Plum and Cinnamon mini cakes

haaaaa. You know that feeling when you write a whole post and then you delete it my accident. That’s how I feel right now. Not a great feeling! Oh well – here goes for post number 2 on plum cakes.

My weekend was a veritable funfair of ridiculous eating and drinking. Waffles on Friday, Hard Rock Cafe on Saturday and mulled wine. Way too much mulled wine. I think I shall just have to continue this way until Christmas. Lebkuchen – which I will be making at some point in December. Little Ginger cakes with jam and chocolate. MMmmmm. I will make them at some point and post them on here for the season!

 

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Easy Meal Idea: Courgette, Chilli and Truffle Tagliatelle

So, it’s not December yet and I am excitedly (and edgily … is that a word) awaiting the beginning of mulled wine season and christmas markets…must… eat… christmas… food…! Also, anyone seen the series Brooklyn nine nine yet? Hilaaaarious. Started watching it last night and am completely hooked. To summarise, it’s a comedy set in the detective department of a police station in Brooklyn. If you like Parks & Recreation and New Girl – you will like it.

Chocolate Moustache Biscuits for Movember

As you probably know, not only is it November, it’s Movember. Although I have a pretty impressive moustache for a girl, I don’t think growing it out would be noticeable enough to raise awareness. So instead, I thought I would bake these cute moustache biscuits. If you’re from the UK, these are actually modelled on the classic bourbon chocolate biscuit, if you have no idea what a bourbon is – you are missing out and should make and eat these asap. They are SO chocolatey without being too sweet. Perrrrfect. Plus they are shaped like moustaches, that’s just hilarious. And yes, I did hold them up in front of my face before eating them as did my flatmates… I think I would look pretty cool with a handlebar moustache.

Poached Caramel Pear, Polenta and Almond Cake

As I have mentioned and as you may have noticed… I have a very new and very real love affair with polenta. You can have it with meat or veg or you can put it in a cake… sweet or savory – it goes down a charm. My latest recipe is this gorgeous poached and caramelized pear cake with ground almond and polenta.So rich in flavour! I read about an italian cake called Amor Polenta in one of my mum’s old recipe books and I based this recipe on it. Standardly I had to adapt it so that there is way more almond and caramel as well… Let’s be honest any cake is made better with some caramel.

The pears I bought we pretty unripe, but that worked well because they didn’t fall apart when being poached and caramelized at high temperatures and the heat brought all the juicyness to the surface. Perfecto!

Dulce De Leche Brownie Muffins

Ohhhhh dulce de leche. How I love you and your ridiculously sweet gooeyness and how I would love to eat you with a spoon from the jar… This post is my ode to dulce de leche – one of my greatest vices in life.

Realising that eating it straight from the jar would probably reduce my life expectancy by more than just a little bit, I decided to pop it in a cake. but NOT just any cake, a deliciously moist and brownie like muffin. If you are really greedy, like me, then you can also spread some on the top once they’re done and eat them like that.If you don’t – you’re missing out. You should have FOMO.

Fun From October

Oh Tuesday, how I love you for NOT being Monday! Sorry for my erratic posting of late – I have been running around like a headless chicken and trying to fill all my time with socializing so that this damn dark season we are having doesn’t depress me too much!

Me trying to smile – all the while thinking “Why the frick did I get sorbet in this cold cold weather”. Most agrees (below)

Despite a HIGHLY depressing day yesterday – purely due to the veritable lack of sunshine – the evening was a bundle of laughs. If you haven’t seen Aziz Ansari’s latest stand up then you should get on that. I laughed for the whole thing – and when I say laughed I mean heartily! I also did a work out video – I know it’s a standard cliche, but exercise and laughter are really the key to not getting the winter blues. That and the oh so close christmas markets in Berlin with their heavenly Glühwein… I can almost taste that divine spicy flavour! NOICE.

Walnut Loaf Cake

Slight rant: I was woken this morning by builders hammering about 2 metres from my head at 7am on the dot. WHY is it the law that builders can start at 7 – surely 8 would be a much more civilized time! I am extremely disappointed as I was looking forward to going upstairs and ranting to  the builders about their illegally early starting times – as I was sure it was 8. But I checked online, and 7 it is. ERGH! SO TIRED.

Last week was ABSOLUTELY manic and all I wanted to do every spare moment I had was watch Game of thrones or SATC. I had a dinner party where I made some nice stuff, and I had planned to share that on the blog – but you know after a glass of wine I just couldn’t have taken any nice photos! I will have to recreate the stuff I made!

Hazelnut, Cinnamon & Chocolate Biscotti (!!!)

When it’s freaking cold. When you HAVE to wear socks in your house to stop from getting pneumonia – even with the heating on. That’s when I like to have a cup of black coffee with a biscotti. Hazelnut biscotti in particular – because I love that warming crunchy flavour of a roasted hazelnut!

Plus my awesome friend Teco is leaving Berlin and going back to Brazil – literally SAD times. Such sad times. He gives amazingly long hilarious speeches with very little actual message – politician worthy! So the weekend was spent drinking, eating, being tipsy, being full – and starting again every few hours. Was fab – but as you can imagine, I am worse for wear. So the biscottis helped. I woke up at about 4am – and ate some more of them… and went back to bed. Am I the only weirdo who gets up in the middle of the night and feels hungry? – not so much hungry as – “tasty”.

Plum Jam

My grandparents have been telling me that they have some plums for me to make into jam since last week. As a bit of a jam amateur, I hadn’t even heard of plum jam, but apparently it’s pretty awesome. My step grandad was golfing when he found thousands of unpicked plums lying under their tree on the course. Being the resourceful person he is, he picked almost 7 lbs worth – to the point that his golf trolley couldn’t stand up properly anymore under the weight.

It was a bit of a family event – my dad and I sat together and cup all the piths out of the plums. Then it really is the simplest method. I just added a tiny bit of water – not much at all and some sugar – put it on the stove and left it to cook at a medium heat. My grandma, who is a jam expert, explained that as plums have lots of pectin naturally, you don’t need to add any more for them to set nicely.

White and Milk Chocolate chip giant Cookie

I have been wanting to make a skillet cookie for agggges! I finally got the opportunity to do so for a movie night recently. Unfortunately, I only have one photos.. because before I could take any more.. the cookie was swept away and gobbled down like noone’s business!

As I have mentioned before, I still haven’t really perfected my own formula for a cookie recipe as I have with cakes, so I just used the trusty Hummingbird Bakery recipe for chocolate chip cookies and adapted it by adding white chocolate too! It was really delicious, my mouth is watering just thinking about the huge, slightly unacceptably big slab I took for myself. My flatmate said he knows he ate too much because he felt a bit dodgy the next day – sugar withdrawal? -.. but it was totally worth it!