Cocktails on a Stick - Blood Orange and Cuba Libre Popsicles

I have been invited to a party. Lovely! It's a popsicle party. Great! Really? I have eaten popsicles before, but never made any. I don't even have any popsicle moulds or something I could possibly use instead ... thinking ... So how could I possible enter this month's Sweet Adventures Blog Hop - Popsicle Party, which the lovely Swah from Love Swah is hosting?
Hm, right ... eh ... well ... eh ... have a look ...

So, how did I manage?
We will see ...

Cherry Bombs

Things don't seem to run quite smoothly lately. Ah, what am I talking about? Quite some long time and things are really out of hand, but I try my best to make this blog still working.
Ah, I really should stop pestering people with that rubbish, so ...

Warning! This recipe is not suitable for everyone as things are going to be a little bit lethal. Maybe that's why I have picked the name. What do I know.
I would be very lovely to get a lot more things from  the garden ... at least from some friends' gardens. He he he! Well, I did work for things, too. I got the chance to pick some sour cherries for my own needs, although I didn't know I had any need. Anyways, it would have been a shame to give it all to the birds. So I picked a small bucket full. 
Some went to be used as a dessert simply together with some curd cheese. A bag full went to the freezer and the remaining ones went into a jar ...

What Really Matters Strawberry Chocolate Muffins

Yes, it is really true, today I have some muffins for you, which I like to call "What Really Matters Strawberry Chocolate Muffins". Indeed, this is quite a long name, but in a minute or so I will tell you why it had to be.
It's time to go adventuring again. However (some might be disappointed), this time we have to do without hat and whip. Now I have the chance again to particpate in a lovely blog hop: Sweet Adventures Blog Hop (short SABH). It is run by 84th & 3rd, Dining with a Stud, The Capers of the Kitchen Crusader and occasional guest hostesses (hm?). The latter one is the case now in July, where Swah from the blog "Love Swah" is hosting.
Here comes the theme: Sweet Surprise. Right away, then, here is my sweet surprise: What Really Matters Strawberry Chocolate Muffins (short WRMSCM, but ... eh ... who cares).

Where is the surprise? 

Drink with me ... Piña Colada Dessert

Will you drink with me to days gone by? They won't come back. We are not the persons we used to be anymore. Time moves on. Things change - to good and to bad. However, it's not the time or place to ponder such things.
All the more so I am happy today to be able to do a live post again. I prepared a drink for you and me, took some photos and ... here we are.

Fine, it's not exactly a drink, but don't be fooled by the sounds or looks of it, for it is quite strong and I don't advice to still drive with your car or bike afterwards.

I'm glad to be able to join my favourite Blog Hop once more,     the Sweet Adventures Blog Hop. Just look what a lovely theme    we have this month: Cocktail Party! So it's time to get the equipment ready and shake it up again ... as in the days gone by (you wouldn't know, though).

We are having a Piña Colada Dessert then ... 

Ingredients (makes three - I just had three of those glasses):
4,5 sponge fingers
6 cl white rum
10 cl pineapple juice (or syrup)
4 cl cream of coconut or coconut syrup
4 slices of pineapple (fresh or from the tin)
6 cl pineapple juice (or syrup)
250 g mascarpone
3 tbs sugar

Shaking up:
A note before we start: If you just take the above mentioned white rum until the coconut syrup and add 2 cl of cream you can have a normal Piña Colada. However, that is not what we want to do right now.
Here we go then ...
Divide the sponge fingers among three glasses by breaking them (not the glasses) into smaller bits and pieces.
Get a cocktail shaker (or something else) and pour the rum, pineapple juice and coconut syrup into it. Give it a good shake. Maybe you can do a bit of fancy things by shaking behind your back, above your head or by throwing the shaker into the air and (hopefully) catching it again. Otherwise, you could just mix together the aforementioned ingredients thoroughly.
Pour a third of the almost Piña Colada into each glass (that, hopefully as well, you didn't break).

Our attention goes over to the mascarpone. Have a suitable vessel ready for it, where you mix it together with the 6 cl pineapple juice and the sugar. Keep stirring until all lumps have vanished.
Take the pineapple slices and cut them in half. Put three nice pieces to the side and cut the remaining parts of the pineapple slices into even smaller bits.
What then? You have guessed right, if you divide those pieces among the three glasses again and hang a half slice each across the rim of the glasses respectively.
Almost there. We just need to use up the mascarpone by pouring it over the pineapple pieces we just used. You know!

If you feel like decorating, go ahead ...
It was really nice having a drink with you. Had I simply a drink on my own, it wouldn't make such a good impression. Hopefully, you enjoyed your Piña Colada Dessert and didn't break any glasses or who knows what else.
What's on your mind now?

Hanoi Lemongrass Cheesecake

I was thinking ... yes, for a change ... and it came to my mind ... right, I haven't lost it completely ... that there was this lovely blog hop I used to join in once in a while. It is called The Sweet Adventures Blog Hop, in short SABH.
The SABH is presented by Delicieux, The Hungry Australian, Dining With a Stud, The Capers of the Kitchen Crusader, and 84th & 3rd. I had a look and ... the theme for this month is cake and three veg.
Here I am now, somehow I have to bake a cake with veg in it. The only things that come to my mind are carrots and beetroot in a cake ... that is, a sweet cake. If you have a look at the other blogs later (as would be recommended) you see how inventive others have been.
After some research through various books and taken the ingredients I have at home I came to this: Hanoi Lemongrass Cheesecake.

Well, lemongrass is used as a herb in the Asian cuisine and you for sure wouldn't call it a veg. What about the veg then? I used carrots. In fact you could call this cake also: Lemongrass-Lime-Ginger-Carrot-Chocolate-Cheesecake.
However, that would not sound as intriguing as the name I came up with friends from the net. I try this cake exclusively for this Blog Hop. I have no experiences with it, as I never did it before. We will see, how things end up. So, let's do Hanoi Lemongrass Cheesecake. 
Ready, set, bake ...

Ingredients, here they come:
Cake base:
300 g flour
14 g baking powder
Pinch of salt 
1 tbs cocoa powder
50 g brown sugar
100 g of carrots
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger
150 g yogurt
2 tbs of vegetable oil
2 eggs or 4 egg whites

Cheese topping:
400 g cream cheese
100 g sugar
2 eggs
2 tbs milk
1 stalk of lemongrass
Zest of one lime

Chocolate topping:
100 g 25 g of chocolate (I thought I needed more, but I didn't)

How the experimenting went:
First of all we like to concentrate on the cake dough.
I mixed all dry ingredients together in one bowl, that is sifted the flour with the baking powder in, added the brown sugar and cocoa powder, and, not to forget, the pinch of salt.
Then I concentrated on the other ingredients with a different bowl. I put in the yogurt and the oil. Time for grating ...
The carrots and the ginger were grated to the yogurt. The oil and the eggs (or egg whites) joined. A little bit of mixing was due then.
It's time for the contents of both bowls to join forces together. Therefore I added the yogurt mixture to the flour mixture and ... of course ... mixed everything together into a brown and sticky dough.
Already before all that, I had a spring tin form greased. This was ready now to receive the dough ... sometimes, though, I wish afterwards I had used baking paper, but ... I didn't.
With a rubber spatula I tried to level things out and once that was accomplished more or less, the cake went to the oven for 10 minutes at 200°C.

That 10 minutes is exactly the time I wanted to use to prepare the cheese topping.
No need to panic! Really?
We just have to mix all the ingredients for the cheese topping together. Well, not exactly. The lemongrass needs chopping up, as fine as possible. Of course, I didn't forget to grate in the zest of the lime.
10 minutes over. I made it!

I removed the cake from the oven and turned up the heat to 225°C.
Now the cheese topping goes onto the cake ... on top. Oh, oh, it seems quite liquidish. Will it set properly? No worries, we will see.
Back goes the cake into the oven for 15 minutes. Then the heat is reduced to 125°C and the cake stays in the oven for another 30 minutes.

After that the cake needs cooling down and somehow we have to figure out to remove it from the tin without destroying it again ... hard job.
Anyway, I couldn't even wait properly for the cake to cool down. It was getting late. I wanted to eat the cake at a proper cake time ... what nonsense am I talking ... cake time could be anytime.
Whatsoever, I grated some chocolate over the cake. Somehow it melted partways, but i wasn't bothered. After all I had to take some pictures and have cake.

What would you say? Will such a cake taste nice, delicious, wonderful, or whatever good?
It did! You will not be disappointed.
Although now, it was the first time I tried this cake, I can only say, it's worth a try ...

 Now back to the SABH ...

I hope you enjoyed the Hanoi Lemongrass Cheesecake!

For sure you will enjoy the other entries ...

Waffles with Creme Chantilly and Strawberries

This year hasn't been the greatest success with my strawberries in the garden. As the main strawberry harvest was, there was next to nothing on my plant. After all the weather was like ... not worth to mention.

However, suddenly, already for a few days, more and more strawberries keep appearing in my garden. So it seems to be a late harvest and in the end not so bad.

Yet again it paid off, not to give up easily on my plants. I have a habit of keeping plants alive even when they look as if close to death. By that I already saved some. It would be good to apply this "not give up easily"-principle on other aspects of life. That, however, is a completely different story, which is not yet to be told.

Back to strawberries then. You could use them in a variety of ways, but nothing beats the pure pleasure of eating them just as they are. So I decided for these waffles with creme chantilly and some strawberries scattered on top.

First of all concentrate on the creme chantilly.

You need:

200 g crème fraîche

10 ml milk

1-2 tsp vanilla extract

2-3 tbs of icing sugar

You do:

Simply mix it all well together and put it in the fridge while you do the rest ... or put it even in the freezer, if you dare.

Job done! Now we go for the waffle batter.

You need:

125 g softened butter

75 g sugar

2 tsp vanilla sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp baking powder

125 g flour

140 ml milk

You do:

Cream together the softened butter, the sugar and the vanilla sugar. Make sure your butter is really softened. You don't want any ugly lumps later on, do you?

Then add the eggs.

Sift in the flour and the baking powder, while keeping in mind those ugly lumps. 

Finally pour in the milk and whisk it all to a nice smooth batter without any ugly lumps.

Why do I keep telling you about those ugly lumps? I didn't take the mentioned precautions, so I got them. Well, you still survive and will also manage to get nice waffles, but it's better without.

Once that is done you can go for your waffles and do them according to the instructions of your waffle-maker. What? You don't have one? Have pancakes instead.

Here a few suggestions on how to pimp your waffle batter by adding one of those:

1. a splash of rum

2. finely cut pieces of strawberries

3. a few tsp of raspberry jam

4. a few tsp of cocoa powder

Just have a try. I did. Somehow I liked to add the rum. It's not for the kids, though. That is if you have any.

Serve your ready waffles together with the creme chantilly and strawberries on top. Use amounts according to own free will.

Enjoy it! You could of course also use any other berries you fancy ... maybe blueberries. Or how do you like your berries?

This blog post is for this months Sweet Adventures Blog Hop: Berry Nice to Meet You!

Raiders of the Lost Cake - ChoPeaPan-Cake

There comes a time in the life of a man, where he has to go nuts … Wait! That is nuts!

Let’s start again! Sometimes a man has to do what a man has to do, even if it is nuts … Hm, that sounds nuts, too.

Under certain circumstances things might just go nuts … argh … forget it. It’s all nuts anyway.

What I really wanted to say is: It’s time to prepare some nice sweet food and while doing that use some nuts, because I want it that way … and … read right to the end to find out.

Some time ago I read about a cake with pancakes and just kept the information in mind. You never know when things might come in handy. Well, today was that day. I was in the mood for a cake, but not really for the process of proper baking. On top of that, I still didn’t go shopping and was once again left with what was … eh … left at home in the storage.

This now leads to our ChoPeaPan-Cake. 

Let me say just one more thing before I start.

Or well, put in a little story again. You might know the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indy has recovered the Ark and lost it. Now he is free again and the Germans want to get the Ark away with a truck. Here goes the dialogue between Indy and Sallah. Indy: “Meet me at Omar’s. be ready for me. I’m going after that truck.” Sallah: “How?” Indy: “I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go.”

In that spirit I like to go on here, making it up as I go. This is more or less a live post. It is the first time I try this cake. It might or might not be nice. We will see later. If not, this recipe might be usable with some adjustments. I try to include suggestions if necessary.

What you might need:

One 250 ml cup of spelt flour

The same cup filled with milk

One whatever sized free range (if desired organic) well, eh … egg

A pinch of salt

One tablespoon of cocoa powder

100 g of dark chocolate

100 g of butter

2 tablespoons of vanilla sugar

50 g or so salted or unsalted peanut butter (as you wish)

As many peanuts as it takes

Oil for frying

How you might do it:

Make a pancake batter using the flour, the milk, the egg, a pinch of salt, the cocoa powder and one tablespoon of vanilla sugar. Beat it all like nuts.

Meanwhile heat a drop of oil in a small pan. If you want a bigger cake, you might have to double the amounts and use a bigger pan respectively.

Before you begin frying your cocoa pancakes in the pan, start to melt the chocolate together with the butter in a bowl above boiling water. Have it going? Good!

Now go for the pancakes. You should get four.

What I did then is, I finished one pancake, put it on a plate and started a new pancake. While that was happening, I spread some peanut butter on the ready pancake and scattered some peanuts on it.  

Then the next pancake, peanut butter, peanuts, pancake, peanut butter, peanuts and finishing off with the last pancake.  

When the chocolate has melted and looks shiny and silky, you can add the vanilla sugar and let the mass cool down a bit before you pour it over the layered pancakes.

Since sufficient(?) time has passed, we can pour the chocolate over the pancakes and … end up with a cake swimming in a pool of chocolate (sorry, the photo with the swimming cake didn't work out - don't know, why I had just one shot).

So … off to the fridge with the cake and with me to the computer to write this (right here it becomes more live).

…

It has been one hour now. I go and have a look.

…

Not so bad, the chocolate solidified. That gives me the opportunity to transfer the cake to a fresh plate and start with scraping off and eating the chocolate sticking to the old plate. Yum yum – chocolaty and tasty! So our little experiment might have a happy ending.  

The ChoPeaPan-Cake could use some decoration. We still have some peanuts left we can place on top, doing it carefully.

I got on all peanuts safely, apart from one. Maybe you can spot it on the photo … or maybe not.    

In the end there is only one thing left to do: the taste check. After spending quite a little bit of time on that cake I can reward me with the final result. Or is it not a reward? Let’s see … or better say taste.

…

It took me some time to cut out a piece of cake for me and  to take some final photos.    

Now the final verdict:

I’m not quite so sure about the salty peanut butter. It tasted fine, but since I did use this one and not the other one I cannot judge what tastes better … hm … but I think it has it’s place. All in all it was not so sweet. You might want to experiment a bit with the amounts of sugar or the kind of chocolate you use – maybe a better quality chocolate would be useful here or even one with flavour – I would suggest a Milka chocolate with Daim pieces in it. I could imagine doing it that way and tweak the amount of sugar for the pancake batter might change a tasty treat into a divine one.

This is the point where you have to either trust my judgement or you have to do it as Indy says in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: “There is only one way to find out.” Then he took the holy grail with water and had a drink from it.

Ah … that was quite and adventure Indy had there.

And a nutty adventure we had here as well indeed (even without a bullwhip, Fedora hat and leather jacket).