Food challenge

How exciting, I got my first blog challenge. I was challenged by Herb from Herbtravels. She's been travelling from Finland through Russia and Kazakhstan to China, Japan and Korea. Maybe soon she might even post some photos from Australia ;). Her blog is in Finnish, but even if you don't understand the language the pictures tell a great story.

She challenged me to answer 11 food related questions. It was really interesting to think about the answers to these questions. Of course I don't have many food pictures as we're on holidays and I don't have my hard drive with me, so for example the bloody picture of the dead goat is not here (yeah keep reading!), so I appologise that the pictures might not relate to the answers at all.

Me and waffles, a true love story right there.

1. How would you prepare and serve blueberries for a dessert?
If the blueberries are fresh and the sort that you get in Finland I would just give them as such, nothing else. There is no need to ruin the amazing natural flavour they have. Blueberries picked from the Finnish forest are amazing and I think people in Finland take it for granted a bit. In Australia there is only blueberries from a bush and they are very very different. They work great in smoothies or I also like a good blueberry pie. I don't have one specific recipe in my mind right now.

2. What is your favourite kitchen tool, the one you wouldn’t want to live without?
I love peeling things, my peeler is the best and I peel carrots just for the sake of peeling.

3. What are your favourite snacks for a road trip?
Carrot sticks, it's only natural after I've peeled them all day long with my awesome peeler. But for real, I do think carrots are awesome for road trips, as they are healthy so it doesn't matter how many you eat and crunchy so it gives you a lot of satisfaction when you can crunch away while sitting in a car. But it is important that they are in STICK form as they taste better that way. I do have a coke zero on long drives quite often too.

I think she loves carrots too. Picking them straight from grandpa's garden.

4. Describe a perfect dinner.
Perfect dinner is when we've got friends over and I've cooked something new at home and it's turned out amazing. It gives such good satisfaction when people like what you've made and the best part is if you don't wash the dishes after.

5. Most memorable food experience on a holiday?
This is so easy. This food experience is not about taste but about the effort in making it. It was definitely when I was in Zambia, Africa on a scout camp. Our group was in charge of the cooking for the day and in the morning we were brought a live goat and told that it was going to be our dinner. There it was going baa and kicking around and we had to kill it. Throat open, the goat was hanging from a tree for a few hours so that the blood would drain out. And in the evening we surely had some goat for dinner, amazing and discusting at the same time. Oh this memory makes me smile.

6. What Finnish dishes you miss the most while abroad?
Tough questions, I miss many different ingredients that you don't get in Australia, but a dish that I would miss... I think I'd have to say rice porridge. Having said that, if I miss some dish from Finland I usually then make it in Australia, so I don't have to miss that many dishes. 

7. What are your favourite dishes in your present country?
We cook a lot of Asian dishes at home and enjoy eating Asian food when we go eat out, but one of the best dishes in Australia for me has to be a good roast dinner. Nothing beats a good roast dinner, nothing! 

8. Share your healthy breakfast tip.
I love this one! Handful of spinach, one banana, two slices of pineapple, 1/2cup of water and few ice cubes. Blend them together and this makes an amazing green smoothie. I also add some chia seeds to give me an extra boost of healthyness and sometimes I add some natural no-fat yoghurt, that suits it really great as well. This smoothie fills me up pretty good and makes me feel refreshed.

9. What is your favourite cuisine?
I like Asian food, Indian is awesome, and Thai. I also love sushi. Pretty much all Asian food.

10. Have you ever tried weird diets?
No, I've never been very good in sticking to any diets. I have been able to lose over 10 kg though by changing my food habits and doing more exercise. Sounds simple but it's not very simple at all.

11. How travelling has affected your cooking and eating?
I've found my love for Asian food after I've moved to the other side of the world. I have learned to cook Asian food and our normal homemade food is now quite often Asian instead of the meatballs and potatoes that Finns eat. I've learned to taste new flavours as well and found many new and wonderful ingredients and spices that I wouldn't have tried in Finland.

 Because we're still on holidays and running out of time, I won't challenge anyone else this time. Instead I'm going to go and enjoy some more strawberries.

Medical party

My amazingly talented friend found out, while she was here, that she was going to graduate from med school. I wanted to do something special for her, since I can't be in Finland to celebrate with her, so while they went flying around Western Australia I got busy.

I got the medicine syringes and the urine cups from the pharmacy and filled them with jelly, lemonade flavour in the syringes and mango flavor in the urine cups. Then just some marshmellows as cotton balls, mints as aspirin and raspberry cordial as blood. 

Today she has officially graduated.

CONGRATULATIONS SUVI!

You are going to be an amazing doctor.

Christmas at the police station

 Like magic, the police station turned into gingerbread. The cars of the employees were still parked at the side and the sign stating that it was still indeed the police station, stood firmly at the front. But a text had appeared on the roof and inside a pile of timeout chocolate bars for the police to enjoy on this busy busy Christmas.

Thank you for keeping our town safe through out the year!

If you like it rich

Chocolate is what I'm all about today. If you like it rich, this one is for you. It is truly and well the most loaded chocolate cake I've ever had, super wealthy, millionare of all the chocolate cakes.

It was our 3rd anniversary the other day and the tradition goes that we have a piece of chocolate cake and a piece of cheese cake on that day. Cheese cake for this year was turkish delight cheese cake and the chocolate cake this one.

Ingredients:

500g good-quality dark chocolate
125g unsalted butter

1/4 cup caster sugar
4 eggs 
1 tbs plain flour


Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Grease and line the base of a 20cm springform cake pan.
   
   
2. Melt the chocolate, butter and 1 tablespoon sugar in a bowl set over a saucepan of gently simmering water Stir until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is well combined, then remove the bowl from the pan and set side to cool slightly.
   
   
3. Beat the eggs and the sugar in an electric mixer for 10 minutes on medium-high until very thick and pale. Using a metal spoon, gently fold in the flour, then the chocolate mixture, trying to retain as much air as possible.
   
   
   
4. Pour into the prepared pan and bake in the oven for 12 minutes (the cake will look raw at this stage).
   
   
   
5. Remove the cake from the oven and run a knife around the edge of the pan. Set aside to cool in the pan, then place in the freezer for few hours.
   
   
   
6. Remove the cake from the freezer 1 hour before serving and leave at room temperature to soften.
   
   
   
   
   
   

 I will admit that it was a bit too rich for me, a small amout was more than enough, but then again I'm not used to that wealthy things anyway. The rest of the cake was cut in pieces and will now be delivered to the local police station for them to enjoy. Yes I like to sweeten their day.

Oh and as an anniversary present my very own awesome police officer got me a new flash camera. Yay! Thanks hubs, you're the best!

Australia day cake balls

Oh Australia day, for I do not understand why we celebrate thee. Well I did some baking at least for the occasion. Yummy yummy cake balls in Aussi colours. They taste devine. I'm not a cake person, but these are so good, and the best part is that I can eat one cake ball and that's plenty for me.

Here's how you make them:

Bake a normal cake. Add food colour in the dough before you bake it. After the cake is baked and cooled, tear it in little crumbs. Make cream cheese frosting and mix it with the crumbs. I added some food colour in the frosting too. Then just rall them into balls, and dip the balls into melted chocolate. So easy!

Recipe for the cake:

1/4 cup corn flour
1/4 cup plain flour
1/4 cup self-raising flour
3 eggs (room temperature)
1/2 cup sugar

Sift the flours together three times. Beat the egg and sugar with electric mixer until the mixture is thick and pale. Sift the flours in slowly while simultaneously folding in with a large metal spoon until just combined. Place in a cake tin that has baking paper at the bottom, and cook in the oven (180C) for abbout 20 minutes.


Recipe for the frosting:

120g cream cheese
60 g butter
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 cup icing sugar

Place cheese, butter and vanilla in a bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat until pale. Gradually add icing sugar mixture, beating until combined.

It really is the frosting that makes it so nice and tasty. I see so many different opportunities with these, for so many different occasions.
But here's to Australia day, greetings to all from down under!

Our bakery on the side of the road

I've been looking after my friends kids again. We baked bread, gingerbread and chocolate chip cookies. And then we went to sell them on the side of the road.

We got to use our chalkboard (tutorial here) and she got to learn to bake and practice some simple math. 

Oh to be a child again. Everything is so easy and simple for them. I enjoyed this, our bakery on the side of the road. And she actually made $13.

Gingerbread

Ever since I can remember, gingerbread has been part of my Christmas. We would make the dough with mum in the evening, leave it in the fridge and then make gingerbread house and biscuits in the morning. The smell and taste of gingerbread equals Christmas to me.

My dough recipe makes very soft gingerbread, so you can't use it for making a gingerbread house. But it is like the gingerbread I remember my grandmum would make.

Recipe

- 250g butter
- 200g sugar
- 2/3 cup syrup
- 2tsp clove
- 2tsp cinnamon
- 1 1/2tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 cup cocoa (if you want a bit browner biscuits)
- 2 eggs
- 3tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1tsp salt
- 500g flour

Put the butter, sugar, syrup, cocoa and the spices in a pot and bring to boil. Let it cool and then start mixing it in a mixer. Add the two eggs. Add the bicarbonate of soda and salt to the flour. Then start adding this flour mixture into the dough slowly. After the dough is done refrigirate it over the night.

The morning after...

Get your dough and roll it flat with a rolling pin. Use plenty of flour. Choose your shapes and cut them out. Bake in 175 degrees about 7 minutes. I baked the first batch in 200 degrees and they burned really quickly, that's why I recomend to lower the heat a bit.

Let the biscuits cool and prepare your icing. I made royal icing.

To make royal icing you need

- 1 egg white
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar
- food colour (optional)

Add the lemon juice into a bowl with one egg white in it. Whisk. Start sifting icing sugar in the mixture, whisking every once in a while. Add food colour in the end.

Then start decorating.

Remember to put a glad wrap over the royal icing when you're not using it. Let the icing dry for about 8 hours or over night.

Enjoy your taste of Christmas!

Next week I'll share some last minute gifts you can make super quick.

Just add ice cream

As I was doing the hot chocolate sticks and enjoying my hot chocolate in 30 degrees heat, I realised that people in the hot part of the world aka Australia, probably won't be making hot chocolates as presents for anyone.

So I wanted to make something that I could give to my family and friends here without them thinking that I've gone mad giving them hot chocolates on a stick. I wont take credit for this idea though. I saw it on Pinterest and thought it was the coolest idea.

You need:

- a box to put all the stuff in (I used a shoe box)
- paper/material/wrapping paper, what ever you want to coat your box with if it's needed
- what ever decorations you want to use to decorate your box
- waffle cones
- small resealable bags
- chocolate chips
- marshmallows
- 100's and 1000's
- sprinkles
- m&m's
- chocolate sauce
- caramel sauce
- strawberry sauce
- 3 small jars eg. baby food jars
- what ever else you want to use

First make your box pretty and inviting. Remember to write somewhere instructions: Just add ice cream

Next put all the chocolate chips, 100's and 1000's, marshmallows, sprinkles and m&m's each in their own resealale bags. Put also the sauces in the small jars. Remember to clean your jars properly before you put the sauce in them.

Put all these in your box and wish a very merry Christmas. I'm pretty sure that the receiver will have a merry one after getting this.

Tomorrow the last sweet Christmas treat that I will share. And it's the one Christmas treat that I really need in my Christmas for it to be a real Christmas. Can you guess what it is??

Chocolates with strawberry and orange filling

My favorite chocolate is the ones with something in it, some fruit flavour like pineapple or strawberry. And even better are the ones homemade.

You will need:

- 200g dark chocolate
- 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar
- 1 tbs vegetable oil
- 2 tbs milk
- food colour
- flavouring essence (I used strawberry and orange)
- mold
- piping bag (optional)

Start by melting 50g of dark chocolate. Pour it in the mold and turn the mold around so that the chocolate covers all the sides and corners. Put the mold in the fridge and prepare the filling while the chocolate gets hard.

Sift the icing sugar in the bowl. Add vegetable oil and milk and mix into a think paste. Remember that adding food colour and flavouring essence will make it more runny.

Divide the white paste into two small bowls and add the food colour. I added first 1 tsp of red in the other and then used the same spoon to add 1 tsp of yellow to the other. Since some of that red food colour stayed on the spoon, I got orange colour just like that.

Then add 1 tsp of strawberry essence in the red paste and 1 tsp of orange essence in the orange paste. Remember to use different spoons this time so that the essences wont get mixed.

Take your mold out of the fridge. Put some of the filling in the icing bag and fill the hearts with filling. Remember to leave a little room for the chocolate for the top. After this I put the mold in the freezer for the time I melted another 50 grams of chocolate. That way the filling got a bit harder, preventing the hot chocolate and the filling to mix.

Add your chocolate on the top and put it in the fridge to cool. After they are finished do the same with the orange filling, or use a different mold, in which case you can do these at the same time.

Place your chocolates in a nice bowl to offer your guests or wrap them up as a present.

Enjoy.

It is Independence day

...in Finland. I was looking at pictures from last winter. It feels like it was so long ago and as much as I don't like being cold, these pictures made me miss that beautiful winter wonderland.

So in honour for our Independence day, I want to share a Finnish Christmas recipe. I can't have a Christmas without these. The dictionary calls them prune jam pastrie, in Finnish they are called joulutorttu.

What you need is:

- Puff pastry
- Prune jam or apple jam
- 1 egg
- Icing sugar on top

Traditionally these are made using prune jam, but since I couldn't find that in the shop, I made my own apple jam.

To make apple jam you peel the apples and dice them. Boil the dices in a very little water so that they become soft. Mash them and then add jaming sugar (use the same amount of jaming sugar as the apples, in grams). Boil for 4 minutes and take off the heat. Let the jam cool down until you use it.

Now for the actual pastry.

To make nice and puffy pastries, put two puff pastry sheets on top of each other. Roll gently with the rolling pin so that the two sheets get attached. Cut the sheet in three parts and every part again in three squares.

After that make cuts on each square from the corners to the middle (as in the picture above). Don't cut all the way in the middle.

Add a teaspoon of jam in the middle and start bending one corner at a time to the middle. It looks like a whirligig or a star. Do this to all of the squares.

Place the pastries on a tray with baking paper on it. Break an egg in a glass and add a bit of egg on each pastry. This will make them shiny and protects them from burning.

Heat the oven for 200 degrees and bake the pastries for about 10 minutes. After they are cooked, let them cool for a few minutes and sift some icing on top. They are now ready to be enjoyed!

HYVÄÄ ITSENÄISYYSPÄIVÄÄ!!

Hot chocolate

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without chocolate, wouldn't you agree. So this week I'll share a few ideas that you can do for yourself or as gifts for others, mostly to do with chocolate. It's going to be SWEET, hope you enjoy.

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I think one of the cutest things to give for Christmas is homemade hot chocolate sticks.

 

You will need

- chocolate (I used milk chocolate and dark chocolate)

- sugar

- cocoa powder

- a mold

- wooden sticks (you can buy them at craft shops)

 

This is pretty simple.

First you melt the chocolate. I used 100g of chocolate for that mold above. When the chocolate is just melted, add a little sugar and a little cocoa powder. I didn't measure how much I put, but it wasn't a lot.

Second, you pour your mixture into the mold and put it in the fridge for a little while, say 5 minutes. Then put your sticks in. 

When I put mine, about half of them stayed up and half of them kept falling down. If this happens to you no need to stress. Just wait for another 5 minutes and try again.

Once they are cooled completely they'll come off the mold very easily.

There, you can either be ready now or you can add a twist to them. I left half that way and the other half I wanted to have something extra special on them.

I used hundreds and thousands and coconut flakes. Dip your chcolate on a stick in melted chocolate and roll it in hundreds and thousands or coconut flakes. Let it cool. If you're in a hurry you can put them in the freezer for couple of minutes.

Then make some nice tags and wrap them pretty. I know that people will love this when they get it.

Or drink it yourself. I had to try one. :) Yummy!

1st of December, it's Christmas time

I can't believe it's already the 1st of December! For some reason as we get closer to Christmas, my baking side wakes up and I start planning little treats. I thought I'd share some of those ideas with you during this Christmas.

Last year we made these melting snowmen that you've probably seen all over the blogland. Awesome and fun idea we thought.

All you need to do is put two pieces of milk chocolate on top of a biscuit, melt some while chocolate and pour over the chocolate pieces and biscuit. Then place marshmallow on top of that. We used snöre for the scarf and the nose, but you can use what ever kind of candy works the best for you. And then make the eyes, buttons and arms with melted milk chocolate.

Yummo, enjoy!