Maltese puppy birthday

Last weekend I was making desserts for yet another theme birthday. The birthday girl Agata loves puppies and has a maltese puppy herself, so for her birthday, she wished for some maltese themed birthday desserts on her table.
As always, I googled the idea and found many maltese shaped cakes. I actually really dislike the whole cake being cut into a doggy shape, so I decided to put a little edible cake pop maltese on top of the actual, but just as cute girly cake. And hey, I think it turned out really well.

Christmas treats

So much has happened in the last two weeks, but so little time to sit down and write a post about any of it. But Christmas cookies are done, there are funnily less obligations around the house (if that is even possible in this time of the year), so it is time to bring in some xmas blogger spirit that has been with me from the very beginning of the month.

Creative eye

This blog and everything it started for me meant a lot more than just writing articles about food. Since I started blogging, it got me close to an entirely new world of creative people who are constantly pushing me into new ideas and creative work. For some time I wanted to introduce you to one of those people, a creative and promising young photographer who, with his camera, captured a lot of beautiful pictures of my cakes, as well as many other things.

Christmas favorite cookies

Looking at my blog and cakes that I make, it is clear that the majority of my time is spent creating new cupcakes and putting everything in the form of a cup. Friends have even said that they would like to see me in the "Večera za 5" show, but only on condition that all three sequences are in the form of cupcakes.
However, I am sure that very few would expect to hear my formal recognition that Christmas is my favorite time of year because of - traditional cookies.




Throughout the year, traditional cookies and crackers do not attract me at all. But then comes the week before Christmas, and everything changes .. when you get out the old, tested recipes, baked hundreds of times already.. and they suddenly get a new special holiday charm.
And knowing that most girls and women want to prepare something special to their families, I decided to fasten your search process and offer some simple, tried out and my favorite recipes for Christmas cookies ..

5. FINE ROLLS

Small sweet rolls that are irresistible when uncooked (though I would not recommend eating them at  that stage) .. Of course, they are the most delicious while freshly baked. And here is the recipe.

20 dkg flour

15 dkg butter

2 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon sugar

3 yolks

1 teaspoon baking powder

Knead the mixture and roll out thinly. Coat with filling, roll it into a roll and cut slices about half an inch wide. Lay them on one side and bake in oven at 180 ° C until golden.

Filling:

20 dkg walnuts (ground)

3 egg whites (beat)

20 dkg sugar

Beat the egg whites into snow, add sugar to it and mix it in. Pour in ground walnuts and mix gently by folding it in.

4. Vanilla cookies (Mexican wedding cakes)

In the American edition, these cookies are called Mexican wedding cakes, but for us they are widely known as vanilla cookies. Recently I heard about it from friends from USA who was born in Germany, claiming that she is mostly looking forward to Christmas time, because she associated the grandmother in Germany and the Christmas holidays with these cookies.
The recipe is actually quite simple.

35dkg flour

25dkg butter

10dkg sugar

1 vanilla sugar (or vanilla flavoring)

10dkg walnuts (ground)

1 egg white

Mix all of the above and knead a dough. Make a U form of cookies (or something more creative, if you wish). Bake at 180 ° C for 10-13min, or until they start to get the bottom colored.

3. CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES

For all those addicted to chocolate, this is the right prescription. Finally a cake that is dry and crisp enoug but consists of only creamy part. The recipe I use I have published on  Coolinarika. So the link will point you to it. For Christmas extra special taste, stir a teaspoon or two of alcohol before it hardens. My favorite invention was the Pina Colada-Chocolate Truffles! Two tablespoons in the truffles, the rest in cocktails.

2. COCONUT MACARONS

Our new favorite dry but juicy biscuits, pretty fast and making a great, crunchy taste. All this plus a coconut flavour for me is the ideal combination. So here is the recipe.

4 egg whites
18dkg sugar
teaspoon salt
teaspoon vanilla extract
60g flour
25-30dkg coconut

Mix together the egg whites, sugar and salt (do not beat too much) and cook in the steam (bain marie). Stir with a whisk to combine ingredients, and so on until the mixture becomes warm and slightly creamy.


Remove from the steam, stir vanilla extract and coconut flour (with a spoon), so that all ingredients are evenly mixed. Allow mixture to cool down so that you would be able to roll balls out of it.


Bake Rafaello sized balls at 170 ° C for 10-15min, i.e. until the coconut gets a golden top color. It is your choice of whether you want the balls to be "sleak" or "bushy". My favorite are bushy.

1. Shortbread Cookies

(In my version, because the heart had been built up for Valentine's Day, for star shape use another cutting-see photo No.2 of this post)

The best, the most traditional cookies ever .. recipe that I use for my cakes decorated with royal icing. Irreplacable for Christmas, and also my No.1 cookies. Do I have to mention that usually I do not like dry cakes and biscuits?
This recipe and making process can be found on my previous recipe: Valentine hearts . My advice-do not save on the butter. Indeed, the homemade butter is also very welcome. The flavor of butter in these cookies is priceless! Unforgettable holidays and Merry Christmas to you

Crrrunchy cornmeal+ orange biscuits

After the long summer months, I am finally back. As you could have noticed from the previous post- I spent my summer interesting and - busy working. As for the kitchen work, I admit I succeeded to get a few chances to get into mine and other peoples kitchen. Therefore I will use this opportunity to thank Manuela from reception and Sanja (ex-co worker) to let me march in their kitchen and their bake ware.

But as I said, I am back home, and about to start my new adventure of tastes, with a new recipe today already!

Valentine hearts

This recipe is probably one of my most requested ones.. I have been using it in different types of applications, and you have all noticed it in my Christmas cookies.
 I will admit it, they are really delicious when baked properly (read: not over-baked). But all of you who have never made these cookies before will be crazy surprised when I tell you the number of ingredients this cookie contains.  4! Yup, how much more simple can it be? Well, in this edition, I will be adding the marmalade, so that will make a total of 5 ingredients to use.
 Therefore, Valentines is here.. and for these cookies you will need about an hour to do, a bit of effort, love and.. i am sure your loved one(s) will be surprised and honored.
One more hint- It has been proven that the fresh baked cookie + vanilla scent results in easier real estate sales, but also in attracting men (without them being aware they are attracted). :)





So, let me introduce you to these 5 important ingredients:

Flour (30dkg)
Caster sugar (5dkg)
Butter (20dkg - room temperature)
Vanilla extract (1 tsp)
Red marmalade (i.e. strawberry) (3-4 Tbs)

Add everything but marmalade into a bowl and start mixing it together (by hands). The easiest way is to try and crumble buter and flour/sugar together, all the way until butter is fully incorporated with the rest. Than, start working the dough till it look all one color (no traces of flour or butter pieces). The final product should look like a well incorporated ball of pasta, not cracked and ready to be rolled.
After you have reached the right consistency, wrap the ball in a plastic foil and let it sit aside for a few minutes, while you prepare your working surface.
In this moment, you can turn your oven on to 180°C .


Flour the surface on which you will roll the dough, take the dough out of the foil and work it your hands just slightly more. Shape it in a ball and put in the center of your surface (which should be floured the most). Put some flour on top of the ball and start rolling it with a roller. Every time the dough looks as if there is no more flour on its surface, spead some more and continue rolling. The final thickness of the dough should be around 3mm. When you reach it, your dough is ready to be cut
with the cookie cutters.
For these cookies, you will need a heart-shaped cutter in two sizes - bigger (cca 5cm) and smaller (cca 2- 2,5cm) which can be found in pretty much any supermarket.

Cut out the hearts of the same size out of all the rolled out dough (gather the leftovers, shape them, roll and use again, all the way till you have nothing left). Count out the cookies you have cut and pierce a heart shaped hole in half of them.
As I have made these cookies last night, the photos I did were way too dark, so i decided to use this photo from Corbis instead.



 Do NOT bake the full hearts and the pierced hearts together, because they require different times of baking.

Bake the cookies on the baking tray + baking paper and line them so they are not touching eachother. Put them in a preheated oven and bake. The full hearts will need from 5-7min, and the hearts with a hole a little less. But don't rely on time only, take a careful look at the cookies while they are in the oven. They change color very quickly, from beige, to gold/brown which means they are already over-baked. So as soon as the edges of cookies are turning a bit golden, take them immediately out. Dont leave them to cool on the baking tray because it is still very hot and they continue to bake on it, even outside of the oven.



Let the baked cookies cool down, and than they are ready to be filled. Fill them in a way that you put half a teaspoon of marmalade on the full heart, cover it with the pierced heart and swirl around a bit till the marmalade gets enough around so that it can stick the two parts together.
Leave them aside for 1-2 hours, so that the marmalade dries up a bit and sticks the two parts together.

And than.. decorate them nicely and give them to someone who will most surely be appreciate this gift from heart.. because there is no gift like the personal, hand made gift which required your time, attention and love.




 A big Valentine kiss to all of you sticking with me still. Thank you and happy Valentines day!
Love, yours

Colorful Xmas gifts

 For some time now, I`ve  been trying to post these photos, but as soon as I realized that tomorrow is the last day of the year, I decided they really should be published this year!

Along with all the cookies comes a story, so here is a story about these Xmas cookies:

About a year ago was my first time making this sort of cookies, with shortbread pastry and decorated with the royal icing. I`ve always been the scribbling and drawing one, so these type of cookies were ideal for using up my excess creative energy.

But for this Christmas, i had a whole new breaking idea that guided me.


I spent one day baking and two whole days drawing, decorating and packing the total of 130 cookies, all to give them away as - gifts.

I got together the necessary colors, all those cookies, a handful of toothpicks and napkins for quick fixes, an enormous cup full of hot tea and the radio Antena Zagreb to keep me company and give me life energy.







 And off I went into coloring!! (the photos are of lower quality because they were taken by a cell phone.. I felt bed to mess my actual camera up with the royal icing, so I used the phone insted)




By the end of drying up, I started separating some for my dear ones, family, friends and neighbors..

..and some even got their own, personalized and unique cookies (yup, a Harry Potter).



 And the rest, you wonder? You wouldnt believe the stories i could tell you about all the people I gave a cookie to. I packed about 50 cookies into a Xmas bag, went to the city center and gave a chance to random people to pull one out of the bag for themselves.

Some reacted surprised, but some also asked me why I am giving them away instead of selling or advertising them. I had no idea how to explain that my whole goal was not to promote anything.. it was just to do something different.. to give something out without getting anything in return. Anything at all..








And just to tell you this- it was so worth it! And i would do it again any time!

Marina`s wedding cookies

 My beautiful friend Marina became somebody's wife! The truth is that this wedding happened a while ago in the summer, but well.. here is a chance to recall of this wonderful event as my first ever post on this blog.

Cookies, cakes and all other similarly creative things were a part of me ever since I was big enough to reach the top of my oven without a stool. I have never even considered that i would once maybe create such things for money because sweets have always been something I gave away to my friends or baked for my family. But the joy on my friends` faces when they receive my sweet goodies have been so precious that I really wanned to share it with others too.
Bringing out a smile on someones face for some crazy idea baked in the pastry dough, crazy colors, decorations and many other things that you dont often meet in your mamma`s kitchen.. "The cakes your moms never made"

Even to this day, my mom rolls eyes to the idea of cupcakes or my colorfully fun cookies. For her, a dessert is something traditional, difficult to make and passed on through from generation to generation. And i would lie if I said I dont enjoy such desserts as well.. but I will always be more drown towards visually appealing and different kinds much more. Something like the the cookies I make myself too.

So there you go.. for my first post.. Marina`s wedding cookies. Marina, what do you think? Should I name them after you? :D