Spicy honey pumpkin pie recipe, no refined sugar

This is a smooth spicy honey-pumpkin pie. It is of course refined sugar free and simple to make. You do not need many ingredients or much time to whip this up!

  Spicy Honey Pumpkin pie

250 grams/ a cup of (organic) orange pumpkin, seeds removed and cut in small cubes (if organic you do not have to remove the skin) Alternatively you could use the same amount of canned pumpkin.
3 tablespoons honey and 1 for decoration
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (or speculaaskruiden if you know what those are)
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 pack of puff pastry

My grandmother's pancake pie - easy and delicious

So last Friday I delivered my very first wedding cake. It was amazing if I do say so myself. Four tiers, carrot cake, champagne butter cream and fondant decoration. Luckily the bride and groom thought it was gorgeous and delicious too which is what matters in the end. Lots of the guest gave great comments also, check out the picture below to form your own opinion :)

I did find out that making wedding cakes takes a lot of time and a lot of material. I ended up charging way too little but as it was the first ever, that was ok.

Anyway, with all that work comes little time for other things so my dad baked me a pancake pie using my grandmothers recipe. He figured that I would have something to blog about without the work! Do I have an awesome dad or what?

This recipe refers to a Dutch Pancake Pie which to Americans and many other people probably, will look more like a crepe pie. The pancakes are thin and a little different so I'm just going to give the recipe for those as well. I'll blog it separately so check it HERE.

Grandma's Pancake Pie

Materials
- Pancakes (see recipe here)
- Jam, your favorite flavor(s)
- Instant custard and the ingredients you need to make it
- OR just use ready to use custard if they sell that where you live
- OR make your own custard if you feel up to it

You need to make the pancakes first. After that, go ahead and make your custard. It has to be a pudding. I'm not sure if instant custard is the same everywhere so you'll have to check the package to see how to make it.
It's easiest if you use your custard while it is still runny.

Now comes the super easy part:

Take a pancake and put it on a large plate with an edge. Pour some custard on it, or if using ready made just smear on there. Take another pancake and put it on top. Smear jam on that one and cover with another pancake. Now repeat until you have enough custard left to pour over your entire cake. (skip this part if using ready made custard) Pour the last bit over the top when it has congealed a little.

Let the cake stand until it has cooled and then pop it in the fridge.When it's cool dust some sugar over it and you're good to go :)

The wedding cake :)

 Make it beautiful!

Recipe of the week: Basic pie dough for sweet and hearty pies

Recipe of the week

With a basic recipe for pie dough laying around you'll be prepared for anything.... well, in regard to cravings for pie anyway. This is a versatile dough which can be used for all sorts of pies and pastries. You can make tiny pies, large pies, sugary pies or quiche! It's a perfect beginner's dough because it's easy to make and roll, and it doesn't have a lot of ingredients to it. It also has to rest, very important for dough by the way so don't skip that part! But while it's resting you have time to eat something healthy and if you decide your hunkering for pie has past, no worries, just freeze the dough. And next time your cravings start acting up again you can just pop that out the freezer and get right to making one of those yummy pies ;)


Basic pie dough for sweet and hearty pies 
(enough for a 10 inch pie shell)

Ingredients

- 250 grams flour
- 150 grams cold butter in cubes
- 1 egg yoke
- 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 1/2 tablespoons ice cold water

- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Optional:
- 2 tablespoons sugar for sweet dough

Put a bit of water and some ice cubes in a bowl and set aside. If you don't have ice cubes just put something else out of your fridge in a clean bag and hang that in the bowl.

Mix the flour, salt and if using the sugar in a large bowl. Add the cubes of butter to the bowl and rub the mixture between your fingers till you get a bread crumb consistency and no large pieces of butter remain.

Whisk the egg with the lemon and water.
Make a dent in the flour mixture and add the liquids. Stir with a fork until everything starts to stick together. Now use your hand to knead the dough until everything is incorporated. Don't over knead it or the dough will become tough. Make a ball of the dough and wrap it tightly in plastic wrap.

Put the dough in the fridge for at least 4 hours but better yet an entire night. After that you can roll the dough for large or small pie crusts see How to make an apple pie for tips.

Print out this recipe and put it near your flour, handy ;)

Make it beautiful!

Starting a decorated cake shop

Ok so it won't really be a shop. I'm just starting a business in decorated cakes, and just plain yummy pies. I've made quite a lot and since I can't seem to find a decent (or any) job, this is a good time to start my own business :)

I haven't quite figured out what it is going to look like but I do know I am not including the color pink in my name, logo or website. All cake stores here seem to be pink, and not a little pink, very very pink! Any guy wishing to make a nice cake (and lets face it, with Buddy on tv I'm sure there are a lot of men out there), is never going to want to go into a store that is so extremely frilly.

Well I have thought of the name, which is translated is Cake and Art. Though in English it doesn't sound wonderful, in Dutch it is nice and it makes for a nice logo because the word art is part of the Dutch word for cake (huh?? you say...: taART)

So I'm hoping to get the business going sometime soon and then I'll happily link you to it. In the mean time check out this fabulous fabric I got for the nursery (yes I said it, I'm pregnant woohoo!): World of Susy Bee