PUMPKIN MUFFINS

Ohhh yes! This time of the year is awesome not only because you get to wear those cute coats and sweaters, but it's also the PUMPKIN SEASON.
Okay, point taken, you can't wear pumpkins, but they're delicious. And healthy. And you have to eat SOMETHING.
So what I think you should try is....

  PUMPKIN MUFFINS

ingredients:

---

(makes about 18 muffins)

• 1,5 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon (I love cinnamon so I put a bit more!)
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger 
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 113g (1/2c) butter
• 1c white sugar
• 2 large eggs
• a few drops of vanilla extract
• 3/4c pumpkin puree (as it's not really available in Poland, or at least I've never seen it around here, I                              make one myself, if you want to know how I make the pumpkin puree let me know)

What to do?

---

1. Preheat oven to 175C and line muffin tins with paper muffin cases.
2. In a small bowl sift together the flour, soda, spices and salt
3. In a big bowl beat butter with sugar. When nice and fluffy start adding the eggs, one at a time, and beat that well together. Add vanilla extract.
4. Incorporate half of the dry ingredients and half of the pumpkin puree to the big bowl (butter, sugar, eggs mixture).
5. Add the remaining halves of dry ingredients and pumpkin puree.
6. Pour the batter into muffin cases and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Yummm! They're soo good! This time I decorated them with little panda heads made from fondant and for halloween as little spiders and with worms going through them! Ugh! Nasty! 

Take a look!

Oh, by the way, just wanted to share my enthusiasm, they opened a store with everything you need for baking close to my house! I could not be more happy! I mean, there was one I'd buy everything in but it was soo far away! So now, no worries! :) Ahhh!

BAKE THEM!

NOW!

haha 

xx 

Annie

The Great (Britain) Adventure!

Soo I was gone for a long time. I know. 

But there's been a lot of crazy stuff going on! Crazy in a very good way though!

One of the things was me going to live in London for 2 months. Fun? YES!

And I thought I'd share some pictures from my trip with you. 

They're all obviously CUPCAKE/BAKING/FOOD related! And oh my goodness, you can find cupcakes EVERYWHERE there. And every freaking store has a well stocked baking section! You can buy pretty much everything you'd need! 

Okay, but let's go ahead and look at the pictures!

That's the view from my balcony. It was TRULY AMAZING. The view and the cupcake make this picture I think my favorite picture of the whole trip.

Did you ever try them? YUM. I definitely recommend these little guys! And obviously they're the best warm!

Cupcakes I made for my brother's birthday over there :) Chocolate with lemon frosting!

Standard and soo british.Tea and digestive cookies. Ahhh my favorite ones! 

Ohh and the Reese's - chocolate cups that are filled with PEANUT BUTTER! <3 p="">

 Window shopping? More like window eating!

CUTE british cupcakes baking? ;)

Ben & Jerry's ice cream machine? HOW AWESOME IS THAT?

Adorable little cupcake store

And even in stupid Tesco or Sainsbury's you can find a variety of these little things!

That's all, you guys, of my baking-related GB pictures!
I hope you liked this post! :)
So I'll end it with Mr. Ben. Big Ben.

I love you, London.

xx

Annie

Banana Bread

It's time, you guys. It's time for you to get to know this AMAZING recipe. It's SUPER SIMPLE, I mean it, everybody can do it! Even if baking doesn't come easy to you, try this banana bread.
It's so tasty, really sweet and quick and simple to do. What else could you want from a recipe?
I foumd it at this blog and gonna translate and give you my tips.
I just have to share this one, I can't keep it a secret anymore.

  BANANA BREAD

ingredients:

---

• 4 really ripe bananas (their ripeness is important, it is the best with those bananas that you have left                                        laying around for too long, they don't look too good and therefore no one is                                        eager to eat them. It's pretty much like making use of something that could be                                                     thrown out and wasted)
• 150g brown sugar (3/4 cup)
• an egg
• 75g soft butter
• few drops of vanilla extract
• a cup of plain flour
• pinch of salt
• tsp baking powder

What to do?

---

1. Preheat oven to 180C and line long loaf pan with parchment paper.
2. Mash bananas with fork (or blender)
3. Mix together mashed bananas, sugar,egg, butter and vanilla extract
4. Add flour, salt and baking powder to the mixture and combine it all.
5. Transfer the dough into the loaf pan and bake for around 45-60minutes
   (depends on the oven, so you have to check on it. Bear in mind that the bread IS supposed to be rather wet, so when there's a nice golden skin and the insides aren't flowy anymore, it may be ready)

Just don't think I stopped at that ;)

I reaalllyyy hope you'll try this recipe as it absolutely is one of my faves, especially for summer as it's easy, you don't spend a lot of time in the kitchen and are free to chill in the garden while it's baking :)

Hope y'all are having a PHENOMENAL vacay and if you're working and not having such great time, make the banana bread, it will improve them.
CAUTION! You may become addicted to the banana bread and bake it all the time. 

xx

Annie

Oreo Cupcakes!

Long awaited there it is, you wanted it, you got it!
Although I have not made them in quite a while, I found the site I got the recipe from and translated it for you, my loves and added my personal tips ;) Hope you'll enjoy it!

  OREO CUPCAKES 

ingredients:

---

cupcakes:

• 2 eggs
• 175g white sugar 
• 4 tbsp unsweetened cocoa
• 5 tbsp butter (~70g)
• 1/3 cup hot water
• 200g plain flour
• 75g ground coconut (or nuts) - I used coconut and although I'm not a big fan, I really enjoyed how                                                                 they taste in those cupcakes :)
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• pinch of baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 100g plain (natural) yogurt
• 12 oreos

frosting:

• 250-300ml COLD whipping cream (30%)
• ~125g mascarpone
• 8-10 oreos
• 2-3 tbsp icing (/powdered/confectioners') sugar 

What to do?

---

1. Preheat your oven to 180C and line muffin tins with paper liners. Put an oreo on the bottom of every paper liner.
2. In a pan melt butter with hot water and cocoa.
3. Beat eggs with sugar until mixture has thickened and turned a very pale yellow.
4. In a seprate bowl combine flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda and coconut (or nuts).
5. Turn the mixer on low speed and start adding to egg mixture: a spoon of yogurt, a spoon of cocoa mixture, a spoon of flour mixture and keep doing this untill you're incorporated all of the ingredients. Be careful not to overmix though! Turn the mixer off as soon as you mixed everything!
6. Pour the dough evenly to 12 paper liners you've put oreos in (put the dough on top of the cookie)
7. Bake for 15minutes :) And while cupcakes are in the oven start making frosting.
8. Crush oreos - you can do this in blender, food processor or simply by putting oreos in a plastic bag and using rolling pin or  meat tenderizer ( be careful and don't hurt yourself or anyone else, please!)
9. Beat whipping cream with icing sugar (remember to keep the whipping cream in the fridge till the last moment, it needs to be really chilled or it will start running and you won't be able to make whipped cream!)
10. At the end of whipping (when it's pretty thick) add mascarpone.
11. Really slowly mix in oreos and rather leave it not too corporated than go crazy with mixing.
12. Wrap the bowl with cling foil and leave in a frigde to chill, while the cupcakes are cooling. 
13. When cupcakes are ready and cooled decorate them with frosting!

And voila! There you have the delicious oreo cupcakes :) You can also decorate them with oreo cookies cut in half on top of the frosting 

Simple Apple Tart

Yesterday was my mom's birthday and I got inspired by Alice in Wonderland (old Disney movie) and celebrated my unbirthday and so we baked a tart as she isn't that fond of birthday cakes. And oh my goodness,  it is SUPER EASY and DELICIOUS. One of the best tarts I've had in my life! If you are craving an amazing cake/something sweet go for it! The recipe is really really easy so even if you don't think of yourself as the most advanced baker TRY IT! :) Usually if you make a tart you bake the pie crust first and then bake it again with the filling, but you don't even have to do that in this recipe! PERFECT. (just saying)

  SIMPLE APPLE TART 

Ingredients:

---

• 200g all-purpose flour 
• 1 egg yolk
• 200g white sugar
• 100g unsalted butter 
• 4 big apples
• cinnamon

What to do:

---

1. Preheat oven to 180-200C
2. Put flour and 100g (half of the amount) of sugar in a bowl. 
3. Add egg yolk and butter and knead the dough. Cover ready dough in plastic wrap and put in a fridge for a couple of minutes.
4. Wash the apples and peel the skin off them. Then cut in rather thin slices.
5. Take out the dough and fill your tart pan (however you like it, whether roll out the dough and transfer it into the pan or just pat parts of the dough into the pan using your fingers)
6. Using a fork puncture the bottom of the dough a bit
7. Decorate your tart with apple slices (you can do differen patterns, I'm gonna try the rose kind of thing next time!)
8. Sprinkle apples with the rest of sugar and cinnamon
9. Bake for about 30 min 

ENJOY, my loves! <3 nbsp="">

It is de-li-cious, I'm telling you, you want to eat this tart. 

Let me know if you made it, pictures will be awesome! 

xoxo

Annie

FAWORKI (angel wings)

No, I didn't know the english name for faworki a.k.a chrust, but I checked it and awww angel wings! That's so cute! Not anywhere close to our names for this Polish traditional delicacy.
So, this thursday we had in Poland what we call Fat Thursday which is the last thursday before Lent, so to celebrate it we eat dozens of pączki (big filled doughnuts) and faworki and pretty much anything with lots of fat.
If you've never eaten faworki than you really have to! So to make it simple I'll give you the recipe. It's sooo simple!

FAWORKI

INGREDIENTS

---

• 200g flour 
• 3 egg yolks
• 3-4 tablespoons sour cream
• 1 tablespoon of grain alcohol (95%) - this will prevent your faworki from absorbing the oil from pan
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• pinch of salt

• lots of powdered sugar to sprinkle all over your faworki (you don't add any sugar into the dough so that's the way you make them sweet and delicious) 
• lots of vegetable oil - to fry your faworki 

WHAT TO DO?

---

1. Make a little flour "nest" on your worktop or table and inside of this "nest" put 3 yolks like in the picture below 










Start mixing those two, add sour cream, alcohol, salt and baking powder and knead the dough. (Even if it's a bit sticky, leave it like that. You want your faworki to be crispy and light!)






Divide the dough into 3 parts. Leave one on the table and  cover the remaining two (for example with a bowl, just so that they won't start to get dry)






Roll out the first part (it should be really thin). Sprinkle your work surface with flour so that the dough wouldn't stick to rolling pin and table. Cut into strips and then something like rectangles or parallelograms, anything rectangle-related really. Make a slit in the middle of each faworek. Maybe the picture will show you what I mean better :)

they are actually better (and prettier!) smaller than this, so keep that in mind!

      5. Take the top of each faworek and slid it through the whole in it 

     6. So that you end up with many faworki looking like this 

     7. Put a big amount of oil on your pan (about 1,5cm. They fry much better then) and heat it well. You can          throw a bit of your dough into the oil to check if it's ready. If it bubbles start raising on the dough, it's good. You can go on and throw in your faworki

     8.  Throw about 4 faworki on your pan (it depends on how big or small they are and your pan is) and after 30sec-1min they'll get golden so flip them to the other side. They fry quickly so don't leave them alone!

REMEMBER TO KEEP THE LEVEL OF OIL ON THE PAN!

(pour a little bit after every batch)

   9. Remove them from the pan and put on a plate (or whatever you like) covered with napkins/paper towels so that it will absorb some of the oil. 

     10. Amply sprinkle them with powdered sugar! You want a think layer of the sugar, believe me :) Sprinkle them while they're still hot and remember to do it after every batch you take from the pan.

  

     11.  Continue with the rest of the faworki and then do exactly the same with the remaining two parts of                   dough! :)

You'll end up with a lot of faworki all ready for you to eat them! SMACZNEGO! :) 

I saw your request for the oreo cupcakes recipe and I'll post it ASAP! 

xoxo

Annie

Surprise!

LOOK WHAT I'VE GOT! I got the picture of the birthday cupcake. And our creativity with the candle went wild and as we didn't have the birthday candle we just used a tealight haha
Just thought I'd share, 'cause I was really disappointed yesterday!

Just wanted to share that quickly :)
But now go to my facebook page, like it and tell me what recipe do you want me to share!

xoxo 

Memories of birthday cupcakes

I'm a lousy blogger. And I don't even have a legitimate excuse.

And what I wanted to show you today, my awesome double chocolate cupcake beauties, didn't get any pictures. (Guess they weren't so beautiful after all. Or maybe too pretty to take time to take a picture 'cause all you wanted to do is just take a bite?) I only have the BEFORE picture, without the AFTER one. So without frosting and decorating :( SHAME.
They were delicious chocolate cupcakes (from my basic standard recipe that I think I should finally share!) with yummy chocolate frosting and sprinkled with chocolate chunks :) Aaaaah! Imagine that!
And I have to mention that, those were birthday cupcakes for my dear friend SAMANTHA! <3 p="">

But as I was going through my pictures I found some of those awesome vanilla cupcakes with fudge chunks with chocolate frosting and again fudge chunks. YURMMM
Take a look at that and then try to imagine the chocolate ones :)

 Gotta luv 'em! hahaha
If you want to know anything more about those little guys let me know
Have a good night and love cupcakes :)

xoxo

Annie