Lemon-Rasberry filled Cake with Almond paste and Choclate Cream

I know, it is getting repetitive, but I have made yet another cake. This time for my husband. It was really delicious, so I want to share! The cake is made from almond paste, with a filling of lemon cream and raspberries in the middle, covered with chocolate cream and decorated with blue almond paste and silver balls. Yum!

Strawberry Cake for Midsummer - Jordgubbstårta

Friday was the national midsummer celebration in Sweden. As an expat I like to keep some traditions, and to pass them on to the kids. So we made the same dinner as every Swede eat on this day: Herring, Boiled Potatoes, Egg halves, Cold chives sauce and Knäckebröd. Dessert: Always Strawberries! This time in form of a cake. If you want to make your own one, this is how it is done:

Start with making the cake:

(1 dl = roughly one cup)

50g Butter

1 1/4 dl Milk 

2 Egg

2 dl Sugar

3 dl Flour

1.5 teaspoons of baking powder

2 Teaspoons Vanilla Sugar (Change for Cacao if you want chocolate taste)

Melt butter. Mix Eggs and Sugar and add the rest of the ingredients. Bake for 30 minutes in 175 C.

Let the cake cool down and cut in two, horizontally. Add strawberry jam and vanilla cream (I use the labor and secret recipe of Mr. Likazo, so I let you find your own one or buy it premade) in the middle. Cover it all with whipped cream and put fresh strawberries as decoration and enjoy!

Necklace in crocheted silver

Two years ago I did this necklace, I was very happy about it (although I realize now that the photo I made does not make it justice). Since I had the material to do another one and my mothers birthday was coming up I gave that one to her. I never thought that it would take me another two years to actually make another one for myself. I guess I could not imagine that having three small children would be that time and energy consuming... so to have finally done this necklace is also a sign that our family has passed the hardest period and started a new phase in life! It is made by crocheting silver thread, continuously adding sea pearls. Simple, easy and elegant.

Full Moon and Development

Did you also see the fantastic moon this weekend? So beautiful and impressive, makes you put your small problems in perspective. 

Lately I have been thinking a lot about how I want to live my life. After getting three children I have started looking for a job this spring. I am very motivated to work, but a bit scared to loose my freedom and to get into the machinery of fitting all the parts of my life together. I want it all; family time, training, knitting, reading, meeting people and having a motivating and challenging work. Don't know if it is all possible. 

Without really taking any decision, I have found myself getting some small freelancing jobs. Some translations and writing articles and now I am starting to consider this as a future alternative. Don't know yet how easy it would be to actually make a living, but I feel excited about the idea to have my own business. For the moment I am looking into all the administrative parts around it, which is not all obvious when being in a foreign country. Task of the day: Register as Autoentrepreneur! This is supposed to be relatively easy and be able to do completely online. French administration without any papers, can that really be true..? Well, lets see!

Have you found your passion in life? Are you happy with your job, or would you like to change?

Birthday

My big girl just turned five, and I wanted to share ideas for a five year old birthday party with you.

The cake: Without having a real plan for the cake I bought pink sugar paste, and turquoise almond paste last week, knowing that if it is pink it will have success with a bunch of five year old girls! 

To make a crown I printed a nice picture from internet, cut it out, and used a knife to cut around it. Letters and number is also cut with a knife without using a model. The round are made from a bottle cap. You really don't need to buy all the expensive Scrap Cooking Tools to succeed!

I then used a Popsicle stick to make small wholes in the paste for the silver bullets to sit in. To be sure they would stay I put a tiny drop of water that I used as "glue". I also glued the almond paste parts on with water. 

I am still a beginner at cake decorating, but I think this one is the nicest one I have done so far. Sugar paste looks good and is easy to work with, BUT, it did not taste very good. I will probably look for another DIY solution next time.

Candy Gifts: We had bought candy that we wanted to give as small gift bags to the invited kids, but had not thought about how to present it. Since we wanted to avoid regular plastic bags, I went through the stock of tissues and ribbons I keep and  made some myself. Maybe the choice could have been a bit funnier, matching the cake, but as it was a last minute solution and this black was the only one I was willing to sacrifice in my small collection, we went with this. Still a bit Minnie Mouse about it.

It is very easy! Just cut the tissue round, put the candy in the middle, tie the ribbon around and voilà!

Party Game: To give the candy gifts we made a little game. It is a traditional Swedish "fishing game". Put up a blanket or a sheet in a door (see picture). Make a fishing stick with a clothes peg on the end and the kids get to fish behind the blanket. They love it! To spice it up you can let them sometimes get something less funny, like a empty plastic bottle, and you get to teach them that you should not throw garbage in the lake!!!

 

What did you do for your kids birthday party? Let me know in the comments!

How to grow Avocado

Inspired by my tomato plants, I saved the avocado seed from last weeks Guacamole, and after reading up on the correct way of seeding them, this is how you should do:

Put three toothpicks in the seed, and then hang it on the top of a glass. Add water so that it reaches the bottom of the seed and wait to see it grow. It is supposed to take 2-3 weeks. I will keep you updated!

Tomato replanting

Finally a weekend that start feeling like summer! I have taken advantage to move my tomato plants, that have been growing inside since the end of March, into the big balcony pots. They have not been well treated so far. The roots were very tangled into each other in the tiny plantingpots, and hard to separate, so some of them got planted together also in the big pots.

 

I also planted my Tagetes (Oeillets d'Inde) outside. Also not so well taken care of, but lets see if there will be some flowers coming...

 

As for the Basilic... not a great success.. the picture talks for itself.. Although, I still have supermarket Basilic that has been growing for 2 months now, so that is a comfort.

Please, if you have any advise how to succeed better with your gardening, leave a comment (in your preferred language)!

A week away

Last week we visited relatives in beautiful Dordogne, France. We stayed in my husbands cousin's house (which is also a gite that you can rent) in a little countryside village called Peyrignac. It was great to be in nature and silence, and it makes me want to find a house with a calm garden somewhere soon! Below I show you some pictures from the village with all its beautiful houses and castle, and further down some visits we did. We visited, for example, a prehistoric park in Roc de Cazelle, with a mammoth and some other animals from today, and the old city of Madeleine, that was built into the cliffs just next to the river. I recommend them both, they are suitable for bringing small kids and they have great picnic opportunities!