Apple trees with growing apples

For the first time ever my Family apple tree is actually bearing apples. I am looking forward to taste them later on in Autumn time.

My column apple carrys apples again, but fewer as starting point compared to last year.

Kitchen equipment 12 - New chopping board

I have been out buying a new chopping board for my kitchen using some money from a birthday gift. I went shopping for a chopping board, which had a relative small size and could be washed in the dish washer.

I found this colourful chopping board fulfilling these two requirements. And at the same time you can fold it, so it should be easy to place the chopped things into cooking pots or bowls.

Welcome chopping board to the Kitchen of Kiki :-)

Trimming the hedge

Well I am not always spending all of my spare time in the kitchen - I also spend many wonderful hours in my little garden or the park as I call my little stamp of a garden. Recently I had the annual task of trimming the beech hedge to tick of my to-do-list.

I will let the pictures speak for them selves, so you can enjoy my hard work !!! And I can assure you, that I am the only house owner in the entire neighboorhood, which is trimming my hedge into the sharp form.

Blooming Ornithogalum Magnum

The last bulps from my tulip bulb shopping last Autumn has finally been blooming, and they just look wonderful :-)

Strawberry cake version 3.0

Strawberry cake version 3.0 ready to be eaten :-)

Yes, I am making progress again on my desire to be able to make the PERFECT strawberry cake :-) continuing from strawberry cake version 2.0 to version 3.0, this time with shortcrust pastry as well, where I got the recipe from a baker at work. I decided to make this cake in form of small cakes instead of the usual one big size cake.

Besides from making progress on making the PERFECT strawberry cake it also gave me the opportunity of "feeding" some good work colleagues with cake as well as the same time creating a new entry for the blog event called "Tea Time Treats", which is a monthly baking challenge event managed  Karen from Lavender and Lovage   Lavender and Lovage and Kate from What Kate Baked. It is Karen from Lavender and Lovage, who is the virtual hostess for this very month challenge having focus on cake stall cakes. So a cake fulfilling 3 things, so perhaps you can call it a Kinder Eier thing !!!

These cakes were just so GREAT - WONDERFUL - FANTASTIC - PERFECT - UUUHMMM

And my work colleagues are totally aligned with me on this statement !!!!!!

And yes, I am so ready to move forward to version 4.0 with home-made vanilla cake cream, so here I need to grab hold of a work colleague within the bakery industry.

Strawberry cake version 3.0: - 1 big cake or 14 small cakes

Shortcrust pastry:

• 240 g (cake) flour
• 160 g butter
• 40 g egg
• 60 g icing sugar

Mazarin cake:

• 100 g sugar
• 100 g marzipan - grated 
• 100 g butter - room temperature
• 100 g egg - room temperature
• 30 g (cake) flour
• 50 g dark chocolate

1. Knead all the shortcrust pastry ingredients together.
2. Place the shortcrust pastry cold in the refrigerator for ½-1 hours
3. Meanwhile make the mazarin cake mass
4. Stir/whip the sugar and grated marzipan together until homogeneous mass.
5. Add the soft butter in the sugar-marzipan mass until the mass is homogeneous again.
6. Stir the egg, one by one, into the mass until it is homogeneous again.
7. Add  the flour at the very end.
8. Do  not stir the cake mass too much, as this can result in, that the cake is boiling over during baking.
9. Heat the oven (conventional) to 225'C.
10. Roll the shortcrust pastry dough out to a height of 4-5 mm.
11. Cut the dough out in circle size with a diameter of 9 cm. And cover muffin forms with a diameter of 7 cm with this dough.
12. Afterwards fill the cake mass into the shortcrust pastry.
13. Bake the cake at 225'C for 10-15 minutes.
14. Cool the cake down. 
15. Melt the chocolate (I use the microwave oven for this purpose).
16. Cover the surface of the cake with melted chocolate.
17. Let the chocolate firm up.
18. Take the cake of the form and transfer it on to a plate.
19. Place the vanilla cake cream on top on the cake.
20. Decorate with fresh strawberries cut into half.
21. Enjoy :-)

Rumtopf - blackcurrants filling up

Blackcurrants before moving into the Rumtopf

So one week after the white redcurrants snicking into the Rumtopf, I passed again the garden of my good friends in Horsens, this time picking blackcurrants in their garden for the Rum "monster", as they would now been more riped/sweeter in taste.

These blackcurrants of my friends are not normal size blackcurrants, they are mega big in size, like a small grapes !!!! Apparently my friends are "only" feeding the blackcurrants bushes with home-made compost, but perhaps they are talking to the bushes as well ????

So after the addition of blackcurrants into the Rumtopf, I still have the following fruits remaining on my list of "fruit list":

• cherries
• blackberries
• plums

As usual I cleaned the fruit followed by weighing them, so I know the amount of sugar need as well. Afterwards I add them on top of fruit already in the rum "soup" topping of with yet some more rum. 

Content in Rumtopf as of today:

Blackcurrants in the rum "soup"

• Rhubarb + sugar
• 580 g strawberries   
• 290 g sugar
• 318 g red currants
• 157 g sugar
• 160 g raspberries
• 80 g sugar
• 124 g white red currant
• 62 g sugar
• 475 g blackcurrants
• 238 g sugar
• Rum, rum and yet some more rum 

Summer dinner at Madhimlens Madhus

Madhimlens Madhus

My good friends living in Horsens are regular visitor/guest at Fru Møllers mølleri, where they buys flour and various of meat. Located on the same premises is also Madhimlens Madhus, which is focusing on local food.

This good girl friend of mine took a great initiative recently, asking by mail, if our circle of girls friends would join her for dinner at Madhimlens Madhus. And luckily enough all our busy calendars fitted perfect together, so we could meet up for a evening meal.

We decided to arrive earlier, so we could have a look around the farm and farm shops. On our tour around we meet this lovely happy pigs :-) And apparently I have a special attraction for pigs !!!! So as soon as I got close to the pigsty, all the pigs came running towards me !!!! By doing that, a small boy standing as well at the pigsty together with the rest of is family saw the pigs leaving him and running towards me, so he started to cry :-(

Attracting the local pigs

After our looking around we headed towards the restaurant, where we started by having an appetiser outside in the patio. Here we could for once the summer be sitting outside in a lovely summer evening. The Danish summer has not been providing many of such evenings this year. So we really enjoy, that it was possible for side out-side.

Madhimlens Madhus is serving a set menu in form of one starter, one main course and one dessert ! So if you do not like this menu, you have to find another place to eat.

A good thing at this restaurant is, that you can choose to have a wine buffet together with your meal. This means you can drink/enjoy as such wine as you like from two white wines, one rose wine and two red wine. Great idea !!! at least if you having a driver with you, which I had :-)

Afterwards we were seated in-side a garden tent, where various tomatoes plants were hanging in ceramic bowls. Interesting way for growing tomatoes.

It was also great to see, how the food was served on different style of plate druing the entire meal. Perhaps of inspiration for later use at home ?

Appetiser served in the garden before dinner - scrimps snacks, grassini with dressing containing herbs from the restaurant´s kitchen garden.

Yet another small appetiser as a start to the evenings meal. It consisted of scrimps from Rømø and fresh broccoli and cauliflower from the island of Samsø.

As the actual starter we got fillet of plaice served with watercress, foam and spelt muesli. The foam had a great mouth feel, as it was not disappearing to fast in my mouth.

Great fish and fantastic foam structure !

Two different type meat from a "happy" veal, artichoke, stowed peas and carrots and off cause fresh potatoes. And again everything were coming from the local neighbourhood.

I really liked the little details of patty shell with stowed peas and carrots.

Mousse of ymer (Danish type of fresh cheese) served together with fresh rape seed honey from Randlev, honey cake and sorbet made from elder flower cordial.

I have a sweet tooth, so I would have like some more sweetness in ymer mousse. The structure of the mousse has a little to heavy for me, I prefer light mousse structure.




All in all it was an great evening in good company and some good food and plenty of wine at least to me.

Rumtopf - white redcurrants snicking in

Tea table awaiting me picking up new fruit for the Rumtopf

A few days ago I received an invitation from my good friends in Horsens, if I was interested in coming around for a cup of afternoon tea on the way home from work. How can you say no to such an invitation ? Well, I could not !!!!

And at the same time we could evaluate the ripeness of their blackcurrants, which later on will be moving into the Rumtopf. We decided to let the blackcurrants ripe for another 1 week, before picking them for the Rumtopf. However, next to the blackcurrant bushes stood 3 small bushes of white redcurrants with some very matured and sweet berries, so together we picked all the white redcurrants, so they could be added instead of into the Rumtopf.

After this fruit picking activity we sad down at the table having afternoon tea, which was served together with two different type of blackcurrant cakes: blackcurrant crumble and blackcurrant cheese cake with white chocolate.

The blackcurrant crumble was very fruity and fresh in taste, which really is showing off a perfect blackcurrant flavour as it should be. When I heard about the use of butter, macapone, dairy whipping cream and white chocolate in the cheese cake, I was expecting a very dense cake, but it turned out to be very light, so you could actually eat two pieces of cake instead of just one slice of cake. Uuuhmmm :-)

Thank you very much to my good friends in Horsens for the afternoon tea invitation :-) I am always ready to come around for another cup of tea.

So remaining on my list of "fruit supplier" I still these fruits:

• cherries
• blackcurrant
• blackberry
• plums

As usual I cleaned the fruit followed by weighing them, so I know the amount of sugar need as well. Afterwards I add them on top of fruit already in the rum "soup" topping of with yet some more rum. 

Content in Rumtopf as of today:

• Rhubarb + sugar
• 580 g strawberries   
• 290 g sugar
• 318 g red currants
• 157 g sugar
• 160 g raspberries
• 80 g sugar
• 124 g white red currant
• 62 g sugar
• Rum, rum and yet some more rum

Rumtopf - now with raspberries in-side

Again this morning I found some more fresh fruit on my work desk from another colleague, this time it was freshly picked raspberries. All my colleagues providing fruit for this Summer Challenge of mine will get a portion of the Rumtopf, when it is finished some time around Christmas.

Based on  the last Rumtopf post I received a suggestion from one of you on adding gooseberries into the Rumtopf. I discussed this suggestion with my good girl friend living in Horsens, who is the actual owner of the Rumtopf. During this discussion it turned out, that she is having a "childhood trauma" after been eating too many sour/acidic gooseberries. Therefore we decided to make this Rumtopf ONLY on red fruits !!!!

So remaining on my list of "fruit supplier" I now have the following fruits:

• cherries
• blackcurrant
• blackberry
• plums

I cleaned the raspberries followed by weighing them, so I know the amount of sugar need as well. Afterwards I add them on top of fruit already in the rum "soup" topping of with yet some more Strohrum. 

Content in Rumtopf as of today:

Raspberry in the rum "soup"

• Rhubarb + sugar
• 580 g strawberries   
• 290 g sugar
• 318 g red currants
• 157 g sugar
• 160 g raspberries
• 80 g sugar
• Rum, rum and yet some more rum

Almost alcohol-free sangria

My manager served strawberry muffins with this very refreshing (almost) alcohol sangria, before he went on summer vacation last week at work. He had found the recipe here Jordbær muffins. In order NOT to get us "drunk" at work, he had decided to replace the wine part of the sangria with apple cider. I had a lucky day, as I managed to get hold of both two glasses of the sangria as well as the recipe :-)

Hopefully you will enjoy this sangria during some wonderful warm summer days :-)

Almost alcohol-free sangria: - 1 liter

• 1 orange
• 2 peaches
• 200 g fresh strawberries
• 2½ dl orange juice
• 1½ dl strawberry concentrate
• 3/4 l apple cider - 0.8% alcohol
• ice cubes

1. Cut the orange into slices and afterwards into small pieces
2. Cut the peaches into small pieces
3. Cut the strawberries in small pieces
4. Add the orange juice, strawberry concentrate and apple cider into a large bottle. Place this bottle cold for minimum one hour.
5. Place a selection of the fresh fruit into a large glass together with some ice cubes. Fill the glass with the  sangria mix.
6. CHEERS :-)

Harvesting potatoes from my own kitchen garden

Finally my potatoes, which I have planted in some potatoes pots, have been growing and multiplying into many potatoes. I took the inner pot from the potato pot and removed the potatoes from below, which should allow the potato plant to keep growing. Now it will interesting to see, if the potato plant will continue to produce more potatoes.

Uuuhmmmm - I enjoyed fresh potato for my evening meal this night :-)

Tea with fresh elderflowers

During the elder flower season I like to infuse my normal cup of tea with a cluster of freshly picked elder flowers. I add the cluster of elder flower at the same time as I pour hot water over the tea leafs, and I remove the elder flowers as I remove the tea leafs from the tea cup.

It brings the most fantastic flowery perfumed flavour to your tea :-)

Saffron Scones

I found this recipe on saffron scones in the cake book by Leila Lindholm called "A piece of cake", which is  a fantastic baking cook book I highly can recommend you to try our your self. It contains a basic recipe on bun/scone/cookies etc followed by 6-8 different ways of making variation to that basic recipe.

My good girl friend from Odense decribed these saffron scones as the best scones, she had ever eaten followed by a request of getting a doogie bag with any leftovers of these scones :-) So I assume the scones were pretty good !!!! Yes, they tasted great of butter and saffron.

I served the scones together with hard whipped dairy whipping cream and fresh Danish strawberries instead of the usual jam. And the taste of Danish strawberries are just wonderful and fantastic compared to all these imported strawberries, which you can get all year round.

Saffron Scones: - 12 pieces

• 450 g cake flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1½ teaspoon baking powder
• 60 g sugar
• 125 g cold butter
• 1 egg
• 2 dl milk
• 1 g saffron

1. Heat the oven (conventional) to 250'C.
2. Mix the flour, salt, baking powder and sugar together in a mixing bowl.
3. Cut the cold butter into small pieces.
4. Grind the butter pieces into the flour mix.
5. Heat up the milk with the saffron in it - I use the microwave oven for this purpose
6. Add the egg to the hot milk and whip it together.
7. Mix milk-egg and flour-butter together without kneading it a dough.
8. Place the dough on a pieces of baking paper.
9. Flatten the dough into a height of 3 cm.
10. Use a glass to cut out scone pieces or place the dough into heart shape silicone form.
11. Bake the scone at 250'C for 10-15 minutes.

Cookies with ginger and white chocolate

This is another great recipe from the great cake book called "A piece of cake" by Leila Lindholm.

After I had added the original 1½ dl flour as well as the rest of the other ingredients, I noticed, that the cookie dough was very, very soft, almost fluid, so I decided to increase the flour amount from 1½ dl to 2½ dl flour instead of. And this gave a cookie dough, which I could roll. This extra flour did not give any defects later on the final cookie.

I also decided to increase the amount of fresh ginger, as I like ginger taste.


Cookies with ginger and white chocolate:

• 125 g butter - soft
• 100 g sugar
• 1 egg
• 2½ dl (cake) flour - only 1½ flour in the original recipe
• ½ dl oat flakes
• ½ tea spoon baking powder
• 1/4 tea spoon salt
• 1 lime - only the peel, so use an organic lime
• 3-4 cm fresh ginger - 2-3 cm in the original recipe.
• 100 g white chocolate

1. Whip the soft butter and sugar together.
2. Grate the ginger and whip it into the butter-egg mass.
3. Add the egg to the butter-egg mass and whip again.
4. Add flour, oat flakes, baking powder, lime peel and salt into the cookie dough.
5. Break the white chocolate into smaller pieces and stir them into the cookie dough.
6. Roll the cookie dough to a height of 5 cm.
7. Wrap the cookie dough in baking paper or film.
8. Let the cookie dough rest in the refrigerator night over or place it in the freezer for ½ hour.
9. Heat the oven (conventional oven) to 200'C.
10. Cut the cookie roll into pieces of 1 cm and place those on a baking tray covered with baking paper.
11. Bake the cookies in the middle of the oven for approx 10-12 minutes. 

Rumtopf - red currants have moved in

This morning I arrived to work, where another of my colleagues had placed a portion of freshly picked red currants on my desk. My colleague was actually taken by surprice, that the red currants already were matured, anyway they have now moved into the rumtopf.


So remaining on my list of "fruit supplier" I have the following fruits:

• raspberry
• blackcurrant
• blackberry

Perhaps you have some idea to other type of fruit, which should also play a role in the rumtopf only with Danish fruit inside ?

I cleaned the red currants follwed by weighing them, so I know the amount of sugar need as well. Afterwards I add them on top of the strawberries already in the rumtopf topping of with yet some more Strofrum. After gentle stirring the fruit content I placed the lid again on the Rumtopf, so I could keep the alcohol damps inside the Rumtopf.

Red currants somewhere in the rum soup

Content in Rumtopf as of today:

• Rhubarb + sugar
• 580 g strawberries
• 290 g sugar
• 318 g red currants
• 157 g sugar

Muffin with rhubarb and white chocolate

Do these muffins with rhubarb and white chocolate not look fantastic tasteful ? And the answer to this hypothetical question is YES !!!!

I have a good Estonian friend and work colleague, who is a keen follower of my blog and therefore know, that I have passion for using as well as eating rhubarb. She has in this connection shared this recipe from Estonia with me on these muffins with rhubarb and white chocolate, which she actually had to translate from Estonian into English, so I could bake these muffins as well. A BIG THANK YOU to my Estonian friend for doing this, even though you have a very busy life :-)

I baked these muffins in silicone form, I noticed, that the muffins are quiet moist, so next time I will bake these muffins in paper forms, so they are more easy to remove from the muffin forms.

Estonian muffin with rhubarb and white chocolate:

• 100 g butter 
• 100 g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 100 g sour cream - 18% fat
• 150 g (cake) flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 200 g rhubarb
• 100 g white chocolate

1. Heat the oven (conventional) to 200'C
2. Clean the rhubarb stilks and cut them into small pieces.
3. Melt the butter and cool it down afterwards.
4. Add the sour cream and sugar to the cold melted butter.
5. Whip everything together.
6. Add the egg one by one, whip into a homogenous mass for each egg
7. In another bowl mix the flour and baking powder together.
8. Add the flour mix into the butter-sour cream-egg mix. Whip it again into a homogenous mass.
9. Break the white chocolate pieces into smaller pieces.
10. Stir the rhubarb and white chocolate pieces into the muffin mix.
11. Fill the muffin form with muffin mix.
12. Bake the muffin at 200'C for 25-30 minutes. Check, that the muffins are baked, before removing them from the oven.
13. Cold down.