Practise makes perfect

Hey there!

After my recent breakdown I decided to do something about it and I have some news! Guess who is going to start driving lessons in a couple of weeks??? ME! Since I started working my timetable hasn't been very flexible, but finally I got it all figured out! Also I decided to buy a new objective or lense ( or however you call it ) for my camera...so all camera freaks out there if you have any ideas please please please help me to choose the right one! It has to be a reasonable price though...yeah I know I am demanding! I am still clueless about these things so all advice is good!

I seriously need a project and a deadline to keep myself busy for this summer otherwise I will have many breakdowns again and again...not good! But before I start any project I need my camera first! I had no idea how addicted I was to it till this happened. It's true that when you miss something you realize how important it is after all! :O

Even though my photographing skills are quite bad there is something that fascinates me about it. Some people have the natural talent to know how to take a picture and make it look good...well I don't have that kind of talent. But I believe that if you want to learn something you will learn it. That is what happened with guitar...I decided to learn how to play it and I did it! ( maybe not so perfectly but is that important? ) Practise makes perffect! That is what I have to do with photography... I just need to practise and take lots of pictures and see what suits best. Mostly I just want to find my own style...

Even with baking happened the same thing. I had no idea how to make a cake, but slowly I learned how to do it. Books help a lot and to be honest a drastic change isn't going to happen overnight. I had to search a lot to find the right recipes and you can imagine what our kitchen looked like when I was trying something new all the time. A TOTAL MESS! I have to say that people have been very patient with me all this time...

Oh well! That was it for today :) A rather boring post I must say, but more interesting things to come soon...I hope

To lighten up the mood a bit :)

Karoliina

Ulalaaaa

Hello!

I just have to add some pictures of the cake I baked for my friend's birthday. I put a lot of efford and time for this cake and I couldn't be more pleased with the result! I wanted to post the recipe and the whole process of how I made it, but as I told you my camera broke and I couldn't take any pictures of the process. I can give you the recipe if you want just leave a comment and I will have it done for you the next time. It is a blueberry-strawberry cake, just perffect for the summer!

People always ask how I make the marzipan thingy that I put on top. First of all it's not marzipan ( because I don't like the taste of it ). I use this marshmallow fondant that I learned from Kinuskikissa's blog and it tastes so much better than marzipan! I don't want to take credit for something that I learned from somewhere else, so here is the link if you want to try it : http://www.kinuskikissa.fi/vaahtokarkkitaikina-mmf/

In english
So basically what you are going to need is:
300 g of marshmallows
360-500 g of icing sugar
2 spoons of water

Sift 4 dl of  icing sugar in a bowl. Grease another bowl with oil ( rapeseed oil ) add the marsmallows and two spoons of water. Melt the marshmallows in the microwave for about two minutes by mixing them every 30 seconds. If you want to dye your marshmallows with food colors do it before putting the mixture in the bowl with the icing sugar. I made four marshmallow fondants ( pink, green, dark green and purple ). Put the mixture in the icing sugar and mix it until it doesn't feel sticky anymore add the rest of the icing sugar. When it's ready put it in a cellophane and leave it for a day before using it for the cake.
I also made the flowers with this marshmallow fondant. But you have to remember that they need a few days to harden ( is that even a word? ).

    Last but not least here is the song we sang with my friend Hanna at Essi's birthday. It is the song from the Libero commercial. The cutest commercial ever! :D           

Enjoy!

Karoliina

Drama Queen

Hey there!

There isn't much to say about my life. Things haven't been going the way I was hoping. First bad thing that happened this week was that my camera broke and fixing it might cost quite a lot so it might be more reasonable to buy a new one. I was not expecting this and I must say that I was a bit pissed off, but these things happen and complaining about it won't help unfortunately.
Also on top of everything I have been making mistakes at work all the time. Let's just say that my week started on the wrong foot ( is that even an expression? ).
Also today I realised how crappy my summer is going to be. I am stuck here and let's just admit it that Kotka is not the most exciting place. As my dear friend always says "Things tend to work out in the end! ", but what if they don't? Sometimes it feels like people always expect you to have a good day. As human beings I believe we have the right to have bad days!

Okay, now I will stop complaining and to make this post a bit more cheerful here are some songs for your bad days. I don't understand a thing what she is saying, but does it matter? :P

Better days to come. Until then goodnight! :)

Karoliina

Juhannus

Hello hello!

My break from blogging didn't last too long! I came today from our summer cottage and I have to say that I had one of the most relaxing weekends so far but I am glad to be back again. On Friday we celebrated Juhannus ( Midummer ) which is a big thing here. The weather was perffect even though today it was raining quite a lot. You never know what kind of weather to expect in Finland...sometimes it's raining, sometimes it's hot, sometimes it's cold. There are times that I miss summer in Greece. I miss those cool nights and going out for long walks and eating good ice cream yammy! Oh well...things are different now and I am not in Greece.  Plans change!

My text is a bit shorter than usual, but there isn't much to say! Here are some pictures from my most relaxing weekend so far :D

Back to work tomorrow wohooo! Talk to  ya soon ;)

Karoliina

It's time to have a cupcake!

Hello, hello!

I know that my posts have been all about cooking and baking, but my life is so boring that baking is the only thing right now that makes me happy, believe it or not...
But I will get some action in my life tomorrow as I am going to our summer cottage to celebrate Junannus (Midsummer) with my family.

So this time I made orange cupcakes which turned out to be very good! :D

Here is what you are going to need for 12 big cupcakes :

4½ dl flour
1 dl orange juice
orange zest
3 teaspoons of baking powder
3 dl of sugar
200 gr of orange yogurt ( or natural yogurt )
2 eggs
2 ½ dl sugar
½ dl olive oil

Icing:

2 dl whipped cream
200 gr orange cream cheese ( if you can't find that just add orange zest and orange juice in normal cream cheese )

First turn on the oven on 200 degrees ( I tend to forget that ). Mix all the ingredients together and fill your cupcake molds. I like to use silicon cupcake molds because you don't need to grease them with butter. Leave them in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Leave them to cool down.

For the icing just whip the cream and add the orange cream cheese.

That was it for today! I am going to have a break from blogging for a while!
Hyvää juhannusta kaikille! :)

Karoliina

Equipment for marzipan roses

Hey there!

I was reading my previous post and I can't help myself of how bad I am at explaining how to make something. My mom said that I should have put minced meat instead of the word ground meat...I guess she is right but I have never even heard of the word minced meat. Oh well, the next time I make something I will try to put the right words.

So to change the subject as I have made pretty clear  I love to make cakes, but I haven't had the equipment to make the perffect cakes. Finally I went for some shopping yesterday and I found these molds ( hope this is the right word ) to make roses out of marzipan to decorate cakes.

I have found one good instruction book of how to make the perffect roses and I am going to post my roses when I have more time to make them! :D I am so excited! hihihiiii
The good thing about marzipan roses is that you can keep them in a bowl under a cover and use them whenever you like :)

So this is how they are supposed to look like:

picture from google

I hope mine look even better, but practice makes perffect! I promise to put a tutorial of how to make these, but until then you have to be patient and wait....

Now I have to go to work...blaaah. Have a nice day! :)

Karoliina

Παστίτσιο! ( Pastitsio )

Hello there whoever you are! :D

I don't think my recipes have been a big success or I don't know...but still I won't stop putting recipes because I like to do them and who knows maybe somewhere out there one of you is going to try them :)

I guess I am going through a "phase" again and I have been making Greek food. Probably because I miss being there...no wonder I have been gaining a bit of weight lately! So the last time I made tzatziki  I promised I would make pastitsio and put the recipe on here so I want to keep my promises! Every Greek mom knows how to make pastitsio, but my mom didn't make it when I was little because it is too hard to make. I guess she is right, but cooking isn't only about the food, it's about the whole process. I usually put some music on or invite friends over and socialize at the same time.

So here is what you are going to need!

500 g of Bucatini spaghetti ( some kind of thick spaghetti with a hole in the middle )

800 g of ground meat

3 onions

390g of crushed tomatoes

1,5 l of milk

4 dl of flour

a teaspoon of nutmeg (muskottipähkinä)

salt and pepper
The oven on 200 degrees


this is the spaghetti I was talking about

Okay! So this is the process of this difficult food:

Chop the onions and "fry" them in a hot pan, add the ground meat and the crushed tomatoes. Leave it in the pan for about 15 minutes till the extra fluid has evaporated. Add salt and pepper.

Cook the Bucatini in boiled water, when they are ready add butter so they don't get sticky. To make the besamel ( the sauce that is going to come on top ) add in the milk the flour, a couple of teaspoons of salt and the nutmeg and mix it very well! In a casserole( that you have greased with butter ) put the layer of Bucatini then add on top the ground meat.

To make the besamel put the milk-flour mixture in a pan and warm it up by mixing it very well at the same time. I have to say that it took me about 20 minutes to get this sauce thick so just be patient and keep mixing or if you want you can add an egg yok in case it doesn't get thick at all.

Add the besamel sauce on top ( I added also some gouda that we had left in the fridge...some people add bread crumbs ). Leave it in the oven for 30 minutes with a cover and then another 15 minutes without a cover to get this beautiful golden brown color. 

Bon appétit! :D

Karoliina