Still, I bake for special occasions and I enjoy every second of it, for example these cute mini cupcakes I made to garnish a friend’s present with some sweet delight.

Their name sounds like a tongue twister if you say it out loud and if you repeat it quite a few times, it will blow your mind, just like their taste. Putting kitkat pieces in brownie batter was definitely not my worst idea.

To top the whole thing and underline the hazelnut taste in the candy bar, I put some whipped cream with nutella on top. The Kit-kat piece stuck in the cupcake is just one ore feature to make the delight more intense. So if you have a good friend whose birthday is near or if you just crave something both creamy and chocolatey, you might very well consider this recipe.

Kit-kat Cupcakes

(makes about 30 cupcakes)

225 g (2 sticks) butter
300 g (1 1/3 cup) sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
85 g (3/4 cup) dark cocoa powder
120 g (1 cup) flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
8 mini Kit-kat bars

Topping:

250 ml heavy cream
2 heaped tbsp nutella or any other nougat cream
5 mini Kit-kat bars

Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F). Cut the Kit-kat bars into chunks and set them aside.
Melt the butter in a microwave. Combine with sugar. Add the eggs one at a time and stir in vanilla. Sift together all dry ingredients and stir them in. At the end, put in the Kit-kat chunks. Line a muffin mold with cups and fill with dough up to 2/3. After about 18 minutes you will have cute mini cupcakes waiting for decoration. Let them babies cool properly.

Beat the heavy cream until stiff and finally stir in the nutella. Place about 1 tsp of topping on each mini cupcake.
Now cut each Kit-kat single bar into half and stick the halves inside the cupcakes, so they stand upright.

Et voilà, adorable sweetness.

I am so glad my bf got me a gorgeous ice cream maker for Christmas, because I adore ice cream.
I love frozen yoghurt.
I love sorbet.
I love soft ice cream.
Ice cream in a cone.
In a bowl.
A big melba.
Just every kind of ice cream (except mint).

It feels just right to make my own one with the machine and it is pretty easy, if you ask me.

You can just toss the ingredients together an freeze them or make a deluxe version with egg yolks (this is the kind that takes more time – but believe me that it is absolutely worth the stress).

This recipe is based on the basic ice cream recipe that I found in the gadget’s manual. It worked pretty good, I just added the molten chocolate toffee to the mass.

Chocolate Toffee Ice Cream

(makes about 750 ml/3 cups)

2 egg yolks
1 tbsp corn starch
100 g (1/2 cup – 1 tbsp) sugar

250 g (8 oz.) chocolate toffee

350 ml (1 2/3 cup) milk
150 ml (2/3 cup) heavy cream

Prepare your ice cream maker. I had to put my bowl in the freezer for 24 hours before I could get started. Be sue sou have this prepared.

Place the egg yolks, corn starch and sugar in a bowl. Whisk by hand or with a mixer until the mass thickens and turns pale (abour 90 seconds) .

Melt the unwrapped chocolate toffee in the microwave, heating it for no more than 30 seconds at a time. Stir before you place the bowl in the microwave for another 30 s. Set the dish aside.

Combine the milk and cream in a medium saucepan and heat until the liquid starts to boil. Remove from heat. Start stirring the egg yolk mass and gently incorporate the hot dairy mixture.
When you have poured in all the milk and cream, add the molten toffee and let it dissolve.

Now pour the mass back into the saucepan and heat one more time while stirring, until the mixture thickens a bit (it should not boil).

Let it cool on the counter and then place it in the fridge for at least 12 hours. (You may not put hot ingredients in the mixing bowl of the ice cream machine.)

Now turn on the mmachine and slowly pour in the prepared ice cream mixture. You should get a nice portion of chocolatey, creamy goodness.

In these days full of [mental] action, I have been craving especially one thing: NUTELLA. The good thing about this stuff is its flexibility. Put it anywhere and it will be a hit (we are talking about sweets right here, remember). And if you want to share a chocolaty melty dessert with someone you like or you are alone and hungry or frustrated or both, I have an idea for you. Only with a few ingredients you can make one or two persons happy. And don’t feel guilty if one of these is you.

All you have to do is bake this tiny cake in a 10 cm (4´´) round pan, slice up some strawberries and whip up cream.

Then put nutella (as much as you like) onto the warm cake layer. Then place the strawberry slices on top.

Put on some cream. More strawberries.

2nd cake layer on top,some more cream, decoration, done. Takes all in all about 15 minutes and will make you happy for much longer.

Happiness Cake

makes about 2 servings (depending on your apetite :D)

60 g butter (1/2 stick)
50 g sugar (1/6 cup)
1 egg
75 g all purpose flour (2/3 cup)
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 pinch salt

Whisk together the flour baking powder and salt in a bowl. Set aside. Preheat oven to 180° C (350° F).

Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl until the mixture becomes light and fluffy. Add the egg and stir until fully and incorporated. Now add the dry ingredients and stir until the dough is smooth.

Transfer the mixture into an oiled pan and bake about 12 minutes or until a toothpicker comes out clean.
Cut the cake into two layery and put nutella on the hot bottom. Let it cool a little, then go on with strawberries and cream.

Then: dig in.

I have already showed you the family recipe à la Mama . THis one here is the Easter version of it. Prepared in a round pan and without Nutelly in the whipping cream. Tasted just as good.

I am very proud of this nest which is made of edible Easter grass and marzipan eggs breeded by a chocolate hen. I bet her chicken will be chocolate covered marzipan! :D Hope you have nice holidays, despite the temperatures. xoxo

Bulgarian Shortbread Cake

(makes about 10 pieces)

400 g (14 oz) shortbread
1 l (4 cups + 4 tbsp) milk
2 pck. Chocolate pudding powder
6 tbsp. sugar

500 ml (2 cups) heavy cream

sprinkles, decoration (optional)

Place one layer of cookies in a round cake pan. (Everything about 10“ is okay.)

Prepare the pudding as written on the package with the milk and sugar. Pour a part of the hot pudding on the cookies, which is enough to cover them and smooth it down. Place another layer of cookies on top of the pudding. Put one more layer of pudding on top. Continue like this, until you have no more pudding, the last layer must not be cookies.

Let the cake cool completely. Prepare the topping in the meanwhile.

Beat the heavy cream with a mixer until it is stiff. When the cake is cooled, place the cream on top and smooth down. Decorate as you like. Let the cake chill for at least one hour in the fridge.

Serve and enjoy :)

Mhhhmhhhhmhmmmhmmmhhmm… Pate à Choux filled with cream and topped with sugar glaze and funny sprinkles. This weekend’s treat turned out so cute. I must admit I had my head in the clouds at the beginning. This batter needs concentration and good timing, which I usually have, but this Friday it was different. After saving money for so long, I fonally got my NIKON D5200! Best gift to myself ever! :D

I had prepared the dought and it looked quite good, piped it onto the baking sheet and… I noticed i had forgotten the baking powder. Oh crap. Scraped down all the heaps of dough into a bowl again and stirred in the powder. Shame on me.

Nevertheless, it turned out quite well, they baked as they should, became so large and puffy. My brother decorated them with store-bought royal icing and put sprinkles on top. Oh yeah. I must tell, that the combination was perfect for our European tongues, the cream filling alone was not sweet enough, but the sugar glaze made it perfect. Now I can’t help but give you the recipe for these babies…

Pate à Choux

50 g (1 2/3 oz.) butter/margarine
250 ml (1 cup + 1 tbsp) water
1 pinch salt
150 g (1 1/4 cup) flour
4 large or 5 medium-sized eggs
1 tsp baking powder

Cream filling:

250 g (8 oz.) curd (40% fat)
250 ml (1 cup) heavy cream
3 tbsp powdered sugar (or to taste)

Topping:

royal icing
sprinkles

Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F).
Bring water, butter and salt to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add all the flour at once and stir with a wooden spoon until the dough forms a ball and detaches from the edges of the bowl.

Remove the pan from heat and stir in 1 egg at once, using kneading hooks.

Let the dough cool for 3 minutes. Stir in one egg after the other, incorporate each one very well before you add the next one. Stir in the baking powder in the end.

Fill a piping bag (large round or star tip) with dough and pipe heaps onto a baking sheet covered with wax paper.

Bake for exactly 30 minutes. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN TO LOOK!

Cut a hole into the lower part of the puffs and let them cool.

Beat the heavy cream until stiff, then add the curd and stir until smooth. Stir in the powdered sugar. Fill the puffs with cream using a piping bag.

Dacorate. Eat.