Dark Green Baby Socks

It was quite a long time ago I knitted something and last week I felt I really wanted to start a new project. Since my inspiration was low and I had not much time I thought I would try to knit baby socks because they are small and easy. Once again I fell in love with knitting as soon as I started and I could not stop until they were finished. It is a big mystery why I think it is so much fun but that is how it is.

This pattern is easy to understand and you don't have to know all kinds of techniques.  Here you can find the link to the free pattern at Drops Designstudio's homepage. If you would like to read the pattern in a different language you can choose your language in the flag menu at left side just below the picture.

The yarn I am using is Read Heart Soft Baby Steps 100% acrylic. I like acrylic yarn because the colors are so intensive and the yarn shines very pretty. 

Happy knitting everyone!

Blueberry Pie

Is there anything better than pie and vanilla custard a sunny autumn afternoon with a cup of coffee or tea to warmen you up? No, I don't think so, especially blueberry pie. Blueberries are one of the forest's finest treasures, both tasty and healthy, and they are so useful for many things.
This recipe is easy and it does not need too much preperations, the total amount of time is about one hour so it is a perfect pie to make after breakfast on Saturday morning to get freshly baked pie to the eleven o'clock coffee break (at least in Sweden coffee at eleven o'clock is a general phenomenon).

Blueberry Pie

Crust
2,5 deciliter flour
1 deciliter sugar
0,5 teaspoon baking powder
150 grams margarine or butter 
2 tablespoons of water

Filling
4 deciliter blueberries(frozen or fresh)
1/2 deciliter sugar 

Put your oven to 175 Cecius. 

Mix flour, baking powder and sugar in a bowl. Add the margarine in little cubes. Use your fingers to form a dough and then add the water to make the dough not crumble. 
When finished put the dough in a plastic bag in the fridge for about 20 minutes, or the freezer for about 10 minutes, to cool it a bit (it is easier to work with it if is is a bit cool).

Divide the dough in two and distribute one of them into a pie dish (approximately 26 centimeter in diameter) by pushing the dough with your palm and fingers to cover the whole bottom of the dish. Bake it in the oven for 8 minutes. 

Put the dish out of the oven and sprinkle the blueberries over the crust so you get it totally filled. Then add the sugar on top of the blueberries.

Now take the second and final part of the dough and by using your fingers take small pieces at the time and spread them over the blueberries until they are almost covered. The dough is containing baking powder so the little pieces will swell a bit while baking in the oven.

Put the pie into the oven at 175 Celcius for about 25 minutes or until the crust is getting a nice golden color. 

Salt dough accessories

As a child my mother and I sometimes made small trinkets in salt dough and let them harden in the oven. That was a very long time ago and I asked myself yesterday why things you do as a child tend to be labled as childish and therefore you don't do it as an adult. I did not have a good answer to that question so today I decided to make some dough and just go crazy! Well... Or at least I did some small things I can use as accessories for hair clips or why not a brooch :)
I used superglue to fix the things to the hair clips.

Salt dough
1 deciliter salt
1 1/2 deciliter water
1 1/2 teaspoon oil
180 grams (3 deciliter) flour

Mix salt and water in a bowl and let the salt solve into the water for about 30 minutes.
Add the oil and then the flour while you stirr with a spoon. The dough will soon be easy to form with your hands and if you feel the doug to be a little sticky you can add more flour.

When you don't use the dough you can store it in a plastic bag in the fridge.

When you have made some nice things with the dough and you want to keep them and maybe color them you need to put them on a oven plate covered with baking paper and let them dry in the oven in 80 Celcius for at least an hour (but the time depends on how large things you have made and how thick they are). 

You can color your things when they are hard and cooled. I used acrylic paint to color my things, but perhaps you can find other suitable paint in your craft store or on the internet :)

 

Candy cake filled with strawberry jam, banana and vanilla cream

It was my birthday a week ago and my husband's birthday is next week so we did what we always do this time of  year. 1 birthday + 1 birthday = One cake and one birthday party! This year we made a candy cake with NonStop chocolate lentils and sweet jelly raspberrys. I really like how the chocolate lentils make the cake sparkle of colors!
Inside this cake of happiness we find three soft sponge cake bases holding up layers of thinly slices of banana, vanilla cream and strawberry jam.

Sponge cake bases
4 eggs
2 deciliter white sugar
1 deciliter flour
3/4 deciliter potato flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Put the oven to 175 Celcius.
Grease and bread a baking pan approximately 26 centimeter in diameter.
Whip the eggs together with sugar until you get a white fluffy mixture.
Mix flour, baking powder and potato flour and pour the flourmixture into the egg/sugar mix. Be careful and be sure to turn the flour gently into the egg/sugar mixture. It is important that the fluffy texture is maintained.
Pour the finished batter into the bakinf pan and bake it in the lower part of the oven for about 40 minutes.
When the cake is baked you need to take it out of the baking pan and let it cool on a oven rack.
When the cake is room temperature you divide it with a knife into three layers.

 Topping
2 deciliter whipped cream to cover the sides and the top
Non Stop chocolate lentils
Sweet jelly raspberrys

Filling
2,5 deciliter vanilla cream you can whip
2 bananas
2 deciliter strawberry jam

See the little picture at the right.
The darker yellow parts represents the sponge cake layers.
The red area is only strawberry jam.
The light yellow area is whipped vanilla cream
(approx 1 cm thick) + a layer of very thin slices banana.

Crocheted flower hairband

As I posted some weeks ago, chrocheted roses are so pretty and you can use them to several purposes. For this week I chose to make a hairband :) I usually have my long hair down with just a little barrette to keep the hair away from my eyes, but sometimes I think it's getting a bit boring. I feel I want to spice up my hairstyle with some pretty accessories, and maybe I have found a new way to make experiments regarding crocheting and hairstyling. I will definately sit down with pen and sketchbook and try to find out more ideas...!

This hairband is made of two parts, one bond and one flower. The flower is the same model as I made in a previous post which you can find here
You can also find the instruction video for this flower all the way from beginning to end here
The bond is made after this instruction video.
To fix the flower on the bond I pulled the bond through  two of the loops on the backside of the flower. To secure the flower you can always sew some stitches with needle and thread.

Happy crocheting everyone! :)

Chess Pattern Cookies

Chess is a difficult boardgame. I have always wanted to be good at it but I haven't really given it a good try, and I know I don't have the patience for it. Well, maybe chess is one of those things I just should let be undone and focus on other things I know I am good at :) Baking for example...!
This time I baked chess pattern cookies, and even though I can't understand the chess game, I understand these little darlings and their lovely taste.
I usually prefer to drink tea instead of coffee, but this time I tried coffee with these cookies and I must say the flavors of the two fit together nicely. Yum yum!

Chess Pattern Cookies (50 pieces)

4 1/2 deciliter flour
1 deciliter white sugar
200 grams margarine or butter
2 teaspoons vanilla sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa

Warm the oven to 200 Celcius.
Mix flour, sugar and margarine in a bowl with your fingertips and form a dough.
Divide the dough in two.
Mix one part with vanilla sugar and the other one with cocoa in two different bowls.
Divide each part in two so now you have two pices vanilla dough and two pieces cocoa dough.
Make all four parts to four rolls, about 20 centimeters long.
Lay one cocoa roll next to one vanilla roll and use your fingers to lightly pull them together.
Put the next two rolls on top of the two first rolls, so now when you look from the short side of the roll package you will see them forming chess squares.
Cut into 4 mm thick slices and put them on oven plates covered with baking paper.
Bake in the middle of the oven for about 10 minutes.

 

Soufflé with flavors of passion fruit and apple

The only true way to end a nice dinner is a nice dessert, and this dessert is first class. It is sweet and a bit sour at the same time, and the texture is so heavenly creamy!
As usual I thought it would be too difficult to make it, because I allways think like that with new things in the kitchen, but as usual I was wrong :)
This soufflé needs several steps and it takes some time but believe me it is all worth it..!
The best ting is that you freeze these babies and when you want to serve them you just put them frozen directly into the preheated oven for about 15 minutes. Perfect and easy when you have guests for dinner!

Soufflé with flavors of passion fruit and apple

1 dl white sugar
1/2 dl Maizena corn starch
5 egg whites
2 tablespoons butter + white sugar for cover the inside of molds
1 dl juice of passion fruit (about 8 fruits)
2 dl applesauce (sweetened)

How to:
1. Brush eight small molds (about 8 cm in diameter) with softened butter. Cover the inside with white sugar and place the molds in the freezer.
2. Scoop out the passion fruits, pass the juice through a a fine sieve.
3. Boil the applesauce. Mix the passion fruit juice with Maizena and pour in the applesauce. Boild 1 minute while whisking. Allow the mixture to cool.
4. Beat the egg whites fluffy, add sugar and whisk to a stiff meringue. Fold 1/3 of meringue into the passion/apple-mixture and mix well. Then turn the rest of meringue into the passion/apple mixture with gentle movement - it is important to keep the fluffy texture.
5. Fill the molds and cut around the edge with a small knife to loosen the batter. Put them in the freezer for about four hours, until they are completely frozen. It is also possible to bake them at once, but remember to check them often, the baking time is only about 8-10 minutes.
6. Preheat the oven to 200 Celsius.
7. Bake the frozen soufflé in the lower part of the oven 10-15 minutes, until they are nicely golden brown and hopefully the surface have risen an inch.