5. Melt the chocolate, honey and butter and frost the pralinés.
6. Put half a cherry on each praliné.

Welcome.

What's the best time for Miss Gingerbread to start blogging? Yes, it's Christmas time, the hap-happiest time of the year! Although I am still waiting for snow to come, the Christmas feeling is already there!