Vanilla wonderland

Happy 1st Advent Sunday to all of you! The Christmas countdown has officially started and as you light one by one the candles of your Advent garland, the Home sweet Bakery will unveil four of its easy Christmas recipes. Cooking in this time of the ear can be quite stressful, so why not spare some time on the dessert without giving up on its taste?

The first recipe is a light vanilla pudding with warm berries, perfect after a big meal because jelly and cream free.

Ingredients:

500 ml. milk

70 gr. sugar

3 eggs

3 tbsp of Maizena

1 fresh vanilla pod

frozen berries

Method:

Beat the eggs with the sugar until foamy, then add the Maizena. Start heating the milk with the vanilla pod and when slightly warm remove the vanilla pod and add the other mixture. Keep stirring being careful not to cook the eggs and when compact let it cool. Put your pudding in a big mould or in various smaller ones and place in the fridge for at least a couple of hours. Take the berries out of the freezer and warm them up with a spoon of sugar. When you have a nice warm sauce put it on top of your pudding.

Enjoy this vanilla wonderland

Martina

Season´s greetings

Dear readers of the Home sweet Bakery I wish a very merry Xmas and jolly holidays!

♥Martina♥

Christmas is coming... - 4th advent Sunday

So here we are! It´s the last Sunday before Christmas: all the presents are under the tree, the family has reunited, all the decorations are done, the menu for our Christmas dinner is set, and the jolly atmosphere  is filling my apartment. 

Whilst I am blogging right now, I am watching Nigella´s Christmas Cooking on tv... WOW! I would love to be able to cook like she does. If you are still clueless for your Christmas feast, have a look at her blog.

Anyways, we are here now for the fourth and last recipe of my Xmas cookies: the gingerbread snow flakes. I must be honest with you. . . I´m not fond of gingerbread  ☺ so these cookies were for my neighbours, who really appreciated!

Ingredients: 

400 gr. plain flour

180 gr. butter

125 gr. brown sugar

1 egg

125 gr. honey

2 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

For the icing:

water

icing sugar

lemon juice

For the icing I don´t follow a particular quantities. I simply take a bowl, pour some icing sugar in it, a little little little bit of water and a couple of drops of lemon juice. Then I stir and according to the consistency of it I either add water or sugar. It doesn´t have too bee too thick nor too liquid.

Procedure:

1. Sift together the flour, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a large bowl and set aside. Put the butter and sugar in a freestanding electric mixer and cream on slow speed until light and fluffy. Turn the mixer up to medium speed and beat in the egg and honey. 
2. Turn the mixer back down to slow speed and slowly add the flour mixture a couple of tablespoons at a time, stopping often to scrape any unmixed ingredients from the side of the bowl. Once an even dough has formed, take it out of the mixer, divide into 3 and wrap each piece in cling film. Leave to rest for at least a couple of hours. 
3. When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 170°C. Take the dough out of the fridge and leave it to soften for about 10 minutes. Sprinkle a clean work surface with flour and roll out the dough to a thickness of about 4 mm. Cut out shapes with your cookie cutters. Arrange the cookies on the baking tray and bake in the preheated oven for about 10–15 minutes. 
4. Leave the cookies to cool slightly. If you want to use them simply as a decoration you can start decorating right away. If you also want to eat them I recommend you leave them overnight in a tupperware with two halves of an apple.

Enjoy ♥

Martina

P.S.: thank you dear followers!

Who is Santa?

You better watch out

You better not cry

Better not pout

I´m telling you why

Santa Claus is coming to town

He´s making a list

And checking it twice

He´s gonna find out who´s naughty and nice

Santa Claus is coming to town

Actually Santa is already at my house. I guess he just wanted to peek over my shoulder as I was baking this gingerbread house and probably he also wanted a bite of it. 

Guess who he is!

a) the real Santa!!! The one and only! WOW!

b) one of his elves trying to take advantage of his boss´s privileges

c) my silly brother with his silly xmas pyjamas 

If you want to try and make a gingerbread house all on your own from scratch I can recommend two recipes. I usually follow this recipe from Taste.com because it´s very simple and there are fewer ingredients compared to other recipes, but I also like the one of the Hummingbird Bakery in London (by the way I have both their cook books and they are full of amazing recipes! I really recommend them). If you only feel like having fun decorating you can also buy prepared gingerbread dough; it´s easy to find around this time of the year.

For the decorations I use royal icing and anything sweet and colourful I have in my kitchen, such as gumdrops, dragees, sprinkles, sugar pearls, jimmies, hearts, stars, and so on.

For the icing I don´t follow a particular recipe. I simply take a bowl, pour some icing sugar in it, a little little little bit of water and a couple of drops of lemon juice. Then I stir and according to the consistency of it I either add water or sugar. It doesn´t have too bee too thick nor too liquid otherwise the decorations won´t stick and your house will not glue together.

If you do everything right you will have so much fun and the result will surely be cool!

Enjoy ♥

Martina

P.S.: dear Anja, Sandra, and Kristi (giveaway winners) your personalised canvases are finished! Your parcels are also ready for shipping; I am going to the post office tomorrow morning. Congratulations again, have fun!

It looks even more like Christmas - 3rd advent Sunday

The third advent Sunday has come (-1 week to Christmas!!! Yuhuuuuu!) and with it the third recipe for my Christmas cookies: the whole wheat hearts dipped in chocolate. They are really easy to bake and taste sooo good.

 

Ingredients: 

250 gr. butter

100 gr. whole wheat flour

70 gr. brown sugar
a teaspoon of cinnamon
baking chocolate

What to do:

Preheat the oven to 180°C. With an electric mixer, beat the butter until creamy. Then add the flour, the sugar, and the cinnamon. Mix until combined and then chill the dough for 10 minutes in the refrigerator. Roll out the dough on a flat surface (with flour) about one centimetre thick and using a cookie cutter form your stars. Half of them must have a hole in the middle. Put them on an oven dish and bake for 7-10 minutes. Let the cookies cool down and in the meantime melt the chocolate. Then dip one side in it; when cool enjoy!

♥Martina♥

P.S.: do you remember the other two recipes? If not check out the post from the 1st advent and from the 2nd advent Sunday.

It does look a lot like Christmas - 2nd advent Sunday

Do you remember the post for the first advent Sunday?
The first Christmas cookies came out from my oven, yummy yummy!
Last week I shared with you the recipe for the chocolate short bread cookies, this week it´s the whole wheat short bread stars with jam.

Ingredients: 

250 gr. butter

100 gr. whole wheat flour

70 gr. brown sugar
a teaspoon of cinnamon
your favourite jam

What to do:

Preheat the oven to 180°C. With an electric mixer, beat the butter until creamy. Then add the flour, the sugar, and the cinnamon. Mix until combined and then chill the dough for 10 minutes in the refrigerator. Roll out the dough on a flat surface (with flour) about one centimetre thick and using a cookie cutter form your stars. Half of them must have a hole in the middle. Put them on an oven dish and bake for 7-10 minutes. Let the cookies cool down, then assemble them. The stars without the hole are the basis for the jam, the ones with the hole are the "lid". Sprinkle with powdered sugar, and enjoy!

♥ Martina ♥

P.S. don´t forget to enter the GIVEAWAY! 

Only 5 days left and more surprises are yet to come. . .

It´s beginning to look a lot like Christmas - 1st advent Sunday

Have you noticed the snow falling whilst you are reading this? And the lovely gingerbread man following you all over the blog? Yes, it´s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Today is the first Sunday of the Advent and I can finally feel the jolly atmosphere, which comes once a year. Just to get started I have made our Advent garland, decorated the Christmas tree, and baked cookies!!! Yes, lovely and tasty Christmas cookies; here´s the menu:

chocolate shortbread all shapes cookies

whole wheat shortbread stars with jam

whole wheat shortbread hearts dipped in chocolate

gingerbread snow flakes

Since there are 4 different types of cookies, I decided to post one recipe each Advent Sunday until Christmas. So here is the first one: chocolate shortbread all shapes cookies.

Ingredients: 

250 gr. butter

100 gr. flour

70 gr. sugar

3 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder

What to do:

Preheat the oven to 180°C. With an electric mixer, beat the butter until creamy. Then add the flour, the sugar, and the cocoa powder. Mix until combined and then chill the dough for 10 minutes in the refrigerator. Roll out the dough on a flat surface (with flour) about one centimetre thick and using a cookie cutter form your cookies. Put them on an oven dish and bake for 7-10 minutes. Let the cookies cool down, then sprinkle with powdered sugar, and enjoy!

♥ Martina ♥

P.S. don´t forget to enter the GIVEAWAY!

Merry Xmas

Merry Christmas everyone!!!! 

Finally this day has come: family, lights, mistletoe, presents, cookies, cinnamon, games, candles, holly, and fun all together.

 Last night we had a family party so I decided to bake something special: "il tronchetto di Natale" or translated the Christmas log. Its real name is Bûche de Noël and it is a traditional dessert from France. You can also find it in Northern Italy; it was Napoleon who brought it... merci je l'adore! 

As the name indicates, the cake is generally prepared, presented, and garnished so as to look like a log ready for the fire. The traditional log is made with sponge cake frosted, filled with chocolate buttercream or ganache, and served with a portion of one end of the cake cut off and set on top to resemble a chopped off branch. It is then decorated with powdered sugar (snow), berries, mushrooms and trees made of meringue or marzipan.

That's how I made it!

For the sponge cake: 

Put in a bowl 70gr. of sugar, 2 whole eggs, and 2 egg yolks. Beat the ingredients in a bain marie until you get a light and fluffy consistency (takes about 10 minutes). 

Remove the bowl from the fire and gently stir, then add 80gr. of manitoba flour and 1 tablespoon of vanillin. When well mixed add 30gr. of melted butter.

In another bowl put the 2 egg whites with a pinch of salt and start beating. When you get the snow add 10gr. of sugar and beat for other 2 minutes.

Heat the oven at 220 degrees C. Put a sheet of baking paper on your oven dish and bake the mixture (about 1cm thick) for 5 to 7 minutes.

When ready take it out and lay it on a slightly damp dishcloth.

Then fill the sponge cake with Nutella (or any other cream you want) and roll it!

For the cream:

Beat 4 yolks with 150gr. of sugar until you get a light and fluffy consistency.
In a pan boil 1/2 liter milk with some vanilla and cinnamon, then let it cool a bit. Add 50gr. of flour and beat well. Then add your sugar and eggs mixture and keep stirring until you have a thick and smooth cream. Keep it the fridge for 1 hour.
Then spread it on your log and serve!

 Enjoy and have a great Xmas ♥
Martina
 

Rocking around the Xmas goodies

Yesterday evening I had the most delightful Xmas get together with my friends: Romina, Nils, Anna, Karina, Johannes, and my brother Egon. I spent such a nice and cozy time... a pity that some other friends couldn't make it.

I made pizza with real Italian mozzarella di bufala and basilico, muffins with pears and cinnamon, and chocolate chip cookies. My dear friend Anna also baked, she made the most beautiful (AND DELICIOUS) Christmas Sachertorte ever!!! A bottle of Prosecco and we were set.

I received chocolate, amarillis, home-made cookies, and some beautiful cupcake earings. I like presents! Then Nils took the guitar and played and sang for us all "Last Christmas" and "Rudolph the red nosed raindeer", the Jack Johnson version which I love. I like that song because my mom calls me Rudolph in the winter time since my nose is always red from the cold :)

Thankyou for the special evening. Love you all!

Enjoy ♥

Martina

 

 ready to bite the feast!

 the boys!

 smile it's Christmas time!

 Karina & Egon, so sweet...

 MUFFINS!

 

the masterpiece... it was such a shame having to cut it, but no regrets while eating it!

my new earings, thanks to Romi & Nils!

Anna the baker: ally or competitor ;) 

 my favourite couple!