October: Berlin

In October, I spent a lovely time in Berlin. The weather was fine and walking around was as nice as it always is.

September: Brigitte & Paris

September was a real French month: I saw the band Brigitte - those girls are really fun and make great music. And I also spent some time in a lovely apartement in Paris with a wonderful view over the roof tops of the city. Went to the Bon Marché to see the Catherine Deneuve exhibition by Marjan Satrapi and waited for the Eiffel Tower to make its *blinkblink* every full hour at night time.

August & July

Summer went by really fast: The weather was fine, I went blueberry picking in the forest, made jam, pancakes and muffins and ate a lot of quiche and salad.

Something from my kitchen: Very berry

Take two at something from my kitchen is very berry! This year I am so into raspberries, that I chose to make a sweet spread of white chocolate and fresh raspberries called "tourbillon chocolat blanc - framboise" by Rachel Khoo. Each of its million calories is unbelievably delicious...

For one common sized jar you need:

130g white chocolat (cut into small pieces)
70 ml cream
1 pinch of salt
200g fresh raspberries
120g jam sugar

1. Melt the white chocolat, the cream and the pinch of salt and let it cool down for about 15 minutes in the fridge.
2. Mix the raspberries with the jam sugar and cook the mix for about 5 minutes. Let it also coool down in the fridge for about 15 minutes.
3. Whisk the white chocolat cream until it gets a little bit stiffer and creamier.
4. Layer cream and raspberries alternately in the glass, finally stirring  a little with the end of a spoon to get a marble effect.

Carrot cake cupcakes with vanilla icing

I made some carrot cake cupcakes with delicious vanilla icing for a friend's wedding (that's were this bridal bouquet is from). Carrot cake is my all-time favourite cake. It is so moist and although with wintry spices a great treat the whole year around.

For about 18 cupcakes:

250 ml vegetable oil
250g brown sugar
3 eggs
720g coarsely grated carrots
120g coarsely chopped walnuts
375g flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. quatre-epices (or cinnamon)

For the icing:

30g butter (at room temperature)
80g cream cheese
1/2 vanilla bean
240g icing sugar

1. Preheat oven at 200 degrees, prepare muffin pan with paper forms.
2. Beat oil, sugar eggs until thick and creamy.
3. Stir in carrots and nuts, then sifted dry ingredients.
4. Pour mixture into the pans and bake about 35 minutes.
5. Prepare the frosting and spread the frosting over the cold cupcakes.

Enjoy your cupcakes!

This weekend

I made my first mini gugls but they were not really good. They had absolutely no taste at all although I used really nice fresh blueberries. I ate them anyway... I tried on my new dress that I bought for a wedding next weekend and spend four nice hours at the theatre watching Dostojewski's "The Idiot".

A walk along the Rhine

Nice weather, a nice view and beautiful flowers along the way.