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,

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,

Nutella Cupcakes

Today is no ordinary day - it's World Nutella Day!!

I love Nutella. I mean, really LOVE Nutella. I've mentioned it before, I'm a Nutella nutter. I think Nutella is delicious on bread, on fruit, in fudge (check out my Nutella fudge here), on its own... In fact, the most usual way I eat it is straight out of the jar. How do you eat Nutella? I'm curious.

Another great thing about Nutella is that it is good for baking. I whipped up these Nutella cupcakes in no time at all, and it is a super easy recipe, with very few ingredients. Just four really. You need eggs, flour, whipping cream and of course -- Nutella.

Nutella Cupcakes

Base

INGREDIENTS

• 400 grams Nutella
• 4 eggs
• 160 grams flour

DIRECTIONS

Preheat your oven to 175°C.

Whisk the eggs with the Nutella. It's difficult at first, but it will come together. Add the flour and blend until even. Pour batter into cupcake tins and bake for 10-15 minutes. It's done when the top springs back when you lightly press it. Let cool before adding the frosting.

Frosting

INGREDIENTS

• 2 big tablespoons Nutella
• 3 dl whipping cream

DIRECTIONS

Whip the cream until stiff peaks. Mix a third of the whipped cream with the Nutella. Then gently fold the Nutella mixture into the rest of the whipped cream, being careful not to let the air you've whipped into it deflate. Pipe the frosting on top of the cooled bases.

I added sprinkles to my Nutella cupcakes because sprinkles make everything better! Even the flawless Nutella is better with a bit of sprinkles!

So, my friends, don't forget to celebrate this yummy-yummy day by eating some Nutella!

Much love,