Howling at the Moon

 For King's Day I made this cake  The outside is orange, after the name of the king Van Oranje, which means 'from orange'.  The inside is red, white and blue, after the Dutch flag.  

  This weekend I will go for a weekend trip with my husband and daughters to the other side of the country (I live in The Netherlands and 'the other side of the country' is not even 200km away) and because it will be Valentine's Day this monday I made this chocolate hearts for my daughters.  I made the hearts by pouring melted chocolate in a mold, turning the mould until the chocolate was evenly divided over all sides. Then I put the heart in the fridgde and repeated the proces a couple of times after the chocolate was hardened, especially along the edges.  When the layer of chocolate was thick enough, I peeled the mould from the chocolate and cut away the surplus along the edges.  First I filled the heart with red and pink jelly beans and fixated a piece of cardboard wrapped in celophane to the heart by adding some molten chocolate on the edges of the heart, so it would stick to the celophane. After that I decorated the chocolate heart with sprinkles and little pape...

S i nterklaastaart   Benodigdheden: * cakemix en de op de verpakking genoemde toe te voegen ingredienten, meestal boter en eieren * taaitaaipopjes *50 cc + 5 eetlepels slagroom *bakje mascarpone *speculaaskruiden *3 eetlepels suiker *rolfondant *reep chocola van 80 gram *chocoladeletter *strooigoed (pepernoten, taaitaaipopjes, letters, schuimpjes, marsepein, of wat je maar wil)   Bereid de cake zoals op de verpakking staat aangegeven. Maal de taaitaaipopjes grof en meng dit met het cakebeslag Bak zoals staat aangegeven op de cakemixverpakking Laat de taart helemaal afkoelen  Sla 50cc slagroom stijf en roer daar de mascarpone, drie eetleps suiker en twee eetlepels speculaaskruiden doorheen Snijd de taart in drie lagen en smeer daar de speculaascreme tussen. Smeer ook wat op de boven- en zijkanten van de taart. Zet je taart even in de koelkast. Rol de fondant uit in een lange, dunne strook; meet de hoogte van je taart en snijd de randen van de fondant af op die hoog...

  In the supermarket where I do my shopping you can purchase 'fresh boxes', boxes that include fresh vegetables and most other required ingredients for a complete meal for four persons. Our favorite is Thai Green Curry. That particular box contains various vegetables, among which zucchini. My kids hate zucchini, so I leave that one out. But what I hate is to throw good food away, so I was on the look out for something else to make with zucchini and I tried Zucchini Cake. Not bad, I think. Not bad at all, so here's my recipe.   What you need 120ml sunflower oil  175grams white caster sugar bit of salt 2 eggs 200grams of grated zucchini 200grams flour tbsp baking powder 75grams nuts (pecans are great, but you can choose whatever you like) 2 tbsp full fat yoghurt 125grams icing sugar What to do Preheat oven at 175 degrees Celsius Mix the oil, sugar and salt  Add the eggs and mix again Add zucchini, flour and baking powder and mix again Stir in the nuts Bake the cake fo...

  Both of my daughters (11 and 13) are fervent followers of TikTok and I have to say: sometimes they come up with really great ideas, that they found on this app. One of this ideas is the Chocolate Bomb. And just when they told me about the chocolate bombs I saw them pop up everywhere in blog land. The bombs look so beautiful, that I wanted it try them out for Valentines Day, together with my daughters of course. We used Red Velvet Chocolate for a pink color and filled the bombs with little marshmallows, sprinkles and sugar confetti and of course cocoa.

Last night we made a great deal: we exchanged a homemade cake for an adorable little tomcat!        Naked Cake with Poppy Seeds and Lemon Cream, topped with White Chocolate and Summer Fruit   What you need For 2 cakes: 2x200 grams butter 2x200 grams sugar 2x3 eggs 2x250 grams cake mix 2x50cc milk  2x2 tablespoons poppy seeds 500 grams mascarpone 1 lemon 25 grams of vanilla sugar white fondant 2 tablespoons  cream  100 grams white chocolate summerfruit (raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, redberries, blueberries etc)   What to do Preheat oven at 160 degrees Celsius Mix the butter until soft.  Add sugar and mix until smooth Add eggs one by one and mix after adding each egg Add milk and poppy seeds Mix for three minutes Bake the cake for an hour Make the other cake (or you can make the two cakes simultaneously, if your oven is big enough and if you have two cake pans of exactly the same size) Let the cakes cool down and cut them both i...

 Yesterday I saw what seemed to be a delicious dish on a picture and I could almost taste it on my tongue. It looked like a Poke Bowl Sushi Style.Today I couldn't wait to rush to the supermarket to buy what I thought was in the recipe.I'm a vegetarian, so I had to change some of the ingredients, but that made it even better. We just finished eating it and it was great, so I have to share it with you. Sushi Poke Bowl Ingredients for two persons 2 cups or rice (I used Pandan) 1 avocado 1/4 cucumber mayonaise wasabi soy sauce 3 eggs 2 tbsp sugar salt sesame seeds  Cook the rice as instructed on the package. Make the tamagoyaki (sweet omelet) by mixing 3 eggs, 2 tbsp sugar with some salt and soy sauce to taste. Bake two thin omelets, roll up and cut to slices.  Cut thin slices of the avocado, cut the cucumber in slices and the slices in quarters. Roast the sesame seeds for a short time.  Mix the cooked rice with wasabi, mayonaise and ...

Three months ago my daughter had her ninth Birthday and we still didn't have her party for class mates. Last weekend she asked if she could celebrate this weekend. A bit of a short notice, but since there's another two week school vacation coming up (again), I couldn't postpone. So, this weekend we had a party. My daughter wanted a pineapple cake (just the look, not the taste), so I made this one.

This weekend my husband's whole family came over for eating, drinking and chatting. Although we had a week of rain every single day, spring is definitely in the air. Flowers and trees are not blooming yet, but it won't be long before they will. I made a delicious Spring Cake, vanilla cake with caramel cream, decorated with Chocolate Flowers, Easter Eggs and  Caramel Crumbs. Do you know anyone who doesn't like caramel? I don't.  ~*~ The Llama that I made last week was featured by Creative Jewish Mom and The Blogger's Life Style ! Thank you, Sara and Kathleen!

Just in time to show you the XXL Tompouce that I made with my daughter  for her fiance. Mind you, my daughter is just nine, same age as her boyfriend. They know each other from the day-care center, where they were going to as babies and toddlers. They're in the same class nowadays. My daughter claims they were in love even when they were babies and when I look at pictures of that time they were always sitting next to each other, indeed. So I guess it's the truth. True love.  We cut two hearts out of puff pastry and baked both hearts for 25 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. In a bowl we mixed two parts mascarpone and one part whipped cream together with vanilla sugar and a couple of drops red food coloring for the cream between the puff pastry layers. In another bowl we melted marshmellows (50 seconds on the highest) and stirred a couple of drops of red food coloring through it and smeared it over the upper layer.  Then we cut some strawberries in little ...

Maybe you remember the Coffee Cake that I made last week, for my daughter's birthday. It was a great success. Not only my daughter loved it (the most important one, because she asked for the cake), but the guests were enthusiastic, too.  Choosing a taste for the topping of the donuts I made for Valentine's day wasn't very difficult indeed: it had to be coffee. The topping is made of white chocolate mixed with espresso powder. The donuts are cake donuts baked in a tin.

This week we celebrated my daughter's Birthday for friends and family and she asked me explicitly to make a Coffee Cake for her party and of course I did.  I baked a vanilla cake and cut it in three layers. For the filling I mixed mascarpone and whipped cream in a 2:1 rate and added one table spoon espresso powder and two table spoons powder sugar. The filling was smeared between the layers of the cake, on top of it and on the sides.  I spread sprinkels on the side and embellished the top of the cake with chocolate balls and coffee beans, et voila!  Fortunately for my daughter, the cake was a great success. ~*~ My Plant Sack was featured by Embracing Grace ! Thank you very much, Stacey!

My youngest had her birthday this week and as usual she had to treat her class mates, so on her request I made cupcakes with pineapples. Making cupcakes isn't something that I really like to do, mostly because the last couple of years I always had to make cupcakes for school, but as long as my daughters like it...

Yesterday we all, the whole family that is, went to my brother's house, to celebrate Christmas. I made another cake. I think this second one looks much better than the first one.  ~*~ Both my Christmas wreath and my Clay Ornaments were featured by Stacey Embracing Change ! Thanks, Stacey!

Last week my husband asked me if I could make something for his Christmas Breakfast at his job. For my own Christmas Diner with my family I wanted to make this same cake, so this was the perfect opportunity for a try out. Not that it was the first time that I made this kind of cake, but I wanted to experiment with the cream and the decoration. It's not entirely what I had in mind yet, but I think the cake looks okay. The cake is four layered with peppermint cream inbetween. It's covered in mint green fondant and the (tiny bit too liquid) drippings are made of chocolate ganache. The toppings are what I could find, merengue wreaths, marsipan christmas trees, candy canes, lollypops, etc. 

It's impossible that it slipped your mind that the birthday of my oldest daughter is all about cacti this year, on her request. She's the one that never comes up with a theme, but this year she made up for all the years without a theme. The latest and last one in this long series of cactus related birthday items is this Cactus Cake.  And here I present you for once and for all the other Cactus Birthday Theme things:' And now on to another theme! Next birthday party will be in January, when my youngest will become nine! ~*~ The Cactus Cupcakes were featured by My Husband Has Too Many Hobbies and Sum of Their Stories this week! Thank you very much, Laurie and Julie!

And here's another one in the endless stream of cactus related birthday party items: the treats for the class mates. It didn't take me as much time as I expected it to take, but even though I spend quite some hours in the kitchen. But, and that's what it's all about of course: my daughter loved the treats and I've never seen her more proud when she entered her class room with her Cactus Cupcakes! ~*~ The 50 Cake that I made for my parents was featured by The Cottage Market ! Thank you very much, Andrea! My Fall Drawing and my Cactus Invitations were featured by Creative Jewish Mom !

This weekend, while the rain was falling hard and the wind was blowing fast, I made this drawing on my kitchen door. After four months of ongoing summer I was so looking forward to Fall, that I'm really early this year with my decorations and Fall recipes. Normally I wait until October.   September is my favorite month of the year: you can smell Fall in the air a little, but there are still a lot of beautiful, sunny days. A sort of extended summer actually. But I've had enough summer, so Fall begins now in my house.  ~*~ My favorite Fall recipe is the one for speculaas. I think I've shared this recipe here many times before, but I of course I grant you this delicous cookie also because that's how I am, so here we go again.     What you need:  300 grams flour 175 grams butter 150 grams brown sugar 4 table spoons speculaaskruiden (a mix of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, pepper and cloves)   1/2 teaspoon salt 2 tabl...