Blueberry bundt cake with lemon icing

Hello all,
Today I have a recipe of a delicious, citrusy blueberry cake for you! But before that I need to tell you about my inspiration behind this bake.

Two weeks ago was my birthday. I turned 28 years old, which I'm very happy about, because finally I left 27 behind me. The number 27 is really difficult to pronounce in Swedish - tjugosju. I'm so relieved I don't have to say I'm tjugosju years old anymore!

For my birthday, my dear friend Christiane (IG: @aliceinthewoodssomewhere) sent me a package filled with wonderful things, among them a beautiful Ravenclaw-styled apron that she had made herself!! I fell in love with everything in my birthday package, but I'm a real sucker for handmade things. I imagine that I can feel the love it was made with. This apron, in true Ravenclaw colours brightened my life with it's bold blue colour. And with that I figured I need to bake something with blueberry in it. So after a little bit of experimenting, I present to you a blueberry bundt cake.

Blueberry bundt cake with lemon icing

INGREDIENTS

• 200 g butter, room temperature
• 2 dl sugar
• 4 eggs
• 4 dl flour
• 2 tablespoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons lemon zest (I used all the zest I got from 1 lemon)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 dl milk, room temperature
• 250 g blueberries

• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 3 dl powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS
Preheat your oven to 175°C. Prepare the bundt tin by buttering it, and then add flour to it so that the cake won't stick to the tin.

Beat the butter and sugar until slightly fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time.
Mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, lemon zest) together in a separate bowl.
Mix the milk and lemon juice in another bowl.
Alternate between adding the dry ingredients, then the wet, to the butter-and-sugar-mix. Start and end with the dry ingredients. Mix in the blueberries lastly. If you use frozen blueberries, like I did, they might become a bit wet, and might sink to the bottom of the batter (this happened to me). To avoid that, roll the blueberries in a bit of flour, and then add them to the batter.
Bake for 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out dry.

For the icing, mix the lemon juice with the powdered sugar until it becomes thick, but pipeable. Drizzle or pipe the icing onto the cake after it's cooled.

I hope you enjoy this recipe. It was a lot of fun to make it and then bake it, and finally eat it!

Much love,
Mona

Creamy-cheesey-chocolatey

Hello all,
Hope you're doing great.

It is time for a new recipe! Yay!
This is my go-to cheesecake. I baked it for my boyfriends family when they were over to my place for the first time, and it was a success. I've made it many times before, so I knew that it would be good.

This cheesecake is creamy, chocolatey and delicious. One of the things I love about it is that you can decorate it however you want. You can add berries or fruits during the summer season, or sprinkles when berries are scarce.

I added berries, some whipped cream and biscuit crumbs for decoration, and I think it looks rather nice.

 

Chocolate Cheesecake

INGREDIENTS

• Digestives, crushed - 200 grams
• Cocoa powder - 2 tablespoons
• Butter, melted - 100 grams
• Cream cheese - 900 grams
• Sugar - 150 grams
• Eggs - 4
• Dark chocolate, melted - 200 grams
• Vanilla powder - 1-2 teaspoons

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 150°C.

For the base: Crush the digestives into fine crumbs (I use a food processor) and mix with the cocoa powder. Pour the melted butter over the crumbs and mix until all crumbs are moist. Prepare a 24 cm springform cake tin by greasing the sides and lining the base with parchment paper. Press the moist crumbs into the base of the cake tin, flatten with hand or spoon, and then put into fridge.

For the cheesecake filling: Melt the chocolate (I use a double boiler), and allow to cool a little. Mix the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla with a handmixer until smooth and thick. Add one egg at a time and mix in. Do not over mix! Now spoon a little of the cream cheese mixture into the melted chocolate. This will even out the temperatures. Continue in this way until half of the cream cheese mixture is mixed with the chocolate. Then mix it all in.

Pour the filling onto the base. Place the cake tin in a larger baking tin and fill the outer tin with water. Bake in this waterbath for about 50 minutes. The times varies, and depends on your oven. The cake should be wobbly in the middle. Once you've removed the cake from the oven allow it to cool before placing it in the fridge, preferably overnight.

Dress: Joanie Clothing (here)

Hope you all liked this recipe, it really is worth making as it is so delicious. I'm sitting here drooling a bit just as I'm writing everything down.

Have a fantastic day.

Much love,

Easter and Happiness

Hello all,
and Happy Easter!

It's been almost two months since my last post, and while I feel a bit bad for not having posted anything in this time I've honestly never felt better... Those of you who follow me on Instagram will know that I feel great health-wise. As I said in a post on IG, usually me not being active on here would mean that I'm not doing too good. Previously it has been during my rough times with bouts of strong depression or anxiety where I've not been around here. But I am very happy to say that my health hasn't been this good for years. I can barely remember the last time I was doing so well mentally, and I am also really happy to boot. I am however quite busy, with work and other things... Good things.

Again, if you've seen my IG lately you will know that I now have a boyfriend, and he is making me so happy it's ridiculous. I've never been the type of person to leave my happiness to someone else. I believe that you need to make yourself happy, and to be honest, I never understood what the big deal about a romantic relationship was. I still hold on to the fact that your happiness lies within you, but I'm definitely understanding the big whoop about a partner. It's like icing on a cake, it heightens my happiness, makes everything that much sweeter.

Anyway, so that's what's been going on in my life, work and boyfriend are keeping me busy, and blogging has taken a backseat. For Easter I had to bake though, so without further ado, here is my Easter bake.

As by tradition, I made cupcakes for Easter, with chocolate eggs from Lindt and they were delicious. Also, my sprinkles are from Sweetapolita.

I hope you all have a fantastic Easter with a bit of spring (in my city it's snowing...).
Much love,

Lemon Birthday

Hello all you lovely people,
I hope you are doing well. Today is my birthday, I turn 26, and I am weirdly okay with it.

I had an excellent birthday together with my lovely family. I received great gifts (among them Harry Potter related ones), and we saw Moana (which was so beautiful, and I wish Lin-Manuel Miranda will get the Oscar so badly)!

If you follow me on instagram you will have seen the amazing cake that my family got for me. It was fancy, and gorgeous. It was inspired by the Swedish Princesstårta in flavours, but made to look a bit more haute. It had an almond base and was filled with raspberries and topped off with a vanilla bavarois.

You would think that that cake would be enough, but no. Being who I am, I also needed to bake a birthday cake of my own, and while mine was much simpler, it was still delicious.

I made a lemon and vanilla layered cake with whipped cream frosting and a filling of lemon curd. It was one of the easier cakes I've ever done, so I thought I'd share the recipe with you.

Lemon and Vanilla Birthday Cake

INGREDIENTS

• 345 grams flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 225 grams butter, at room temperature
• 300 grams sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla powder
• 250 ml milk
• 300 ml whipping cream
• 300 ml lemon curd
• Yellow food colouring (optional)

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 175°C. Prepare two 20 cm round pans with parchment paper at the bottom.
In one bowl, sift the flour and baking powder together. In another bowl beat the butter until a bit fluffier. Then add the sugar and beat for several minutes until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and add the vanilla. Add a third of the sifted flour and baking powder to the egg mixture, then add half of the milk. Continue to add the second third of the flour and finish off by adding the last half of the milk, followed by the last third of the flour.

Spread the batter into the two prepared pans, I like to weigh them so that they become equal in size. And then bake for about 30-35 minutes depending on your oven. A toothpick inserted in the centre should come out clean.
Let the cakes cool completely before you proceed.

Place one of the cakes upside down on your serving plate. Spread 250 ml of lemon curd on the cake. Then place the other cake (also upside down) on top of the spread lemon curd.

Whip the rest of the lemon curd together with the whipping cream until stiff peaks, adding a few drops of food colouring if wanted. Proceed to spread the lemon whipping cream frosting around and on top of the layered cake. Save a bit of the frosting to pipe a border around the cake and add sprinkles if wanted. My sprinkles are from Sweetapolita.

There you have it! Simple as that.
It became a very moist and fresh tasting cake. I liked it, especially considering it was done in a flash.

Have a fantastic week!
Much love,

Brownie cupcakes with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Hello all!
I hope you are having a majorly awesome week. I'm so busy at work I hardly have the time to breathe - but it's good. I love being busy with my research. Things are finally happening in my project and it is seriously exciting.

Having been so intensely busy my baking has taken a back seat. I don't find the energy to bake after the workday and during the weekends I'm so busy with other things. However, this weekend I finally had the time and energy to do some light baking. What better to reintroduce myself to baking with than cupcakes.

I know cupcakes are a bit "out", but I don't care. I love cupcakes! I love baking them! And I love eating them!

I used a brownie recipe and added a white chocolate cream cheese frosting to it. Find the recipe of both the brownie cupcakes and the frosting below.

Brownie Cupcakes

INGREDIENTS

• 150 grams dark chocolate, chopped
• 110 grams butter, cut into pieces
• 15 grams cocoa powder
• 150 grams sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 95 grams flour
• 100 grams walnuts, chopped

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 175°C.

Line a cupcake tin with 12 paper liners.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl over a saucepan of heated water. Add the cocoa, sugar and vanilla, whisk. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the flour. Add the chopped walnuts.

Add about a half decilitre to each cupcake liner.

Bake for about 15-18 minutes.

Let cool before adding the frosting.

White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

INGREDIENTS

• 200 grams white chocolate, chopped
• 1,5 dl heavy cream
• 200 grams cream cheese
• Pink food colouring, optional

DIRECTIONS

Heat the heavy cream in a saucepan until just before it starts boiling. Pour over the white chocolate and stir until smooth. Place in fridge for a couple of hours to overnight, until it firms up.

With an electric mixer, whisk the ganache until a bit fluffy, then add the cream cheese and continue whisking until smooth and pipeable. Add some food colouring if desired.

Pipe onto the brownie cupcakes with an closed star tip.

I added beautiful sprinkles from Sweetapolita (here) to my cupcakes. I adore these sprinkles and find it hard to resist putting them on everything I bake!

I hope you all like this recipe. Let me know if you try it!

Wish you all an amazing rest of the week.

Much love,

Mona

Chocolate Brownies

Hello all!
Hope you are having a great day and a wonderful weekend.
I recently went over to a friend's for afternoon tea or "fika" as we call it here in Sweden. I don't like going empty handed anywhere so I brought brownies with me.

The brownies were popular and I was asked for the recipe, at which point I very quickly wanted to say that it was on my blog. But guess what? Even though I've talked about brownies on the blog before, and have shared the recipe in a feature on Lindsey's blog Have Clothes, Will Travel, I have never actually shared the recipe for my favourite brownies on the blog. I am making amends to that now.

Chocolate Brownies

INGREDIENTS

• 120 grams dark chocolate, chopped in pieces
• 115 grams butter, chopped in pieces
• 200 grams sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 100 grams flour

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 165°C.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl over a saucepan of heated water. Add the sugar and vanilla, whisk. Whisk in the eggs, on at a time. Stir in the flour. Pour into a 20x20 cm pan and bake for about 25 minutes.

I usually add chocolate ganache to the brownies once they've cooled for extra chocolatey-ness. Find the recipe for chocolate ganache here.

And lastly add sprinkles. These sprinkles that I used here are from Sweetapolita, and it's called Galaxy Twinkle Sprinkle Medley (on etsy: here). I just love Sweetapolita's sprinkles. They are so beautiful and really add to anything you put it on. These plain brownies looked so pretty with the sprinkles.

Now I can finally say that my famous brownies are up on the blog!

Have a beautiful rest of the week.

Much love,

Morning memories

Hello to all you lovely people, and good morning (it's morning somewhere in the world).
A new day has started and as many others, mornings are my worst time of the day. For some reason I can never seem to wake up feeling well rested. I am always a little (usually a lot) tired in the mornings. My bed is more comfortable in the early hours of the day, and it's like there is a glue that is sticking me to my bed. I have severe problems actually getting out of bed, even if I'm looking forward to the day ahead. I do suffer from an autoimmune hormonal disease that does make me more tired and sleepy, so while it might be my disease, I also find that my bed might have some sort of a special power over me. Am I the only one? Or is this something others feel too?

One way to make mornings a little nicer is by having something a little bit special for breakfast. I'm not a breakfast person, I'm usually not hungry in the mornings and simply start my day with a fruit, but having something freshly baked in the morning makes breakfast all the more enjoyable.

I recently attempted (and I daresay succeeded) in making Madeleines, which is a french sponge cake often eaten for breakfast. The Madeleines are made in special Madeleine pans giving one side of the Madeleines their unique scalloped shell shape. The other side is paler and smooth with a hump.

The Madeleine has slightly crispy edges but a soft sponge-like centre and usually tastes mildly of lemon and vanilla. They melt like butter in your mouth and disappear within an instant in my household. They were made famous by Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past (In Search of Lost Time).

"The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it."

Madeleines

Recipe adapted from Joy of Baking

INGREDIENTS

• 115 grams butter, melted
• 130 grams flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 eggs
• 100 grams sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest

DIRECTIONS

Melt the butter, but keep it warm.

Beat eggs and sugar until thick and pale. Add the vanilla and lemon zest. Sift and fold in the flour in 3 additions. Add the warm melted butter and stir until just mixed together, do not over mix it. Cover and refrigerate the batter for at least 1-2 hours, preferably over night. 

Preheat oven to 190°C. Grease moulds with melted butter and dust with flour, tapping out the excess. Add about a tablespoon of the batter into each of the shell-shaped moulds. Bake for about 8 to 11 minutes, until edges are golden brown. They are best served the day you make them.

I hope you have a lovely morning with something sweet to bring out your best memories.

Much love,