Sorry for being a bad blogger the last weeks. I wish I would have a 30h day to show you all the lovely things that are waiting on my hard drive to be published. One of them are these fashionable cupcakes which where a surprise gift for a very cool boy’s girlfriend

Lara Stone by Alasdair Mc Lellan in Vogue UK November 2010

these Bailey & Coffee cupcakes with dog footprints I made

finding out that Pulp is having a comeback – in Barcelona!

drinking lots of coffee and still feeling sleepy – image via Julie Morstad

streetart from Sandrine Estrade Boulet

eating the last 2 pieces of this cute chocolate from Japan

the new Isabel Marant lookbook, shot by Karim Sadli

IKEA – Homemade is Best. from Forsman & Bodenfors on Vimeo.

this is a chocolate cake I made recently for a dog-loving birthday girl. Have a great sunny weekend

Relaxed sunday reading the Lula and Mixté Magazine, finding new music groups, sunshine on my balcony and friends coming over for coffee time. I have to admit I haven’t stuck to my principles and bought a Nespresso machine although I swore myself to never be unfaithful to freshly ground coffee… But my coffee machine exploded yesterday and I can’t live without coffee while it’s getting repaired (which apparently takes 3 months!) Damn, George Clooney won (and I really don’t like him). To salve my conscience I needed to make something old fashioned and went for these hazelnut & chocolate muffins – a taste that reminds me of my childhood. I feel better now:)

Hazelnut & Chocolate Muffins
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Ingredients:

*100g milk chocolate, grated
*100g black chocolate, grated
*200g ground hazelnuts
*130g all purpose flour
*6 eggs(separated yolk and egg white)
*200g softened butter
*1 teaspoon baking powder
*1 teaspoon cinnamon
*240g sugar
*1 sachet vanilla sugar
* a hint of salt
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Preheat the oven @ 200ºC.
Mix the hazelnut and chocolate. In another bowl cream the butter with the sugar/vanilla sugar. Then stir in the egg yolks slowly. Stir in the nut/chocolate mix and add the flour, baking powder and cinnamon.
Beat the egg white with the salt until stiff and mix into the batter, stir until well combined.
Line a muffin pan with paper cups and fill the batter in.
Bake for ca 18min and let cool…

little cupcake bear from Bukubuku

“The simplest things are often the truest”
I leave you with this words today – I really need a good night’s sleep…

Vanilla cupcakes with chocolate buttercream

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Ingredients dough:
I used this simple and yummy vanilla recipe, previously posted here (just omit the raspberries)
Ingredients chocolate buttercream:

*250g soft butter(not melted)
*1 teaspoon milk( a bit more if needed
*180g melted dark chocolate
*180g confectioners’ sugar
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Mix the soft butter in a bowl until creamy and add the melted chocolate (needs to be cooled down), milk and confectioners’ sugar and mix until well combined. Depending the consistency you like, add more milk or confectioners’ sugar.

Instead of frosting the cupcakes, you can also cut them in half and fill them with the buttercream as per picture…

I wish you all a happy new year full of …
I heard so many people complaining about 2008 – I have to say my last year was not too bad – but I have a feeling this one will be even better ( maybe I’ll have my own little café, who knows:))
Anyway, I hope you had a good start! I did – with these black and white muffins, I made with my brother and sister. Have a try, they’re really tasty…

Black and white muffins
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Ingredients for 12 muffins:
*2 eggs
*6 tablespoons soy milk ( or cow’s milk)
*125g dairy free margarine,( or butter ), melted
*125g sugar
*1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
*1 tablespoon amaretto liquor
*250g flour
*1/2 sachet of baking powder
*a hint of salt

Ingredients for the chocolate layer:
*ca 50g melted dark chocolate
*2 tablespoons soy milk (or cow’s milk)
*2 tablespoons sugar
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Place 12 paper cups in a muffin pan and preheat the oven @ 200ºC.
Mix the eggs with an electric mixer until fluffy and add milk, margarine, vanille sugar, sugar and amaretto.
Mix in a separate bowl the flour, baking powder and salt and stir slowly into the liquid batter.
Separate 1/3 of the dough and mix it with the melted choclate , milk and sugar.
Fill 1/2 tablespoon of the white batter into the cups, then put on top 1/2 of the black batter and again the rest of the white batter.
Bake for 15-20 min and enjoy

I found an amazing japanese pastry shop in Barcelona! The japanese confectioner Takashi Ochiai came to Barcelona in the 80’s to learn about catalan pastries and opened OCHIAI, which sells incredible traditional japanese and catalan sweet treats As I am addicted to green tea I had to give it a try and made these yummy white chocolate green tea pralines. So easy to make and a really cute gift….

Green tea pralines
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You need a silicon chocolate mold with 15 units

Ingredients:
*200g white chocolate
*2 teaspoons of Matcha green tea powder
*1 tablespoon cream

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Break 3/4 of the chocolate in pieces and warm slowly in a double pot boiler (Bain-marie) @ approx 50ºC until completely melted. Be careful not to heat too much, otherwise the white chocolate can get crumby.
Fill half of the fluid chocolate in the silicone mould.
Then stir the matcha green tea and the cream into the fluid chocolate, stir until well combined and fill in the mould on top of the white chocolate. Break the remaining 1/4 chocolate in pieces and let melt. Then fill in the silicon mould on top of the green tea chocolate. Put in the fridge and let cool for 2 hours…

I always wondered why some chocolate cakes are called Devil’s food cakes. Ok there’s always wikipedia to find out, but I thought I’d give it a try and do some practical research:)
These cupcakes I made for a friends birthday came out so rich and moist – you cannot resist, making any “back-from-summer-holiday-diet-plans” impossible. I guess that’s why they call them devil’s food:)
Here’s the recipe for the cakes – the Oreo topping is a special mixture I made up (always good to keep some little secrets)…

Devil’s food cupcakes – ca. 20 cupcakes
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Ingredients:
*240g all purpose flour
*1 tablespoon baking powder
*240g butter, softened
*180g brown sugar
*100g semisweet dark chocolate, melted
*2 separated eggs
*1 tablespoon vanilla extract
*120ml milk (cow’s or soy)

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Mix flour and baking powder and set apart.
Cream the softened butter together with the sugar until smooth and soft.
Pour the egg yolks in and beat.
Add then the melted chocolate and vanilla extract and mix well.
Stir in the flour and milk in 3 parts, alternately.
Beat the egg white in a bowl apart until soft (doubled volume) and add to the batter.
Mix well until smooth and spoon in ca 20 paper cups in a muffin pan.
Bake for 20 minutes @175º Celsius
Enjoy

Hope for everybody who can’t eat/drink milk:) These rice milk chocolates are delicious: www.bonvita.com For these muffins I used “Rice Milk” chocolate and “White Rice Milk” chocolate, together with a dark chocolate and soy milk – it’s really hard to tell the difference…