Tag Archives: Food

Fresh Nectarine Muffins

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I made these muffins a while ago already, when I suddently felt the urge to give my basic muffin recipe an update because I wasn’t entirely happy with it. Given the fact that I still had some nectarines leftover, the choice for this muffin flavour combo was easily made. Add a little bit of lemon zest and some cinnamon for a deeper flavour, and you’ve got yourself a nice and fresh fruit-based muffin, perfect for summer.

As for the changes I made to the recipe: I added milk to the recipe, which is very common in muffin recipes anyway, but I decided to leave it out of mine way back when because I never had milk in my fridge (solid reason, I’d say). It does give your muffins this extra bit of moisture and a more silky texture, which sounds like something every muffin needs, right?

It’s been a bit silent on here for the last month. In fact, this is my first post all month, and it’s the first of July tomorrow. Oops. At the start of the year I told you guys I was going to take it easy with all of my hobbies and just do things when I felt like doing them, and that’s exactly what has happened this month. I was quite busy and stressed what with a holiday and an upcoming move, so there just wasn’t any room in my head for blogging. The holiday has come and gone now, but we’re moving in August, so we’ll see how much I get around to blogging until then! Always a surprise…

For now, let’s get to the recipe, shall we? These muffins are very easy to make and they’re the perfect sweet snack on a nice summer day!

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Profiteroles (with a whipped cream filling)

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Ages ago, my Mum asked me if I wanted to bake profiteroles with her some time. We’d both never baked them before and they seemed like a fun challenge. I also figured that, as a baker, it would be good to add choux pastry to my arsenal of baking skills. Of course, months then went by before we actually got around to doing it because that’s how it goes. But then, at Easter, we finally gave it a try and we were pretty succesful!

I always thought choux pastry was difficult to make because it involves cooking the pastry, but it really isn’t that hard. You have to pay attention to what you’re doing, sure, but as long as you’re doing that it’ll be fine. Our first batch didn’t turn out great, since I didn’t pipe the profiteroles properly (too flat), but the second batch (made from the same batch of pastry) turned out perfectly!

We went for the standard profiterole filling of whipped cream, although you could of course add other kinds of fillings as well, or dip them in chocolate at the end. “Profiteroles” is such a fancy name, by the way. In Dutch we call them soesjes (pronounced “sooshes”), which sounds way more fun to me! Too bad no one in the English speaking blogosphere will know what I’m talking about when I say “sooshes”. Oh, well. Profiteroles it is, then.

We had tons of fun baking these and I can’t wait to try some other recipes with choux pastry soon. Perhaps éclairs? We’ll see!

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Easy Easter Recipe: Chocolate Egg Brownies

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The other day I was just minding my own business when suddenly a brilliant idea struck me: Chocolate Easter egg brownies. That’s right.

I love brownies. They’re absolutely, mouthwateringly delicious on their own, but by adding just one or two ingredients you can spruce them up and make them even more special (take these Rolo and sea salt brownies, for example). Plus, they’re extremely easy to make – you can barely mess these up, I promise (I say barely, because a while back I managed to burn some chocolate when trying to melt it).

Although I know chocolate is a pretty big part of Easter in most countries, I’m also quite sure every country does their chocolate Easter eggs a little bit differently, although I might be wrong. In the Netherlands, we’ve got small chocolate eggs in dark, milk and white chocolate. They come as solid pieces of chocolates, but there are also a ton of varieties of filled chocolate eggs.

For these brownies I bought a bag of eggs that came in four different flavours: milk pecan caramel sea salt, milk hazelnut almond praline, dark almond coconut, and white pistache praline. Sounds delicious, right? Little bursts of flavour within an already delicious brownie. You could choose whatever your like for your own chocolate egg brownies, although I would recommend choosing filled eggs instead of solid ones. Hope you enjoy!

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Coconut Macaroons

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I’m back! You might not have actually noticed that I was gone, but up until last week I hadn’t posted anything in over a month. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, since one of my New Year’s resolutions was to take a bit of a chill pill and be more relaxed about my blogging (and reading, and Instagram, and my entire life, basically).

HOWEVER. I didn’t not blog because I didn’t want to, but because I had the flu for two weeks. I’ve never been sick for two whole weeks (I know – I’m lucky) and it sucked. I was bored out of my mind but didn’t have a shred of energy to do anything. I couldn’t even read for most of that time. It was that bad.

But I’m not here to moan! I’m here to celebrate that I’m back and I’m feeling good. And what better way to celebrate than with something yummy? Granted, I did bake these coconut macaroons for a different reason (my bestie’s housewarming), but that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that these macaroons were delicious.

And they’re super easy to make as well! You only really need three ingredients, although I added a pinch of salt as well, because that makes everything better (trust me on this). I was planning on adding a chocolate drizzle, but I didn’t feel like messing about with chocolate after I was done with the baking part, so I left them as they were, which was absolutely fine. They’re delicious just the way they are!

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Rolo Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Every once in a while I get the urge to bake cookies and it won’t go away until I’ve actually baked said cookies. So, that’s what I did this weekend! I came across the idea of chocolate chip cookies with a hidden Rolo (= caramel) surprise inside of them and that sounded so awfully delicious that I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind.

I used my own recipe for chocolate chip cookies and simply added the Rolos in the middle. It’s a very easy recipe, although it does take some time; if you want to make them come out as delicious as possible, the dough should be chilled for at least 5 hours. I usually make the cookie dough in the evening and bake the cookies the next morning.

These were a tremendous success! One of my colleagues called it “the best cookie I’ve ever tasted” and they were gone before I knew it. I might have to bake them again soon…

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Apple and Pear Pie

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One of my very first posts on this blog was a recipe for a Dutch apple pie – it’s a classic, and I still make it pretty often! It was my father’s birthday yesterday and I thought about baking that apple pie again, but I wasn’t satisfied with the idea. I wanted something a little bit different. So, I decided to add pears to the mix!

Pears go great with lots of flavours (like berries, the proof’s in the pudding this pear and berry crumble), so I figured I couldn’t really go wrong by adding them. I also added some ginger (love the pear and ginger combination) as well as some pecans, for that extra crunch. The pie turned out absolutely lovely!

I haven’t been posting a lot lately, because I’ve not been feeling great. I’m feeling tired constantly and haven’t had the energy for much besides the necessary. After doing a blood test, I found out I have a vitamin D deficiency, which explains a lot! Measures are being taken, so hopefully I’ll be back to having some more energy soon, but for now I’ll be taking it easy. I’m not sure what that means for my blogging schedule, but I’ve decided not to worry about it. We’ll see what happens!

For now, here’s the recipe for this delicious pie!

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Festive Fortnight [13]: A Festive Book and Dessert Pairing Guide

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Christmas Book Dessert Guide

Happy Christmas Eve Eve! It’s nearly Christmas and I cannot wait. Yesterday was my last day of work for the year and now I’ve got eleven days off! There will be tons of reading and relaxing and doing absolutely nothing and it’ll probably be over before I know it. Like this Festive Fortnight – tomorrow is the last post already. I feel as if we’ve only just started!

Today I’ve got a fun post for you that involves both books and baking (the perfect combination, of course). A few years ago I posted a book and dessert pairing guide, with a graphic made by Shari’s Berries. A few days ago, they got in touch with me again about a Christmas version of such a guide. It seemed like the perfect post to include in my Festive Fortnight!

Below, you’ll find twelve books about Christmas and a fitting dessert to go with them. I’ve scoured the web for recipes for these desserts – I hope there’s something to your liking! Perhaps this will provide you with some inspiration for Christmas dinner…

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Festive Fortnight [12]: Christmas Tree Meringues

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These Christmas Tree Meringues are the last recipe of the Festive Fortnight (cue “aaaaaw”s – there’ll still be two other posts, though) and they might be my favourite! I came across the concept of these meringues at a Dutch blog (Laura’s Bakery) and I immediately figured they’d be perfect for the Festive Fortnight. Ever since I got my free standing mixer, I’ve loved making meringues! They’re absolutely delicious treats and you can go all kinds of ways with the decoration.

The last time I made them I used food colouring gel to spruce them up for the first time, and I decided that I would use that same technique to paint these Christmas trees with some festive colours! I used red and green – the obvious Christmas colours – but you could also use all green if you want the meringues to resemble Christmas trees even more.

I based my meringue recipe on this recipe by CupcakeJemma and if you’re unsure how to make a good meringue, I’d definitely recommend watching her video. I tried to be as clear as I could in my instructions, but actually seeing what you’re supposed to be doing will beat any description I can give. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures of the process, but Jemma describes everything super clearly.

These are so yummy, and they were gone before I knew it. My father in particular is a huge fan of meringues, but, then again, he’ll eat anything that has sugar as its main ingredient, it seems!

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Festive Fortnight [10]: Chocolate Cookies with Mint Icing

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Just looking at the pictures of these cookies makes me incredibly happy. They look so cute and festive! Plus, I know how they taste as well and let me tell ya; they are delicious. These cookies are a huge success all around.

This is the first time I made royal icing myself. Last year, when I made gingerbread cookies (which looked similar to these chocolate cookies) I bought ready made royal icing, because I couldn’t find a place to buy corn syrup. This time I had a little more time and did a little more research, and I found out you can just as easily use golden syrup, which I’ve got lying around in my cupboard anyway. The icing is super easy to make, and the mint really takes it up a notch.

The cookies themselves are wonderful, too. They’ve got a very rich chocolate-y taste and the texture is just right as well. And like the icing, they’re super easy to make! Just make sure you’ve got some time, because the dough will need to chill in the fridge for an hour. Apart from that, it’s a quick recipe with standard ingredients. Perfect for the Christmas holidays!

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Festive Fortnight [8]: Gingerbread Cupcakes

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These gingerbread cupcakes were a hit! I made them for a birthday party and everybody loved them. I have to say, I was amazed by how incredibly delicious they turned out. I’m not the biggest fan of cupcakes (I’m of the opinion that frosting is highly overrated) so I don’t make them that often, which made this recipe a bit of an experiment. But it was definitely a succesful one!

The molasses are the big winner in this recipe, I think. Of course, they’re quite integral to gingerbread cookies and thus to gingerbread cupcakes, but I’m in awe with just how much extra depth the molasses bring to the flavour. The ginger also definitely comes through, which I love, and it makes sure the cupcakes don’t taste too sweet.

Then in comes the frosting; it’s a cream cheese frosting and it’s incredibly soft and smooth. The dash of cinnamon adds that extra little something and makes these cupcakes fingerlicking good. I mean, I don’t want to blow my own trumpet too much, but I’m pretty darn proud of these!

Those tiny little cookies on top are a Dutch ‘delicacy’. They’re tiny speculaas cookies (similar to gingerbread) which are generally eaten on sandwiches (I know – but it’s delicious!). I actually wanted to use Christmas sprinkles, but couldn’t find them, so these were a makeshift solution. It looks pretty cute, though, I think!

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