Freshly Made

I made these in honour of October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I'm fortunate not to know anyone who have been affected by this disease. But you never know when, or who, it strikes next...

These pink cupcakes are made with beetroot puree in order to get a really nice, pink colour. You can´t taste the beetroot, though, so no worries if you don't like this rather earthy vegetable. The dough seemed much more pink than the final result, but they're still pretty!

Ingredients: 

100 g of melted butter
2.5 dl of whey
200 g of sugar
300 g of flour
2 tsp of baking powder
2 eggs
1 tsp of vanilla extract
salt
beetroot puree
100 g of dried cranberries

Whisk together the butter, whey and eggs. Mix the flour, baking powder, sugar and a pinch of salt. Add the liquids to the flour and blend thoroughly. Add vanilla extract, cranberries and beetroot puree until the dough has a really wild, pink colour! Fill some paper cupcake molds (makes about 12) and bake in a preheated oven on 200 C.

The icing is made of confectioner's sugar, milk and a little bit of beetroot juice.

Sometimes, simple is better. This is a really simple leek/potato soup. I just sliced and diced three leeks and two potatotes, fried it all in a bit of olive oil, added about 5 dl of water, some thyme, salt and pepper - I let it simmer until the vegetables were tender and put it all through the blender. Voila. Very simple, but perfect for at lazy sunday evening, with the wind howling outside.

The Bread Baking Babes are making Challah this month, and I decided to give it a try myself. The bread is beautiful, with a very light and fluffy consisitency. Maybe I could even become a Bread Baking Buddy?

I halved the recipe to make only one bread. As I didn't have any saffron around, I added a little turmeric instead, for colouring. I also substituted the butter with full fat yoghurt (because if I used butter, there would be none left to put on the bread afterwards - the horror! I have to admit, I have a soft spot for buttering my bread in an unhealthy manner...).

It was fun to make, especially the braiding part - and it was also fun to eat! My bread ended up being somewhat lopsided, as you can see... 

I like apple cakes a lot, especially during fall, when I can buy Danish apples in the stores. For this recipe, I used the sort 'Red Aroma'.

Ingredients:

1/2 dl of rapeseed oil
1/2 dl of yoghurt
150 g of sugar
50 g of honey
vanilla extract

50 g of finely chopped hazelnuts (or pecans)
125 g of flour
1/2 tsp of baking powder
1/2 tsp of cinnamon
1/4 tsp of cardamom
1/4 tsp of cloves
1/4 tsp og dried ginger
2 egs
375 g of diced apples

Mix the first five ingredients together. Blend the flour, spices and baking powder. Whip the eggs into the sugar mixture. Add the flour mixture and give it all a good whisk. Finally, add the chopped hazelnuts.
Pour the mixture into a buttered baking tin and top it off with the apple dices. Or, alternatively, mix the apples with the rest, before pouring it into the tin. As you can see, I used the first approach, but I would probably mix apples into the dough next time around. That way, I think the cake will be more moist.

Bake it at 175 C for about an hour.

Serve with a good dollop of greek yoghurt or sour cream! (Or whipped cream or... )

I recently stumbled upon the website Is My Blog Burning and was fascinated by all the food blogging events that take place! I'm a big fan of soups and decided immediately to participate in the No Croutons Required event. As I have a lot of pumpkins in my kitchen right now (my mother grows them, and apparently they grow like mad - I'm not complaining though, as they make such beautiful dishes), what better way to use one of the than in this lovely, spicy soup. I added red lentils to make the soup more filling.

500 g of pumpkin, diced (I prefer Hokkaido)
100 g of red lentils
Olive oil
5 dl of water
2 cloves of garlic
3 small chillies (depending on how hot you like it)
Small can of coconut milk (165 g)
Salt and pepper to taste

Press the cloves of garlic and fry them for a few minutes in the oil. Add the pumpkin and fry for a few more minutes. Add the water, lentils, coconut milk and chillies. Let the soup simmer until the pumpkin is tender. Blend it until smooth and add salt and pepper.
Let it simmer for a few minutes before serving.

I love pumpkins! Especially the smaller, Hokkaido, ones - they make the best soup. This time I'd bought one of the Halloween kinds - huge and intimidating. Tried to make soup out of some of it, but it didn't really work very well. Then I saw a recipe for pumpkin marmalade. To be honest, I've never made marmalade, or the like, before, but this is definitely not the last time.

As I'm expecting a visit from my parents this weekend, and my mother is a diabetic, I replaced the sugar in the recipe with artificial sweetener.

Basically, this calls for 500 g of diced pumpkin, simmering for half an hour in 2 dl of water. 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and 1 teaspoon of fresh, grated ginger is added, and the whole lot simmers for another half hour. Blend it smooth and add a gelling agent (I used a Danish product, called Grøn Melatin, which is made especially for low-sugar recipes). Add sweetener (I used 3 teaspoons).

Enjoy :)

Since I'm living in the city, with no access to a garden of my own, I'm subscribing to boxes of organic, fresh vegetables, which arrive twice a month from Aarstiderne. 

This is the content of this week's 'Dogmekasse', which only contains vegetables from Danish suppliers. Today: potatoes, colored carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, corn, striped beetroots, brussel sprouts, kale, romanesco broccoli and onions. I'm curious to see what they will put in during the depths of winter....

I think it is interesting to try and cook up something with ingredients that I would never have bought myself - such as the kale/borecole in this box... Any suggestions?

So I made the sûkerbôlle (find the recipe here) a few hours ago (and my kitchen smelled fabulously), and then left it on the rack to cool down.

I went out and got caught in the rain - in a really soaking wet kind of way... What's the use of a nice wooly winter coat, when it just pours down?

Anyhow, when I came home, I cut myself two fat slices of bread with lots of butter - and all was well. This bread is really deliciously comforting. Yum. 

Thank you Monique.

So I've been out of the blogging business for a while now... No real reason, really, other than I went on holiday and never got around to writing again afterwards.

Bu no more - I think I'm ready for another round. 

I read a post from one of my favourite bloggers, Ilva from Lucullian Delights, a few days ago, about the Bread Baking Babes. And I sort of got inspired to try my hand at this month's baking challenge. Sûkerbôlle. What an amazing word.

 I've just finished making the ginger syrup required for the recipe, following another recipe from Cookie Baker Lynn. It smells delicious!

Now I need to go out and find me some granulated sugar for the sûckerbôlle.