Cheery cherry...

by Karolina, 26th June 2012

I love cherries! For me they symbolize summer.
I'm mesmerized by their colour - rich, dark and deep burgundy.

Actually most of the time I don't prepare them anyhow, don't bake them (maybe occasionally making clafoutis) or cook them...just eat them fresh.
However, inspired by some recipe I saw online (of course, I can't find it now - I'll credit as soon as I find it), I decided to try something new. Cherry smoothie...



I've used a lot of fruits for smoothies before: strawberry, raspberry, banana, mango, blueberry...but never tried cherry! Why? No idea...

So it was a time to try it.

Cherry smoothie:

- good handful of cherries

- milk (to fill)

- 1 tsp honey (or 1 tsp sugar)

- dash of cocoa

Pit the cherries, blend them until smooth, add milk, honey (sugar) and little cocoa (for extra taste). Blend again until all mixed.

What came out of it? Nice, soft, refreshing smoothie with little chocolatey taste in the background.

But being myself...I decided to play with it a bit and create little more boozy version for summer evening cocktail...and that's how Cheery Cherry came to life! :)

Again, all blended and mixed in until smooth.

I ended up having nice, smooth, womanly, soft cocktail - perfect for summer evening. Cherries added extra "zing" to this cocktail.

If you prefer "virgin" version or boozy one - give it a try!

And hurry up - cherry season is not lasting forever :)

Cheery Cherry:

- good handful of cherries

- 1cl Malibu or other coconut liqueur (you can change the amount of alcohol depending on your preference - to make it lighter or stronger)

- milk (to fill)

- 1 tsp sugar syrup

- dash of cocoa

Summer...

by Karolina, 24th June 2012

...is here :)
Summer with its abundance of colours, smells and tastes...
Summer with its flowers and berries...
Summer with hot sun and cool shadow...

This is just a little preview of a few posts that are coming your way :)

Keep tuned -I'll show plenty of summer entertaining ideas and cooking inspirations in coming weeks.

Enjoy the summer!

Cool Brittania, part 2

by Karolina, 15th June 2012

This is the last post from my Diamond Jubilee inspired posts. I can't promise thought that it's the last of Britain and British  in here :) 
Today... tea cake :) Literally a tea cake...

Recipe for this cake is from Moje Wypieki blog with small changes (see my notes)

Lady Grey tea cake

Ingredients:

• 200 g flour
• 50 g potato flour (note: you can use maizena or cornflour instead)
• 150 g caster sugar
• 130 g butter or margarine
• 4 eggs
• 4 tbs milk (note: I usually need more0
• 2 ts baking powder
• 1 ts vanilla extract
• 3 ts dry Lady Grey team - about 2 tea (I usually use 2 teabags of Earl Grey)

* note: cake on the pictures is made from 2/3 of the above ingredients. I made smaller version (ran out of eggs :))

Method:

• Beat butter/margarine until fluffy. Add sugar and keep mixing. Add eggs - one by one while mixing
• Flours sift together with baking powder and mix in tea. 
• Add to butter mix alternating with milk, while mixing. Add vanilla extract and mix.
• Butter bundt cake form  and fill 3/4 with the cake
• Bake around 30-40 minutes in 190º (first 15 minutes in temperature 160ºC).
•  Take out, cool and Enjoy :)

I really like this cake as it's not too sweet, moist but not heavy. And best of all - nobody can guess what's the secret ingredient :) I had once professional chef asking me what was inside - because he couldn't put his finger on this specific taste.

To make this cake little more dressed up for the occasion I added Union Jack bunting.

This bunting took me less than 10 minutes to make. I printed some Union Jack pattern, cut triangles from it. Glued triangles to get double-sided bunting :)  Then glued triangles together and to the wooden skewers. Ta-da! :)

So I leave you with this lovely tea cake and (with the special dedication to all my British friends) - Land of Hope and Glory from last year's Proms.

Enjoy!

Cool Britannia, part1

by Karolina, 9th June 2012

The Diamond Jubilee celebrations have ended in Great Britain. But I wanted to show you a few more details from my British party.



Apart of my flag cake (which you can see in my previous post), I prepared a few more sweet British delights :)

Of course, my party couldn't go without scones - typically British cookies served for tea with clotted cream and strawberry jam. Unfortunately , living in the county which is not familiar with clotted cream, I had to swap it for whipped cream (which worked quite fine as well).

I used this recipe from BBC Good Food website for the quick scones. It worked out quite well.

And here's how my scones looked like straight from the oven. I had to try it - standard quality check  :)

They're the best straight from the oven, so don't bake them too much in advance.

I think they're brilliant for  breakfast, brunch and tea time. Not too sweet but sweet enough for little "yummy" effect :)

Give it a try- old British treat might surprise you!

God Save the Queen...

by Karolina, 3rd June 2012

...or how I celebrate Diamond Jubilee.
A lot of you probably know that this year marks 60 years of Queen Elisabeth's reigns in Great Britain. The main events are happening this weekend and spilling into next week when British are enjoying extra 2 days of holidays. Although I don't live in UK anymore, I decided to have a small Diamond Jubilee celebration. Any occasion for celebration is good, isn't it? :)

So, I looked around for some inspirations.And I found this gorgeous cake on  BBC Good Food website.

It was just perfect for my Jubilee party.

Unfortunately I ran out of time and some ingredients, so I had to improvise and change a recipe but the general idea stayed the same.

I was creating the flag! :)

Yep, this is it.

Original recipe calls for sponge cake with icing cream. As I ran out of eggs and time I made it with waffles, layers of custard with whipped cream on top covered with berries (strawberries and blueberries) to create the pattern of Great Britain flag.

I agree that version with sponge would have been nicer and more practical to eat. Next time I would just try the original recipe. However, I think it was good enough and this cake definitely has the looks :)

On top of that it's finally the season for berries, which I looooooooove :)

This cake will be perfect for any tea party and I'm sure you could create pretty much any flag using your imagination and some fruits and berries :)

I would love to hear from you, maybe you have some great ideas?

And how do you like my flag-cake?