Muffins to muffins

Hi there!

On this time, I decided to try a different style to approach my next eatable art work. I simply just dug my way through our kitchen shelves and compared those ingredients I found to different recipes. I got A LOT of muffin cups and different kind of nuts in my hands so I decided to make some simple tosca muffins. Tosca is the term for the topping which includes sugar, almonds and butter. Just FYI (; So let's get started!

Muffins:

4,5 dl (1,9 cups) Flours

2,5 dl (1 cup) Sugar

2,5 tsp Baking powder

0,5 tsp Salt

2 dl (0,85 cup) Milk

2 Eggs

2 tsp Vanilla sugar

75 g (2,65 oz) Melted butter

Tosca:

50g (1,75oz) Butter

50g (1,75oz) Almond chips

3/4 dl (1/3 cup) Sugar

2 tbsp Cream

2 tbsp Milk

Heat up the oven to 200°C (400F) and sift the flours, sugar, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Mix them well and then mix the milk, eggs, vanilla sugar and melted butter in another bowl. After that, mix the flours into the egg bowl. There, you have the dough now! :) 

Next we're going to make the tosca topping.

Just basically melt the butter and mix the other ingredients in it. Boil it up quickly so the sugar melts and you're done. Then you're ready to fill up the cups and bake them but here's a couple of tips before you do that. I like to use a muffin tin and cover those cups with the paper cups so it's easier to take them off and there's less dishes afterwards. Also when you're filling them -- make sure that you don't fill them all up with the dough because there has to be some room for the tosca. Otherwise you end up like me. I've used to fill them all up to get really puffy muffins so I forgot that and it pretty much overflowed. Because of that, they got all sticky from outside since the tosca was all over them. Oh well! :D

So bake the muffins for 20-25mins in the middle of the oven and make sure with a toothpick that they're also baked from inside. I got 12 normal sized muffins with this amount of dough. Remember that if you're making mini muffins or large muffins, the baking time changes with them.

12 normal sized muffins = 6 large muffins = 24 mini muffins.

Large muffins need 25-30 mins in the oven, normal ones 20-25 mins, mini ones only 15-20 mins.

In my opinion, these were mucho delicioso! They're also perfect to bake at this time of the year since the tosca reminds me of falling leaves. I would definitely give 10/10 for this recipe. I just can't stop loving muffins/cup cakes. They're such a easy to make, usually the structure is perfect and moist and they're oh so cute looking! :3

Next time we're gonna have something special here. All I can reveal is that there's going to be chocolate and as far as I'm concerned, it's probably the best piece I have ever baked! So have a exciting and chictastic time until then!

Sly as a fox

Candy time! I had never thought that candy making would be such a easy task. This all began when my mom heard this conversation on the radio about rowan berries.  Since it's fall, those trees are FULL of the berries and all I had to do was to get our ladders and pick the prettiest berries from our trees in the backyard! This Finnish candy company Fazer has produced these "fox candies" for centuries and those are one of my favorite ones since when I was a kid. I've read that they used to have actual rowan berries in them in the beginning but nowadays I think they've replaced them with a some kind of aroma. 

I started by cleaning the berries up from leaves and other stuff and stored them in the freezer for the next day. We haven't got any night frost yet so the freezer does the job too. By freezing them, they get a little less sour. The next day I scooped 3dl (1,25 cups) of those frozen buddies and boiled them for 30mins. During this time, berries lose their amygdala which causes stomach problems when eaten in large amounts. My berries lost a lot of their color while boiling them so that's why the candies turned out to be more orange than red. (The real candies are red so that's why they failed my expectations.) After being boiled, the berries should be a little bit softer than before so it easier to strain through a strainer. From this amount of those berries, there should become about 1dl (o,4 cup) of puree .

So on top of that puree you need:

5dl (2 cups) Water

5dl (2 cups) Sugar

15g (0,5 oz) Agar Agar -powder or flakes

1,5dl (2/3 cup) Apple sauce

1 Tsp Tartaric acid powder

+2dl (0,85 cup) Very fine sugar to roll those cubes in (I didn't really measure the sugar for this. Just added more on the plate when needed) :)

So after you're all done with the puree, boil up the water and add the Agar Agar. Remember not to have the stove on too hot! When the liquid get clearer you can go ahead and add the sugar. Boil it up again but be careful, it burns quickly if you're not paying attention! Then lower the heat again.

When the sugar has dissolved, add the apple sauce, rowan berry puree and tartaric acid powder. Mix them carefully and let the mixture cool down. While waiting, you can go ahead and cover a pan or some kind of mold with greaseproof paper. Pour the marmelade mixture in it and let it solidify for a couple of hours. After that you're free to cut it in the pieces of your choice. Put the pieces on a greaseproof paper to a dry place to dry for about 48h. Remember to turn them around at times so they dry evenly. Drying prevents the sugar melting on top of them later. ;) When the marmelades are dry but still a bit sticky, roll them on a plate where's sugar. Keep the marmelades in a airtight box for the future.

Oh and one more thing. I've been always struggling with finding some ingredients. People don't usually tell where to find those in their recipes so let me change that here! If you're wondering where to find tartaric acid powder, the easiest place is to go to the pharmacy and ask for it fromt them. I also happened to see some at our biggest supermarket but the pharmacy is the safest place to find some. Unfortunately it's a bit more expensive there so be prepared for that.

I'll meet you next time with some cake pops so have a chictastic time till then! :)

Dancing on the rose pedals

Hi there!

Today it's time to get a little artistic with our bakings. We have some beautiful roses in our garden and therefore I wanted to harvest them before they'll freeze out there! So here's a few easy steps to save the beauty for a bit later. These kind of decorations are just a killer on a simple cake!

First, make sure that no pesticides are used on those flowers. I read that all the roses are eatable so there shouldn't be any other problems with them. Then you're free to pluck the pedals out of the flowers and pick the prettiest ones.

Basically you need just some egg white and fine sugar. I had just 1 flower here so less than 1 egg white was perfect for me. I began to "paint" the pedals one by one with the small brush and egg white. Make sure that there's egg white all over the pedal because the sugar needs it to stick on the surface! The egg white all over it also guarantees that the pedal remains in better shape for a longer time. The "painting" got me frustrated since it was quite slow so I ended up to dip those pedals in the egg white cup and wipe the extra egg white off them afterwards.

As you can see I misse one point when I was using the brush! :) Anyways, after those pedals are soaked sprinkle some fine suger all over them. In some cases the egg white melted a lot of the sugar so you just have to keep adding the sugar until it stays on the surface untouched. After sprinkling, place the pedals on a greaseproof paper whit sugar on it. Loose sugar prevents them to stick to the paper.

There you go! It very easy and beautiful way to decorate your cake. Just remember to keep those in a air-tight box and the point that even these don't last forever. After a couple of weeks they loose the bright color and the possible taste in them. So have a beautiful and chictastic time till next week!

It's time for celebration!

[Note: This actually happened a week and a half ago]

Celebrate good times, c'mon! My parents had their 20th anniversary so I was immediately going through my cookbooks. I picked this beautiful rose hip - cinnamon meringue cake. I admit that this was the first meringue cake I've ever made so be gentle! :D Despite the easy building up, you want to have some time for this cake. Unless you bake the meringue layers beforehand.

Meringue:

6 Egg whites

A touch of salt

4dl (1 2/3 cup) Sugar

2 tsp Corn starch

2 tsp Cinnamon

1 tsp Dark Aceto Balsamico -vinegar or White wine vinegar

Filling:

4dl (1 2/3 cup) Whipped Cream

100-150g (3,5-5 oz) Dark chocolate

2 Jars of rose hip baby food

Start by whipping the eggs and salt together. When it gets thicker, add the suger little by little and mix at the same time. Try to do the upside-down trick and if it works, you're good to go. Add the corn starch, cinnamon and vinegar into the meringue.

Create 3-4 big circles of meringue on the baking tray and bake those for 5 mins in 150°C (300F) on convection. After those 5 mins, turn the oven to 50°C (122F) and let those circles to be there for 1,5h.

At this point you have to be careful! After being baked, those meringues has to get off very smoothly since they break into pieces easily. I used some spatulas for that. Once you're done, you can start to stack them up. Place the first meringue layer on the plate and put some whipped cream, that rose hip puree and roughly chopped chocolate on it. Repeat this 2-3 times, depending on how many layers you have made.

For me, it was hard to have it together so I ended up with Leaning Tower of Pisa.. oh well :D After dinner, the whole cake was just a big pile of meringue-chocolate-rose hip-whipped cream mush. We didn't figure out how to cut nice slices of it!

So we had some leftovers from that. The next day when we ate it was a nice surprise. The meringue had got all moist so it felt like we ate the same cake with cinnamon mousse, haha!

I'd give 8/10 for this cake. One slice was definitely enough since it was waaaaaaaay too sweet. Afterwards I'd say that there could be more of that rose hip puree to balance the sweetness. Overall the evening was chictastic so congrats mom & dad!

Remember to follow me on Facebook!

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Sour yet satisfying

Hello my loyal readers!

Today (finally!!) is the time for some sour action. I spotted this amazing recipe from a bit older Finnish cooking book and thought I''d give it a try. I remember having this big bush of goose berries in our back yard for many years ago. The berries were tasty but unfortunately I wasn't a fan of any kind of sour berries back then. Therefore when I saw this recipe I was surprised. I have never seen any recipe using these berries. So let's get started!

For the crust you need:

150g (5 oz) Flours

100g (3,5 oz) Butter

50g (1,8 oz) Sugar

1 Egg yolk

1/2 the insides of an vanilla pod (I left it out since I didn't have one)

The filling:

700g (24,7 oz) Goose berries

1,25dl (1/2 cup) Water

200g (7 oz) Sugar

60g (2 oz) Potato Flours

40g (1,4 oz) Peeled and grated almonds (I was confused by this so I just used almond groats)

On top:

3 Egg whites

150g (5 oz) Sugar

+ 26cm (~10 inch) cake tin

First I did some serious cleaning up for those berries before the baking began. I can assure that it took me longer then awhile to do that! :D Then I mixed up the ingredients for the pie, wrapped the dough into foil and put it in the fridge to settle for 30 mins. After cooling down and letting the butter to harden it is noticeably easier to work with. So therefore I rolled the dough into a little bit bigger circle than the cake tin and put it in there. Before the filling, the crust had to be precooked in the oven (200°C, 400F) for 10 mins. Naturally cover the crust with greaseproof paper and put some dried peas on top of it to hold it down.

Next up there was the filling. By following the pictures you can see what I did. So first off, I boiled up the water and the sugar. The added the berries into it and let it boil in the medium heat for 15 mins. After boiling them, get the berry liquid and heat it up again. At this point, dissolve the potato flours into the tiny amount of cold water and then add it to the boiling juice. When the liquid starts to precipitate add the berries and almonds. I have to admit that it was pretty scary. I remember what happened with that corn starch so there was reason to panic! Hahah.

Anyways, everything turned out better and I was ready to spread the filling on the crust.

When the filling has cooled down enough it is time to create the beautiful mask for the lady! Froth the egg whites and add the sugar little by little to it. I followed the books picture, which came out perfectly the same, but you can always be creative when decorating cakes!

Bake the cake in 190°C (375F) for 20 mins until the meringue gets some color.

This is actually as easy as it looks, and I was very happy about the outcome! The meringue was a bit undercooked despite the color but it didn't ruin the taste. Even the almond bits were a nice plus since there was something to actually chew on. For this one I'd give 8/10 since I'm still not a big fan of sour food. :P

Thank you for your time and hopefully we'll see again soon chicsters!

Frosting away!

Hello my friends!

On Saturday it was time to bake something more traditional yet delicious for you. A basic coffee cake with lemon flavor, Lemon poppy seed cake. I'm a huge fan of these kind of cakes as long as they're moist and squishy. I haven't really baked those by myself that much so it was about the time to do it now! :) 

The recipes I've picked from foreign aren't so easy every time. Sometimes the cake tin is too small for the amount of ingredients, sometimes there's flaws in the recipe. With this one, I had a couple of remarkable changes. First of all, I'd leave the lemon syrup out. By pouring the syrup on the cake, it became all sticky and got a very strong lemon flavor. Therefore I'd recommend to leave it out. Secondly The ration between lemon juice and powdered sugar in the frosting is all wrong. I had to go through it in the hard way. I ended up having the cake swimming in the puddle of frosting. Oh well.. :D

I actually filmed a video from all of this for you to see. Unfortunately I just haven't had any time to edit that so I hope I get to upload that as soon as possible! In the meanwhile you can check all the ingredients from here and get ready for the yum!

The dough

85 g (~3 oz) Butter

245 g (8,65 oz) Sugar

1,5 Lemons' peel grated

1,65 dl (0,7 cup) Milk

235 g (~8,3 oz) Flours

2 tsp Baking powder

0,5 tsp Salt

3 Egg whites

The lemon frosting

2dl (0,85 cup) Powdered sugar

1,5-2 tbsp lemon juice

( I had to modify this afterwards so hopefully it works, if it gets too thick just add some more of the juice.)

When it comes to tasting, it was absolutely amazing! The cake itself was very moist but with mild lemon flavor. When you got some of that sour frosting with that, it was like a perfect combination! The poppy seeds didn't taste in the cake but I think they gave a nice visual effect on that. :) These type of cakes are very easy to bake so i recommend every one of you to try this. I've already made all of the mistakes for you, so you shouldn't hav anything to worry about. :D

A little something about the future. I have some great material of the next coming up creations so it's just a matter of time when I get to post them on here. So until then, have a chictastic time!