Oooooh-oreo-oooooh balls

These little things are soooo gooooood! And so easy peasy cheesy to do, you won´t be able to do without!!! It´s one of those things you can do with zero effort reaching a 100% result, which everyone will die for. When you bring them to the table you might want to wear an armour, just in case; people might start fighting over who gets the last one... Now here´s the recipe, it´s no magic!

Ingredients:

1 package of Oreo cookies or similar

1 block of cream cheese, such as Philadelphia

1 pack of cooking chocolate either dark, milk, or white

Procedure:

Place the Oreo cookies in a bag/blender and smash/blend until they reach the consistency of sand (bigger crumbs are fine too). Then add the cream cheese and mix well with the smashed cookies. Roll the mixture into balls. Melt the chocolate and cover your balls with it (this is probably the trickiest part, but hey no panic!). Last but not least, leave them to cool then set in the fridge. Finally as I mentioned take a helmet and go for it! Hahaha!

Enjoy ♥

Martina

Romeo & Juliet´s kisses

Happy Valentine´s Day to all lovers, love pursuers, believers, dreamers, and passionates! Leave the consumerist aspect of this festivity in your wallet and enjoy the day. The inspiration for today´s recipe comes from my visit to Verona last weekend. I love everything about Verona: the atmosphere you breathe, its streets, the Venetian architecture, the Roman arena, and the Shakespearean touch to it. Since it is the setting to one of the most famous love stories - better say tragedies - ever written, what better way to celebrate Valentine´s day then with a recipe named Romeo & Juliet´s kisses?

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

Do with their death bury their parents' strife.

The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,

And the continuance of their parents' rage,

Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,

Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;

The which if you with patient ears attend,

What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. 

from William Shakespeare, Rome and Juliet, Act 1, Prologue

Ingredients for 20 pieces:

350 gr. butter

300 gr. ground almonds

250 gr. sugar

500 gr. flour

50 gr. cocoa powder

50 gr. dark chocolate

50 gr. white chocolate

Procedure:

Beat the butter with the sugar and the almonds, then add the flour. When all ingredients are well incorporated divide the dough in two blocks. To one of them add the cocoa powder. Let the doughs rest for 10 minutes in the refrigerator. Then spread the dough on a flat surface about 1-1,5 cm thick. Cut out many little squares all of the same size and roll each one into a little ball. Put them on an oven dish with some baking paper a bit apart from one another and bake at 180°C for 20 minutes. When the cookies have cooled down, melt the white and dark chocolate separately and use them as a filling to stick two halves together.

Spread the love ♥

Martina

The Kiss - Hayez

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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!

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!

Picky & crunchy!

I really like muesli and cereals with dried fruits, nuts, chocolate chips, and and and... and I especially like picking out of the carton the ones I like the most. I'm a bit picky! So for some kind of reason, after a couple of weeks, I'm not that fond of them anymore and the best way to use the leftovers is to use them to bake crunchy cookies!

What you need for 20 cookies:

250 gr. butter
170 gr. dark brown sugar
2 eggs
500 gr. flour
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1-2 cups of cereals, oatmeal, raisins, etc

What to do:
Preheat the oven at 170° C.
Put the butter and the sugar in the mixer and beat until light and fluffy.
Then add one at a time the eggs.
Add the flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, cerals, and mix well.
Drop equal amounts of dough on the baking sheets and bake for about 12 minutes, or until golden.
Let them cool down before serving.

Enjoy ♥

Martina

knock knock the Easter Bunny is here!

Yeeeeeyyyyyyyyy the Easter Bunny has finally arrived, he has made it through the snow, brought sunny weather, and... presents!

Look what I received:

We enjoyed the sun today, visited the Festung in Salzburg, and ate at Cafe' Bazar along the river Salzach. The weather was nice but not that warm, nevertheless the Easter Bunny (i.e. me!) was able to deliver at our house some lovely butter cookie-eggs with royal icing.

...He also delivered a very special self-made chocolate egg with a personalized surprise: a beautiful gold charm from my boyfriend...

Enjoy ♥

Martina

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

 

Trick or treat?

TREAT!!!

Yesterday was Halloween and the birthday of my younger brother so... 

Happy birthalloweenday little monster!

Enjoy the cookies I made for you. Are you sure you want to know the recipe?!?

2 bat wings

1 frog leg

200 gr. of pumpkin

50 ml. of swamp mud

1 vampire tooth

1 teaspoon warewolf fur

150 gr. of spiders (better if black widows)

Stir everything in a cauldron; the cookies are ready when you see orange smoke. Decorate with some slug slime and serve.

Hahahahaha ;)

♥

Martina