Mickey Mouse (Christmas) cookies

I made some really cute looking Mickey Mouse cookies the other day. Mostly because I have to do something while sitting out the last weeks (days??) of my pregnancy, but also because they are fun and yummy!

Check out the recipe here, it's from Disney.

It does look like they might have coated the bottom of their cookies in chocolate. I considered doing that if the ears weren't sticking but they turned out great so I left them plain.







I also made an English Sticky Toffee Pudding out of a Disney World cookbook:

 

It's made with dates and put in the oven where it creates a nice chewy top with a pudding like center. Over the top came the toffee, which I totally screwed up by letting it overheat. It became really hard candy so we scooped it off. And adding custard, made from scratch which is ten times more yummy and just as easy as custard made from powder.

It looks a little unappetizing in this picture but I can assure you it's not!

Sharing some treats

Just wanted to share some of my recent treats.


1personPizza

 First up is this 1 person pizza. Yummy! Pizza is so easy to make. I generally use wheat flour to make the bottom so it's good for your digestive system. As a sauce I just use tomato puree, adding garlic and Italian herbs. I like the puree because I hate runny sauce on my pizza. Then some nice serrano-ham, some cheese and after it's baked, top it off with rucola lettuce. Yum!!




Plum Strawberry Pastries

 Plum season has started again, or at least they are selling them in the supermarket again. To make these sweet treats take a square of puff pastry and cut out two opposite corners. (Take a close look at the picture if this confuses you.) Prick a few holes in the pastry between the two cuts. Cut your plums in pieces and add some cut up strawberries. Sprinkle with sugar. If your plums and strawberries are really sweet you won't even need this, unless you like your pastries really sweet. Put a bit of the fruit lengthwise between those two cuts. Now fold the loose corners over the fruit. Lay all the pastries on a baking sheet on a wire rack. Scoot into the middle of the oven which you preheated to about 380 degrees (190 celsius). They'll stay in there for about 20 minutes. With 5 minutes to go you can sprinkle some coarse sugar over the top.
After I took them out of the oven I glazed the fruit with a bit of diluted raspberry jam. Just to make the top fruits a bit moist.

Plum pie (which tastes surprisingly like rhubarb pie)

I had a few plums which were threatening to turn bad so I made a pie. The crust is cookie dough, easy and yummy. I rolled it out and pushed it into a small tin (about 6 inches/ 16 cm) using the leftovers to make the wire top. The filling contains mostly plums, a handful of cranberries and a few blueberries. I added about a teaspoon of cornstarch just to bind those juices. You have to adjust this amount when your plums are really juicy and/or when you make a larger pie. I also added a crumb topping under the wire top. It's made of a handful of crushed walnuts, the same amount of oatmeal, some sugar (depending on your sweet tooth, I'm not a great sugar eater) and a bit of butter to bind the crumbs. You could add a little bit of juice if you have it, that will give it a little more fruity flavor but it's no biggy if you do not.

Bake temp is about 360 F (180 C) and bake time ?? hmmm don't really remember. I think it was 35 minutes. Just check once in a while. Fruity pies like these are done when you see some of those juices boiling up thickly at the edges. Take it out of the oven and leave it on a wire rack to cool. You need it to cool down considerably so the juices will set. If you have a hubby like mine, who wants to eat everything the moment it's made (flattering but not always handy ;) try to make it when he's not home hahaha. Or remember to put a deep enough plate or dish under the pie when you cut into it. If you are able to wait, wait until it is lukewarm. That will give you a pie that can hold itself but is still that nice warm out of the oven taste. And otherwise eat it at room temp, also very nice!

Sometimes tiny simple things make you happy and sometimes tiny simplethings make you sort of sad.

Sometimes tiny simple things make you happy and sometimes tiny simple things make you sort of sad. Take Pinterest.com for instance, that is a really neat site. Super easy (except for the waiting list to join) and really useful. Type in what you're looking for, like Baby Gift for inspiration on things to give a newborn, and tada, you get all these pictures of things other people have found extremely fun without having to go through lists of google junk. Check it out if you don't know it, I didn't.

While I was happily searching away on Pinterest, going to more and more interesting blogs by normal people (such fun!), I came across A Law Student's Journey, about the Journey a Law student makes during her three years of study (obviously). She used to work at Starbucks and decided to give all readers an insight into the workings of those apparently evil minded employees of the coffee place of my choice, which is hilarious, as well as giving the recipe for Carmel Apple Spice (shouldn't that be Caramel by the way? Or is it the same thing.) I really like Christmas Holiday drinks and got really excited about the prospect of learning from the Starbucks masters.... but it's really disappointing!

Just looking at the picture you think Yum!



But then you see the recipe: Take apple juice, put in Cinnamon Dolce Syrup which you bought at Starbucks and heat in the microwave. After which you put on some whipped cream and take your bottle of caramel sauce and drizzle some over the top. Easy peazy so probably fabulous for all those who don't want to spend time in the kitchen, but really artificial for all others. And the sad part is mostly that it's really expensive at Starbucks and doesn't even really contain caramel or cider in the actual drink part of the drink!

So, having made this type of drink a few times myself, not completely from scratch but more so than the Starbucks variant, here is what I would do:

Take a liter (about 4 cups) of apple juice or apple cider (or cranberry juice, that's also really yummy for this), put in sauce pan together with a quarter lemon with 2 cloves pushed in (that's so you can easily take those out when done), a cinnamon stick and 3 juniper berries. You can add a little nutmeg too if you want, powder should do ok if you don't feel like grating. Bring that to a boil, on lowest heat leave to steep for about 20 minutes.

When done, take out all the spices and pour into cups. Then take your caramel sauce because face it, you do not want to be making your own. It's a hassle and can go very wrong. Pour some into the spiced apple juice/cider and stir, than add whipped cream and drizzle some more caramel over the top.

This is also super easy to make and will cost you less than getting a Cinnamon Dolce syrup bottle from your local Starbucks. Plus you get that wonderful smell of steeping apple juice/cider throughout your house, giving you a very homey feeling ;)