Why do all good things come to an end? To make space for the new ones

Wishing you all an uplifting year: live, love, create and enjoy it all!

A little something from me – to you – as a thank you for your support, visits and endless inspirations!

script, camera and directing – by me

editing and making it to the public – by my dearest (Karsten Schmidt)

music – by Fletcher Henderson ‘Shake your feet’  from archive.org

And a big thanks to my swiss honey cookies!

Next up is a give away – Zoog will be looking for a dinosaur friendly home to move to… 

Among many many good things that Britain brought into my life I’m gonna mention scones today.  Plain ones, with raisins, cheese or cherries… but most importantly with a cup of  tea – I love scones so much, that to prove my love I bake them very often. My current best version is a wholemeal ones with shopped apricots, sultanas and raisins. I get them ready for breakfast and I’m not gonna say the number – all of them are gone (somewhere) by the end of the day.

I’ve also found a great apple cake recipe

and a new Polish recipe that makes  really yummy Christmas cookies

50g butter

1 tbsp golden syrup or honey (I used honey)

50g light brown sugar

225g plain flour

3tsp mixed spices (ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon..)

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

3tbsp milk

1 egg yolk

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Melt the butter, syrup or honey and sugar in a pan. Leave to cool for 5 minutes.

Sift the flour, spices and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl. Make a well in the centre. Pour in the melted butter mixture, milk and egg yolk. Mix to a soft dough.

Kneed until smooth, then roll out between 2 sheets of baking paper until 5mm thick. Stamp out forms using cookie cutters. Place on the baking sheets. Make a hole in each if you wish to hang them up later. Bake for 10 minutes, until a slightly darker shade.

Speaking of cookies, I had to make some for my kids school’s Christmas fair. I used simple gingerbread dough and decorated it with the icing. No idea how successful they were, but it was fun making these.

Ok. Next up buckwheat pancakes

Made from  wholewheat and buckwheat flour (50/50). My kids actually love them. I also substitute normal sugar for black molasses, it not only is healthier, tastes better, but also makes the pancakes look brownish, so my kiddos call our pancakes ‘the chocolate ones’

So that’s baking. Now making. Lina and her goodies. Already in my shop

I also have a bigger bear that needs to be finished… and a couple of other things…  so I might do my last shop update next Tuesday night, but no promises here

That’s it. The sun outside is calling – have a great Sunday!

Baking. Spicy honey cookies are the essential dessert for our Christmas, but this year I’ve made these already twice in the last 6 days and personally am feeling like I would rather skip sweet stuff at the moment and it’s not even Christmas yet! Maybe that’s for the better…

The recipe is very simple and the result very yummy:

500 g self raising flour
100 g butter
200 g honey
100 g sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoons of ready mixed spices (cinnamon, coriander seed, caraway, nutmeg, ginger, cloves)
grated rind of 1 orange

100 g almonds finely chopped

Preheat oven to 200C°. Grease 2 baking sheets.

Melt the honey, sugar and butter together. Take off the heat and let it cool down. Stir the flour, baking powder, spices and nuts in a separate bowl. Once the honey mixture has cooled down, mix in the eggs. Add the flour, orange rind and mix until blended. Gather mixture into a ball, wrap in greaseproof paper and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Roll out the mixture about 8-10mm thick. Stamp out some shapes and place them on the sheets. Brush the cookies with the egg yolk. Bake until golden brown, 8-10 minutes.

Nothing too special, but these ended up as a symbolic ‘Thank you’ for our oldest son’s teachers.

And some ended up in my tummy… or quite a few… a lot of them actually. Eh. They are good!

We have now officially switched in to a relax mode.

All is ready, no more rushing. Time to appreciate, time to enjoy. I’ve been very happy.

Have a lovely Christmas.