Blackberry Muffins

Looking at my blog, I can't believe the last post was added more than three months ago! Plus there was an Easter offer in the menu a while ago :D All I can say, is that both April and May were the two most difficult  and exhausting months. I was preparing for my university entrance tests in April and for my school leaving exam in May. Fortunately, I passed them both and now I can say that high school is behind me. Finally! :) It was neither easy nor too difficult. Somewhere in the middle I think. Anyway, it's time to start baking again!

Mince Pies

The magic number for today is 24. Asking why? No, don't worry, this IS a foodblog, no oracle or something :D The number reffers to the days left to Christmas. I think you all have to be bored by my constant talking about it but I simply love Christmas time. And I want to share my Christmas mood with you :) Here you have my first official Christmas cookie recipe (at least in this year and only when you don't count blondies as a Christmas cookie alternative) but these are not cookies in fact...

Pear and Nutty Cinnamon Crumb Cake

According to the way it looks like outside, I can say the fall is here. Genuine colorful cold fall. In my hall there are large boxes filled with walnuts (I always need tons of them for Christmas), deep red apples and also pears. Gone are the days when I would most likely go out only wearing a T-shirt and shorts. Right now I'd be an ice cube in such clothes. It's time to take out all those scarves, coats, sweaters and warm trousers. I don't know how about you but it always takes me a lot of time to get used to them :D The reason is that I feel kind of tied in that warm heavy clothes. Anyway, my tastebuds change a bit, too. I no longer search for no bake dessert stored in the fridge (okay, I'm kidding, I'd eat anything at any time :D) and I start to look for typical Czech baked pies, crumb cakes, strudels, puddings, bundt cakes. and baked apples. And as I have mentioned above, I have kilos of pears and nuts so it'd be a pity not to use them...

The Daring Bakers' Challenge: Milk Chocolate Pralines with Spiced White Choc Mousse and Honey Roasted Macadamias

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

Here we are again :) The end of the month means revealing the big secret coming out from the DB kitchen. This time it REALLY freaked me out because on of our main tasks was tempering chocolate. As I read through the page more and more recipes, directions, tips, notes and links popped out. I was pretty confused and it took a while for me to recuperate :D Well, and my head started creating and mixing up new ideas of creams, fillings and other stuff. Now you're about to find out what my head finally created.

Kumquat Spiced Cupcakes with Crème Fraîche Frosting

It's been a long time since my last entry and I guess you remember it was the DB challenge :) I really enjoyed it and i want to say thank you to Evelyne, Ivonne and Lis for choosing me as one of the 5 finalist. I couldn't believe it and still it feels as if it's not true. I mean, c'mon, so many absolutely stunning creations among the DBs and I'm one of the chosen ones? I just can't express how happy I was, am, has been :D Feel free to visit the Daring Kitchen and vote for your favourite edible container - it may seem to be easy but it's really hard to choose the one as all of them are so beautiful and creative :)

I've been quite busy since the end of Easter and therefore I haven't baked anything difficult. I walked through our local store on Friday and saw some wonderful fresh kumquats - deep bright orange color, shiny surface, neither soft nor solid, just right balance of both. I couldn't resist the temptation to buy them. Okay, so I ended up with 0.5kg of fresh kumquats. What shall I do with them?

The Daring Bakers' Challenge: Maple Cocoa Spiced Cookie Egg Shells with Maple Mousse

The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!

Edible containers are a part of my baking. I make them at Christmas, parties and so on. However, I've never thought of them as edible containers. They were just cookie cups or bowl filled with some kinda cream, buttercream, jam or nut filling. That's it. Nothing special. Until now. You can imagine almost anything as an edible container. Cookie cups and bowl, profiterols (cream puffs), pastry cones, waffle cones, edible plates etc. Simply anything. What would you come up with?

Hot Cross Buns

Spring, sunshine, flowers, bunnies, eggs, lambs and chicks. What do these words have in common? Easter of course! Wait one week and it's here! I love Easter just like I love Christmas (and that's quite a big love!). The traditions are wonderful and the food...yum. We always spend the Easter time with our granny in her house in small village in the countryside. I can't imagine staying in the city during the holiday because here it seems to be tradition-free. Unfortunately, it's true. The traditions are slowly disappearing and nobody cares about it. On the other hand, in villages the traditions are fully alive, everybody is preparing to them, baking traditional dishes and simply enjoying live. And that's what love. The athmosphere. It's very friendly, kind and without any troubles in the air (if you what I mean :D). This time I'd like to tell you something about our Czech Easter traditions and share a recipe for one traditional English Easter dish.

The DB Challenge: Meringue Coffee Cake with Dulce de Leche, Salted Pistachios, Cranberries and Chocolate

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

Another month, another DB challenge. I always look forward to finding out what the challenge is and I'm always extremely happy with it. This time we were to make a coffee cake according to a recipe which Jamie found on a piece of yellowed paper in her dad’s collection of clipped out and hand-written recipes from the 1970’s without any source or date. I think the old recipes work the best (even though I want to make and try as much new things as possible) and that's a double true with this one. And again I immediately started thinking about summer and spring (I do this all the time right now). However, it's not the best season for my eyes, nose and skin. Trees and flowers are in blossom now and I sneeze, my nose is blocked (hay fever is sooo unpleasant!), my eyes are watering and my skin is itchy. So what should I do to feel better? Of course, make something sweet, eat it and feel great!

The Daring Bakers' Challenge: Marzipanstollen

The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s demonstration.

Okay, we had to use the recipe provided...here's the thing, I did not. Now, I don't know whether I can say I completed the challenge. I used my own German recipe for Marzipanstollen, but I think the point is I was daring enough to make a stollen, right? I had made it two weeks ago and we ate it the day before yesterday. Now it's quite late to make it but hey, next Christmas is almost here :)

Speculaas

It's already December, Christmas is almost here and people all over the world are looking forward to it. When I look out of the window I can see the winter. Cold, freezing, cool, chilling and icy. These words describe it perfectly. I wish it was snowing, too, but it's not from some unknown reason. You know, I don't know about better feeling than this one: I'm sitting in an armchair covered with warm blanket, christmas carols are being singed by my family, I'm holding a cup of hot tea and it's snowing outside. Pretty shiny small snowflakes are slowly falling down to the ground. I feel happy and comfortable and I want a cookie. The cookie, in fact. Speculaas.