Sunday's Breakfast: Orange and Dark Chocolate Buttermilk Scones

Ever since I saw the recipe for these scones on Joy the Baker I knew I had to try them. I’ve never made or eaten scones before so I didn’t really know what to expect and made them anyway. They surely were a change from our usual breakfast but to be honest, I find them more suiting for tea just because they’re sooo rich. Even for me there was just too much butter involved for a breakfast. But the orange and dark chocolate combination tastes amazingly well so it was well worth the extra calories. ^^

See below some photos I took during the process and go here to find the recipe.

Have a good Sunday!

Sunday treat

I could have made an incredibly healthy breakfast with these.. Blueberries are, as you probably know, packed with vitamins and anti-oxidants and can help reduce belly fat. I wouldn’t suggest to follow my lead if you want to make your tummy flatter but if you want to make it happier, then read on…

I can’t think of many things that are more blissful than taking time to prepare and savour a weekend breakfast whilst sipping on freshly brewed coffee. Instead of preparing a smoothie or fruit salad I opted for blueberry pancakes. I rarely stick to a particular pancake recipe so this time I used this one and simply added some fresh blueberries.

I get slightly nervous when I run out of maple syrup, I just love it that much! Be it on top of crunchy fruit müslis or pancakes...

Our new kitchen needed to be celebrated with new supplies: French Press and fancy double wall glasses by Bodum.

Have a nice Sunday everyone!

Treasured inner values

I always leave my Kitchen Heals Soul posts to the weekend because if you are like me, you probably only have time to indulge in extensive cooking or baking on the weekends. I’m not sure if Raffaello’s are popular everywhere in the world so let me tell you something about these little heavenly treats.

Raffaello confections are a blend of select ingredients: an almond surrounded by a fine milk cream, then covered with a crisp, delicate wafer and sprinkled with tender shredded coconut. Of course they taste really good on their own, but why not add some additional calories and make them even more fantastic? Enter a cupcake with a Raffaello core!

I came across the recipe on a darling German blog called Ohhh...Mhhh... and saved it to give them a go on a special occasion. The birthday of a dear friend was the perfect excuse to get into the kitchen and use those girly pink cupcake liners I had recently bought!

Recipe (for 12 cupcakes)

Ingredients:

120g flour
140 g sugar
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
s pinch of salt
40g butter (softened at room temperature)
120ml whole milk
1 egg
¼ teaspoon vanilla essence
12 Raffaello

How to:

Preheat your oven to 170 and line your cupcake tins with cupcake liner.
In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter until you have a sandy consistency. Add one half of the milk and blend it well together. In an other bowl, whisk the egg, vanilla essence and the rest of the milk and then add this mixture to the flour-mix. Blend well together until you have an homogenous dough. Pour 1 tablespoon of the dough into the cupcake liners, then place a Raffaello and cover it with another spoonful of dough (don't fill them more than 2/3 of the way up). Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out free of crumbs. Let them cool completely before frosting.

Ingredients for the cream cheese frosting:

25g softened butter
50g cream cheese
250g powdered sugar (sifted)

In a bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter on low speed with an electric mixer until it's very smooth and without lumps. Gradually add the sifted powdered sugar and beat, again, on low speed until fully smooth. Pipe or spoon about a tablespoon onto the cupcakes and sprinkle some grated coconut on top.

Enjoy and have a very sweet weekend!

♥

Sunday Morning

Having recently purchased a waffle iron I couldn’t wait to bake my first waffles at home. They surely birghtened up our Sunday breakfast. Below is the recipe I used for three persons:

Ingredients:

160 g sugar
160 g softened butter (room temperature)
3 eggs
1 pack vanilla sugar
A little bit of rum (optional)
325 g flour
300 ml milk
2 tsp baking soda

In a bowl, combine the beaten eggs with the sugar and butter until you have a foamy batter. Add the vanilla sugar and rum. Then add the flour and baking soda, which will turn the batter quite sticky. Finally pour the milk, whisking well while doing so. You should get a smooth batter that is not runny.

Preheat your waffle iron. Follow your waffle maker’s instruction manual for this, I had mine at medium heat. I also greased the iron with a spray but that’s up to you. Pour an appropriate amount of batter into your hot waffle maker: this amount will vary from machine to machine. Cook until golden and crisp. Serve with whipped cream, berries, bananas, maple syrup… it’s really up to you!

Enjoy...

Pumpkin and apricot jam with vanilla

My parents have a small but cute garden where they also grow pumpkins amongst others things. I think it's great to be able to have self-grown organic produce living in the city so I'm always happy when they bring something over. My favorite thing to do with them is risotto but my mom is especially fond of pumpkin deserts. I was in the mood for tyring out something new and came across a recipe which was sort of a compromise. Not a desert but still something sweet. It was my first time making jam, so I was a little bit seceptical at first but I just had it for breakfast this morning and loved it!

Recipe adapted from this one:

Ingredients:
(yields 3 large jars and 1 small one)

1 large can of apricots
500 gr. pumpkin
500 gr. sugar (I used 100 gr. fructose and 400 gr. jam sugar)
1 vanilla bean
zest of 1 lemon and its juice
2 cl brown rum (can also be left out)

Drain the juice of the apricots and chop them up into little pieces.
Cook the diced pumpkin in a large pot with the juice of the apricots and the chopped apricots until soft (for about 5 minutes). Then puree with a mixer. Now add the jam sugar, the vanilla seeds, rum, lemon juice and the grated zest . Let everything boil for a good while, then fill immediately into jars (which need to be sterilized with boiling hot water beforehand). Turn the jars upside down for at least 5 minutes so they close vacuum.

Crispy chewy chocolate chip cookies

After baking several christmas cookies I craved something more chocolately so I baked an alltime favorite of mine: chocolate chip cookies. Being aware of my recent baking craziness a class mate made the remark that I'll be gaining weight until the end of this stressful semester but I swear, those were so worth it! I wanted my cookies to be crispy on the outside but chewy on the inside and this recipe delivered exactly what it promised.

I found the recipe on one of my favorite food blogs, Smitten Kitchen. If I were to use the same recipe again I'd make some adjustments. The cookies were a tad to sweet for my taste so I'm definitely going to reduce the amount of sugar and use a little less vanilla essence the next time. Other than that, this will be my go-to recipe whenever I want to enjoy a chocolate chip cookie with my cup of coffee.

I’d woken up early and I took a long time getting ready to exist

Mixed fruit yogurt parfait: a concoction of raspberry purree, yogurt and oranges topped with crunchy granola and liquid honey

Have a lovely Sunday everyone! I won't be going anywhere I've never been today but really wish I was. At least I made myself a nice little breakfast, which doesn't only look but also taste good plus you get some vitamins, which is never a bad thing.


Photo: private, Quote: Seensucht

Cranberry and Pistachio cookies

You might not know this about me but I love baking. Standing in the kitchen, trying out new recipes and surprising my loved ones with little delights is my favorite way to unwind. Every now and then I’m planning on sharing some treats with you filed under the category “Kitchen Heals Soul”.

As for these cookies, I was looking for a recipe for sablés (French cookies) and stumbled upon a fantastic blog called Le Pétrin. Here you can find the recipe for these delicious cookies. (Let me know if you want me to translate it).

I made some with pistachio and some with almond crust, the flavor of the dried cranberries adds a fantastic tang to the cookies. Needless to say these sablés will make my whole apartment smell delightfully cozy again some other time…

UPDATE: translated recipe

170g softened butter
125g white sugar
2 egg yolks
2cc lemon juice
190gr all purpose flour
110g almond powder
110g dried cranberries
a handful minced pistachios or almonds for the crust

Cut the softened butter into pieces and beat it with a wooden spoon in a large bowl until creamy.
Pour in the sugar and beat energetically until it’s well incorporated with the softened butter.

Add the egg yolks and the lemon juice and beat until it’s mixed well with the other ingredients.
Add the sifted flour and the almond powder, mix only until incorporated with the wet ingredients but avoid overworking the dough (it would make the cookies harder during the baking process).
Add the dried cranberries by hand and mix them to share out equally.

Divide the dough in two pieces and form a roll.
Put the minced almonds/pistachios onto an aluminium paper and roll the cookie dough, elongating it to a lenght of 20-22cm. Repeat likewise with the second roll. (I used pistachios for one roll and almonds for the other.)

Wrap the dough rolls into aluminium paper, making sure the ends are closed tight. Put the rolls into the fridge, leaving it there for several hours, preferably over night (that’s what I did). You’ll see that the dough will be really firm and ready to be cut the next day.

Preheat your oven to 180°C. Put parchement paper onto two baking trays.
Unpack one roll from the aluminium paper (keep the second one still in the fridge) and cut it into 5-6mm thick slices. Put the slices onto the parchment paper, making sure there is enough space between the cookies (they spread a little).

Bake the cookies for about 12 minutes depending on their size and the temperature of your oven, until the edges are lightly toasted. Leave them on the tray for a couple minutes before transferring them onto wire racks to cool completely.

Another kind of craving

“When you're young, your whole life is about the pursuit of fun. Then, you grow up and learn to be cautious. You could break a bone or a heart. You look before you leap and sometimes you don't leap at all because there's not always someone there to catch you. And in life, there's no safety net. When did it stop being fun and start being scary?”



Yesterday I didn't worry about the scary part of turning 24 but was rather up to have some fun with my closest girlfriends. This post is dedicated to all of them to say thank you for always being there for me and to my parents for their amazing birthday present! Now that I know they're reading my blog they deserve a special mention! ^^ Sizi cok seviyorum! <3 href="http://www.all-about-cupcakes.com/red-velvet-cupcakes.html"> here's the recipe I used.