Light Bread with Wheat and Rye Flour

This lovely Sunday I will give you the recipe of a light bread perfect for toasting!
I love baking bread, it is such a good feeling to eat bread you know all the ingredients in. And even if it doesn't have the same durability length as the bread from the grocery store, it is worth the time to bake it because of the taste and the feeling of genuineness.

In the recipe you will see that I am using 34 degree water, not 37, because when you knead the dough for ten minutes in a baking machine the temperature will raise several degrees and to give the yeast the best environment the dough should not be warmer than 37 degrees.

Happy baking everyone!

2 loaves of light bread with wheat and rye flour
5 deciliter 34 degree water (easiest way is to use a digital thermometer under the water tap)
50 grams fresh yeast
0,5 deciliter oil (I used rapeseed oil but you can use any oil you like)
2 teapoons salt
1 tablespoon honey
390 grams of wheat flour
390 grams rye flour

1. Dissolve the yeast and the honey into the water by stirring with a spoon.
2. Add oil, salt and then the flour little by little while kneading the dough properly. If you use a baking machine, when all the flour is added let it knead the dough for about 10 minutes on medium effect.If you knead the dough by hand you should do it for about 15 minutes.
3. Leth the dough raise (twice it's original size) for 45 minutes under a towel.
4. Grease two bread pans or if you don't have that you can just put baking paper on a baking tray.
5. Put the oven on 225 Celcius.
6. When the dough has raised, put it on the floured table with floured hands and with light moves you just divide the dough into two pieces and put them into the baking pans or just put them side by side on the baking tray.Let the bread raise for 30 minutes under towel.
7. Bake the bread in the middle of the oven for 17 minutes (or if you have a baking termometer the inner temperature should be 98 Celsius).

Homemade paper

Sometimes it is fun to just do things your own way even if it is easier to just buy something. In this case I am talking about paper. Yes, it is very easy and comfortable to buy nice paper in the store but if you don't allready know it - making your own paper is pretty easy AND it gets a very personal touch to it if you use it for a handwritten letter or labels on birthday gifts! I used ordinary newspaper for my paper sheet but if you would like something more colorful you can choose old colored paper such as an old telephone directory and some newspapers have colored pages.
I didn't have a frame with thin net which is the usual tool for doing this kind of thing. However, I found a letter tray in my home and used that instead :) You need to use your imagination to solve problems sometimes!

You will need:
1 scabbard which is a bit wider and longder than the frame with net
1 ordinary photo frame with a thin net tensioned on it on one side. You can staple the net on the sides of the frame.
Water
Towels
Sponge

1. Cut or tear small pieces of a newspaper and put them in a bowl together with water. Let the paper swell over night.
2. If the mixture is still a bit lumpy you ca use a mixer or an electric beater to make it smoother. Add water if needed.
3. Pour water in the scabbard and then some of the paper mixture and let it distribute in the water.
4. Lower the frame into the water and catch up the paper mixture. Shake the frame a bit until the paper mixture evenly distributes in the frame.
5. Lay the frame with the paper side down on a towel. Use a sponge to press the water out of the paper from the backside.
6. Gently remove the paper from the net and let it dry on a towel.
7. When the paper is almost dry you can iron it to make it flat.

Happy paper-making!

Homemade Citrus Marmelade

On Christmas Day we visited my brother in law and met the whole family on my husband's side. It has become a tradition to play a special game when we meet at Christmas. The special game is called "The Present Game" and is as follows:
Each person brings three presents all wrapped in fancy paper with a cost of about 5 dollars each. We all sit down at a big table and put all the presents in a big pile in the middle. Then each one of us in clockwise order get to throw a dice and if you get number six or number one you get to take one present from the pile. When everyone has three presents each it is time for the next part of the game. Someone set the alarm to ring in about 10 to 20 minutes and then no one gets to the see how much time is left. Then we start in clockwise order again to throw the dice. If you get number six or number one you have to exchange one of your presents with anyone else's. This is so much fun because it is often one or two presents (often the largest and has very inviting paper) that everyone wants and no one knows how much time is left until the alarm clock will ring so it can get a little hysterical haha... When the alarm is ringing the time is out and the game is over. Now it is time for everyone to open the presents and look what they got :)

For this game I did not want to buy something, I wanted to make someting, and today I am going to show you what I came up with! I was really surprised to realize that it was not that difficult to make and it did not take alot of time either :) The glass jars are bought at IKEA and they are called RAJTAN, here you can find them on the Swedish site!

Homemade Citrus Marmelade (about 2 L depending on the size of the fruits)

800 grams of oranges
400 grams of lemons
4 deciliter water
1 kilo jam sugar (contains sugar, pectin, citric acid and potassium sorbate)
Clean glass jars put in oven for about 20 minutes 75 Celsius (not the lids) so they are warm when you pour the marmelade in them

1. Wash the fruits well in hot water. Dry them with a handcloth and cut both ends.
2. Cut the fruits in small pieces and remove any seeds. Then use a food processor or a stick blender to mix the pieces to more of a puree consistency.
3. Boil the citrus mixture together with the jam sugar and the water in a large sauce pan for 15 minutes. 
4. Take the hot glass jars out of the oven and use a large spoon to pour the marlelade into the jars. Be careful because it will be very hot! Fill the jars up to the upper edge of the jars and put the lids on immediately. Put the jars upside down. 
Let the jars cool in room temperature and then store them in a cold environment.

Knitted Pink And Purple Striped Cap

I hope you have had a lovely time during the Christmas and New Year holidays! I celebrated in my couch watching movies and video games while knitting :) My husband is currently playing a quite new game called "Lords of the Fallen" and that is, along with "Dark Souls" and "Demon's Souls" the type of games I really like watching because there is a story and it is a reason why you should go to certain places. Knitting is a very good occupation while watching TV and this cap I will show you today is a easy project even though you have to count sometimes. The original free pattern you can find here at Drops Design Studio and it is not striped but in the picture below you can find my homemade striped pattern. I really like to take a pattern and change it even if I do a very small change - I like to do it my way.
The reason why I decided to make a cap was because I got my hands on yarn in such beautiful colors some time ago and I just had to make something of it and I also really needed a new cap. I did these knitted slippers in a previous post and it is the same yarn I am using for this cap. I gave those slippers to my sister in law as a Christmas present so I hope her feet are getting warm this winter :)

I hope I get you inspired to try make your own cap, it may take a while to finish it but you will feel proud wearing it all winter :) Today I am taking mine out for a walk!

Happy Knitting!

I used needles no 5 and in 10 cm2 I knit 17 stitches and 36 rows.

Napkin Folding Origami Crane

New Years Eve is near and many of us enjoy doing something special to celebrate it. If you are one of those who will cook a delicious three course dinner for many guests or will just make a simple dinner for two there is always a reason enough to do a nice table setting. The classical types of napkin origami for the table setting are the "Standing Fan"  you have on the plate and maybe a traditional "Lily Goblet" you put in the glasses but I wanted to make something slightly different and decided to fold the Crane. The Crane is a classic origami model but perhaps not as much a model for table settings as an iconic symbol of peace connected to the sentence "fold a thousand cranes and you are granted a wish" and the symbol of peace in memory of the Japanese girl Sadako Sasaki who was one of the innocent victims of the nuclear bomb in Hiroshima.

New Years Eve is the last exciting day of the year and we all think of it as the door to a new beginning, a chance to change and it lights up dreams for the upcoming year. Decorate your evening with the symbol of peace and make the night even more special.

Happy New Year to all of you!

 

Double Caramel Cookies

Happy 4th Advent! Today we light the fourth candle and counting down to the big holiday!
Christmas means good things to me and one good thing I really craving for during this time of year is caramel cookies. I remember this type of cookie from my grandmother on my fathers side who baked them around Christmas. Unfortunately I can't find the original recipe that she used but I made the conclusion that she probably used a shortcrust pastry and a classic caramel cream. So I took a chance and I think I nailed it! I almost always search in my "Sju sorters kakor" recipe book to (translated "Seven cakes and cookies" - a classic Swedish home baking book). Here you can find the Swedish version at Adlibris online book store. I also found on Adlibris homepage the English version Here
I used the shortcrust pastry ingredients from "Chess-cookies" from an earlier post :)

 

Double Caramel Cookies (approximately 70 cookies)

Shortcrust pastry
1 deciliter sugar
200 grams butter/margarine
4 1/2 - 5 deciliter flour
2 teaspoon vanilla powder

Caramel cream
2 1/2 deciliter cream
1 deciliter sugar
1/2 deciliter syrup
50 grams butter/magarine
1 teaspoon cocoa

Put the oven to 175 Celcius if you have a convection oven and 200 Celcius if you use an ordinary oven.
Mix all the ingredients for the shortcrust pastry and work fast with your hands and fingers to make a pastry that hold together but is not sticky.
Divide the pastry into four parts and roll each part into a roll with a diameter of 2 cm.
Lay the rolls on a plate and let them get cool in the refrigerator while you prepare the oven plates and cover them with baking paper.
Cut each roll in about 0,8 cm slices and lay them on the baking paper. The cookies will not flow out so much when you bake them so you can position them with a 2 cm distance. 
Bake the cookies in the middle of the oven for about 8 minutes, but since all ovens are different the time can differ but I would say that you should not wait longer than 10 minutes.

Now to the caramel cream. Mix all the ingredients in a heavy saucepan (strain the cocoa in a sieve to avoid lumps) and let the mixture reach the boiling temperature.
Lower the temperature and let the mixture simmer for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Do the "caramel-test" by let a drop of caramel fall into a glass of cold water - if the caramel drop gets hard and doesn't dissolve in the water the caramel is ready.

Let the caramel cool down and then use a snall spoon to spread little caramel on the downside of a cookie. Then put an other cookie on top and push the cookies together so the caramel squeezes out to the sides. 

Tip: When the cookies are cooled down and ready, restore them in the fridge. When it is time to serve, just put them out in room temperature for 10-15 minutes and they are ready to eat.


Happy baking!

Gingerbread House

For some years now I have made my own gingerbread house from scratch and it has become a little Chrismas-tradition for me. I just sit down and start drawing on some ideas and when I am satisfied with one idea I start to make the paper templates for it. In the following pictures you can see how my templates looked like and I have noted the real measurements for them on the papers too.
I made several styles this year but I kept coming back to the idea of a house with wrong proportions and oblique angles.
Here in Sweden you cna buy ready made gingerbread dough and I always buy. If you have the opportunity I recommend you to buy the dough because it is quite time consuming but if you want to you can always make it yourself. Just be aware that the dough needs to rest for a day in the refrigerator before you start making your house.

When all your house parts are baked and you have let them cool so they are hard, it is time to put them all together. For this I melted ordinary white sugar in a frying pan. Be careful with this sugar because it gets very hot very fast! When the sugar has melted you can put the frying pan on a trivet while you dip the house parts into the sugar and quickly put the parts together. The sugar solidifies quickly on the houseparts so work fast. The sugar will get cooled down in the frying pan while you work but don't worry, you can always put the frying pan back on the stove burner and the sugar will melt agian. When you are finished with your house you can boil water and gently stirr it into the cooled sugar, put it on the stove burner and the sugar will dissolve in the water after a while, remember to stirr well.

If you think it is a bit scary with this hot sugar you can just skip it and put all parts together with the icing instead. Here is the recipe for the icing I made:

Icing 

4 deciliter icing sugar

1 egg white

1 tablespoon juice from lemon

Mix the ingredients with a electric beater until it gets stiff.

Put the icing in a piping bag or do your own piping bag by using a plastic bag and after filling it with icing you cut a small hole in one corner.