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.