Santa's elf

I feel like an exhausted elf, I've been working all yesterday evening and this morning to bake and decorate these gingerbread cookies. I hope Santa likes them... 

My kitchen looked like a Christmas laboratory indeed: full of spices, silver pearls, coloured sprinkles, and sugar icing. But there's no better beginning for this Advent!

- 4 weeks to Xmas... I'm starting to feel the atmosphere.

Enjoy ♥

Martina

 

The BTG: big tasty giant

The BTG is a giant chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing... I wonder what Roald Dahl would say?!?

It's a great idea you can go for when you want to be quick and don't have time to make cupcakes, but still want to bake something much more original than a cake. 

The result is guaranteed awsome!

Ingredients:

200 gr. flour

40 gr. cocoa powder

175 gr. sugar

50 gr. butter

1 cup milk

1 egg

1 tablespoon baking powder

a pinch of salt

chocolate chips

Procedure:

Preheat the oven at 170 degrees C.

Put the flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, salt, and butter in your mixer and beat until you get a sandy consistency and everything is combined.

Separately whisk the egg with the milk and then slowly pour it in the flour mixture. Continue mixing to avoid lumps until the batter is smooth. Add the chocolate chips.

Spoon the batter in a cake mould (diameter about 15-20cm): you can either use a silicon mould for oversized cupcakes or simply a normal springform cake pan. Bake in the oven for about 40 minutes or until the cake bounces back when touched; a toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean.

Let it cool completely before opening the mould, in the meantime you can do the icing.

Icing:

Beat with a freestanding electric mixer 500 gr. of confectioner's sugar, 100 gr. of butter, 60 gr. of cocoa powder, and 2 tablespoons of milk. Continue beating until the frosting is light and fluffy. The longer you beat, the fluffier it will become. Leave your frosting in the fridge for a couple of hours and then spread it on your giant cupcake. Decorate as you like!

Enjoy ♥

Martina

 

P.S.: this one was made for a 21st birthday. A friend ordered it :)

My battle horse

No worries dear Romi, my battle horse is definitely not Landi! I love him so much... and I love riding.

My battle horse is instead lemon curd and mascarpone cupcakes. A fresh and delicious recipe which looks amazing indeed. It's one of my favourite ones because it always turns out perfect. You try!

Ingredients for 12:

110 gr. butter

110 gr. sugar

110 gr flour

2 eggs

1 tablespoon of milk

2 teaspoons of baking powder

the peel of a bio-lemon

a pinch of salt

&

lemon curd:

the jiuce of 2 lemons

the peel of 4 lemons

1 egg

50 gr. butter

180 gr. icing sugar

 &

mascarpone

icing sugar

Procedure:

Preheat your oven at 180 C.

Put the butter in your mixer and start mixing it untill it's soft and creamy. Then add to it the sugar, the milk, and the eggs and beat. Last but not least add the flour, the baking powder, the salt, and the lemon peel. I prefer when there is a lot of peel, because I like the taste the lemon combined with the sweet fluffy dough. So exceed!

Spoon the batter in the paper cases and bake it in the oven for about 20 minutes.

For the lemon curd start beating all the ingredients in a bowl. Then slowly heat them in a bain-marie being careful not to cook the egg. Keep on stirring with a lot of patience because it may take about 30 minutes. If you see that your mixture is not getting any thicker add some icing sugar. It's ready when it's no longer liquid but creamy.

Of course you can buy it ready-made from the supermarket as well!

Serving:

Before you serve your cupcakes make sure they have cooled down. With a knife cut the upper part and remove it but don't throw it away or eat it ;) Put on your open cupcake a layer of mascarpone and one of lemon curd and reclose it. Some icing sugar and a slice of lemon and tehre you have the finishing touch!

(Store in the fridge for no longer than 2 days)

Enjoy, oh yes youll'do ♥

Martina

 

 

Riding pictures by: Giot, thankyou!

Brushing up traditions

Sachertorte! Sachertorte! Sachertorte!

Who has never had a slice of one of the most famous Viennese culinary specialties? This delicious cake was invented by chance by the Austrian Franz Sacher in 1832 for the Prince of Metternich in Vienna and has become a global success.  

I always loved it but since I moved to Austria I've had it so often I decided it was about time for me to learn how to make it myself. Furtehrmore I was recently sitting at the Hotel Sacher with a friend eating a slice of original Sachertorte whilst talking of how good his mother's Sachertorte is so... I decided to take out of my kitchen drawer an old book of traditional Austro-hungarian recipes from the end of the 19th century. I opened the yellow page to the recipe of the original Viennese Sachertorte and started baking. The result was impressive: easy to do and delicious to eat. With my brother, who is very critic, we compared my cake with the one of the Furst Konditorei and we both agreed that my Sacher tasted better. I'm a modest baker!
So let the contest begin ;)

And I'm sorry but this time I will not share the recipe... I'll keep it a secret!

Enjoy ♥

Martina

 

 

This last picture is so cute. This is my younger brother Egon with the famous Sacher boy. The picture was taken a couple of years ago durimg one of our first visits in Salzburg. My brother is now almost 1.90 m. tall... it'a probably thanks to all the Sachertorte he ate!