Hello Cupcakes! I've missed you.....

A few photos from my baking session this weekend.... I haven't made Cupcakes in AGES! The white ones are Vanilla flavored, rainbow colored inside with a vanilla cream cheese frosting on top and the pink ones were made with the same, uncolored batter, with added lemon flavor (from lemon zest) and lemon butter cream frosting on top. Yummy ;p

....find the recipe for the Rainbow Colored Cupcakes here: http://linda-lostinswitzerland.blogspot.ch/2010/07/rainbow-coloured-cupcakes-recipe.html

xox

The end of the visitors "era" ;)

Yep......so since yesterday and for the first time in ages, we have no visitors planned! It feels strange, quiet, great, relaxing and sad, all in one go!! I have greatly enjoyed all the company and the fantastic visitors, especially since Chris has been away a lot in the military service, but being pregnant especially, I also must say I enjoy some quiet times, knowing that after mid October, this might be quite a rare thing ;))


Currently, I'm........

Inspired by: Chris who just found out he passed his qualifying exam to become European Patent Attorney (his first try!!!)!! He worked soooooo hard and was so disciplined and it all payed off =)))) I am so so proud of him!!!! This calls for major celebration and we already started yesterday when he came home from the military.....I had made a little surprise welcome for him ;)) 

Such a happy camper ;)))) 

Lots of Champagne for Chris.....two sips for me, just to get a taste ;))

....all though the color is not revealing it, these are vanilla cupcakes with Caramel & Sea Salt flavored topping.

Happy about: The above (obviously)!! Also having had friends and family here lately to make memories with and to cheer me/us up! They were also all taking very good care of me. Am also happy to now have some quiet times ahead to fully get my head around the fact that we are becoming parents.... Exciiiiiting times!

Disappointed about: My physical health as I am struggling to breathe properly due to the pregnancy. This is very frustrating and tiring. I am functioning normally most of the time, but when the difficulty to breathe starts, it's impossible to feel comfortable and to avoid panicking at least a bit. Knowing that it's not dangerous for me or the baby helps though ;)

Looking forward to: Going home to Sweden for a couple of weeks!! We are going together with Chris's youngest sister and her boyfriend and I hope to have many lazy days there, just enjoying being "home" for a while.

Planning: Hmmm.....not sure if I ever told you, but Chris proposed to me back in March so now we are planning our wedding next year.....better to start all the planning early as soon, there will be other things occupying our minds. Hehe!
Listening to: Right now I'm listening a lot to "Drumming song" by Florence and the Machine.

Eating: Cupcakes that are left from yesterday..... 

My goal, post-pregnancy

Wanting: To go back to this shape (see photo on the right) after the pregnancy and remembering how incredibly good it feels to be in good shape will be my motivator! I know some people think I'm obsessing over this thing, but for me this is the hardest thing by far about being pregnant.... Really....the feeling of your physical condition deteriorating is not pleasant. I speak only the truth, so this is what you'll get from me ;)) Ayway, I don't want to be skinny or supermodel sized, I just want to go back to a fit me.

Wondering: If we will be lucky with the weather in Sweden.... It will make all the difference and I want to be sure we get the most out of these precious days.

Thankful for: All the wonderful people (friends and family) in our lives!!! We love them all so very much.....and it's amazing to think about what a great circle of people our child will get to be around! Lucky child =)
Remembering: This one part I'll do in photos ;))))

This gorgeous view at sunset in Annecy in France.....stunning, no?

My friend Madde (in the picture) and I walked up to the Dent de Vaulion. Probably the last uphill hiking for me during this pregnancy...in just a couple of weeks, it had gotten sooooo hard! I had to stop several times to catch my breath and get my pulse back down. Oh well.....

My week 27 pregnancy bump! Last week of the second trimester......hard times ahead they say ;)))

A much needed cool down swim in the Lac Leman

One of the best ice creams I've ever had. Mine is the one to the right containing Coconut, Macaroon and Caramel/sea salt flavors =p

Sunshine sunshine sunshine!!!!

Hope you're all having a lovely weekend!!!! 

xox

My week of baking

This week, besides my business trip to Milan, has been aaaaall about baking. I can't remember ever baking so much in one single week. The reason? Well, at work we have a birthday baking list you can sign up for. This is optional, but once you are signed up, somebody bakes a cake for your birthday and then it's your turn to bake for the person whose birthday comes after yours. A great and fun idea!! 
Well, only one little "problem".......you see, I am signed up for two of these baking lists, one of my own department and one with the marketing department and guess what? The people I was baking for both had their birthday's in the same week ;)) On top of this, we had guests this weekend, so I wanted to make them and our landlords some cupcakes. All fun, but quite exhausting! Especially the cakes as they were baked in the evening and decorated only in the morning. Now I think I will have a baking-free few weeks to recover my baking energy =))

All though experimental, they all turned out pretty great, both in looks (all though not perfect ;)) and in taste, so I will share my recipes with you!


The 3-layered Chocolate Shock Birthday Cake
Ingredients, Cake
200g butter
3 cups of fine, brown sugar
2 tablespoons of vanilla essence
4 eggs
3 cups of milk
5 cups of flour
1.5 dl cocoa powder of good quality
3 teaspoons of baking powder
A pinch of salt
1 teaspoons of vanilla powder
1 teaspoon of ground ginger
200 g's of Dark Chocolate
Bread crumbs


Directions: Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Beat butter and sugar and vanilla essence until creamy. Separate the eggs and stir in the yolks with the butter cream. Combine flour, cocoa powder,  baking powder,  vanilla powder,  ginger and salt. Gently fold the milk and flour mixture into the egg mixture. Melt the chocolate in a water bath or in the microwave and fold it gently into the batter. Beat the whites to a froth and fold them into the batter. Spread the batter evenly over three buttered and breaded cake molds with removable bottoms (I used a 24cm in diameter mold). Bake each one in middle of oven for about 15 minutes. Put them on a cooling rack.


Ingredients, Chocolate Mousse Filling
200g of good quality,  dark chocolate 
4 egg yolks 
5 dl's of cream
Directions: Stir in the egg yolks one by one. Stir carefully between each one. Melt the chocolate carefully in the microwave and let it cool down to NOT HOTTER THAN 65 degrees Celsius (otherwise the egg may coagulate). Let the batter cool down., Whip the cream. Not too hard. When done,  carefully stir everything together and put in the fridge for a couple of hours.
Once the cake foundation has cooled down, put the chocolate mousse in between each layer. Be careful as the cake itself is quite heavy so use moderate amounts and you might have to smooth the edges before putting on the exterior frosting ;))


Ingredients, Chocolate Frosting
200 g softened butter
5 dl's powder sugar
2 dl's of good quality cocoa powder
Directions: Mix all the ingredients together with an electrical mixer until smooth and properly blended. Put on and around the cake as desired.
When done, keep the cake refrideratored until it's time to serve! 
Voilaaaaaaa!



Sticky White Chocolate Cake
Ingredients, cake
400g of white chocolate
200g butter
2 cups of flour
3 eggs
2 1/2 cups of white sugar
2 tablespoons of dark rum


Directions: Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Chop the chocolate into small pieces. Melt the butter in a pan. Remove from heat and add the chocolate while stirring until it melts. Beat the eggs and the sugar until fluffy. Stir in chocolate,  rum and flour. Pour the batter into a greased and breaded or "coconutted", 24cm in diameter mold with a removable bottom (I use grained coconut instead of bread crumbs to get a nicer flavor, but both woth fine ;)). Bake in the bottom of the oven for roughly 30 minutes. Please note that the cake should still be sticky inside! Allow the cake to cool on a cooling rack. 

Ingredients, Glazing

200g white chocolate

1/2 cups of cream

2 dl's powder sugar

Topping of your choice (I'm using fresh strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and lime and a little bit of powder sugar).

Directions, Glazing: Chop the chocolate. Boil the cream. Remove the cream from the heat and add the chocolate while stirring until it melts. Let the glazing solidify about 5-10 minutes in the refrigerator. Spread the glazing over cake and let it harden in the fridge. 

Apple and Cinnamon Cupcakes with Vanilla Cream Topping
Ingredients, 12 Cupcakes
Roughly 250g's of flour (I didn't really measure)
2 dl's of white sugar
1 table spoon of real Vanilla powder
1 egg
1 apple
0.5 teaspoons of bicarbonate
2.5 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon of Cinnamon
0.5 dl's of of Sunflower oil
2 dl's of Milk


Directions: Pre-heat the oven to about 175 degrees. Chop the apple into small pieces. Blend all of the ingredients together with an electrical mixer until properly blended. Spoon the batter into 12 cupcake liners.
Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes.
Ingredients,  Vanilla topping (cheat version ;))
Swedish version: Marsankräm
English version: Instant Vanilla Pudding mix
Blend according to pack.
Looks very nice decorate with chopped nuts or cinnamon.


Enjoy and if you try them, let me know what you think!!
xox

By request, here is my Gingerbread Cupcake recipe

Gingerbread Cupcakes, 12-16pcs.
250g butter (chopped)
1 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 ¼ cups white flour
¾ cup milk
1 tablespoon milk
0.5 teaspoon Cloves
0.5 teaspoon Ginger
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
Sprinkles or other decorations of your own choice


Gingerbread Cream Cheese Frosting
200g cream cheese softened
200g butter (room temperature)
3-4 dl's of powdered sugar
Crushed Gingerbread cookies
2 teaspoons of vanilla

Directions:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Place the cupcake liners (this recipe made roughly 20 Cupcakes) on the baking tray.Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl, using an electric mixer, until pale and creamy. 
Add the eggs, one at a time and also beat in the vanilla, spices and milk.
Lightly fold the flour into the creamy mixture. 
Layer the batter in the liners gently. 
Bake in the lower part of the owen for around 20 minutes and then place them on a wire rack to cool for about 1 hour.

Now make the icing in a small bowl. Start with grinding the gingerbread cookies into tiny crumbles. Then add the rest of the ingredients, mixing them all together with an electric mixer and pipe it onto your cupcakes.
Finish off with your desired decorations..... Voilaaaaa!


xox

Auf Wiedersehen, Schaffhausen!

So it's a fact.....I have moved out of our Schaffhausen apartment (Chris still has a few more days there;)) and on Friday, it is time for us to move into our new home in Essertines-sur-Rolle. Soooooo exciting!!!


Today I'm blogging from the train back to Rolle. I am extremely tired.....tired but happy! Yesterday we had our moving out party and all though it's always sad to say goodbye, in a way it was also a great feeling to realize that the room was filled with people we will be seeing again, so it's not really goodbyes after all........this may sound like an "Well of course it's not a goodbye" to some of you, but you see, when you are an expat (or let's call it a "non-local" "non-permanent resident"), you simply can't always take that for granted....


We had a nautical theme and we spend the whole Friday evening and Saturday preparing. It was soooo much fun!!! Here some pictures to give you a flavor!

I baked some marine themed cookies

....and put them on "a beach" (well, it was brown sugar and cocoa powder ;))

....and I also baked some Cupcakes (of course)!!!

Can you find Nemo? ;)

Setting the scene.....one last time in Schaffhausen

We were "Popeye"

....and Olive =)

Sub's.....but these were special Yellow Submarines ;)

"A beer anyone?"

Mingling

.....like out of a movie =))

Some great, not drunken, sailors ;)

.....and the evenings Theme Quiz

I hope you all had a lovely weekend!
xox

Ooops! I did it again....

Fellow Cupcake Lovers,
Have you ever found yourself un-deliberately baking Cupcakes? I mean....just very spontaneously? That's what I just did. Like one minute I was working....the next minute I had shut down for the day and 30 minutes later I had a full rack of Cupcakes in front of me, ready for cooling and decorating. The recipe was also quite spontaneous, just using what I had at home and the great thing is I used the same batter and the same frosting base and then after split into two flavors..... Easy-cheesy and very good taste and texture!!
Here is the result and the recipe.

Vanilla Cupcake

Ingredients: 
Vanilla Cupcakes
250g butter (chopped)
1 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla powder
2 ¼ cups white flour
¾ cup milk
1 tablespoon milk

Nutella and Pistachio Cupcakes

Nutella and Pistachio Cupcake

Same recipe as above, but add Nutella and chopped pistachios to the batter and stir properly.

Ingredients: 

Cream Cheese Frosting
100g cream cheese
60g butter (room temperatured)
5 dl's of powder sugar
1 tablespoon of lemon juice

2 teaspoons of vanilla powder  

Food coloring of your choice and amount

Sprinkles or other decorations of your own choice

Directions:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Place the cupcake liners on the baking tray (this recipe made roughly 16 Cupcakes). Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl, using an electric mixer, until pale and creamy.
Add the eggs, one at a time and also beat in the vanilla and milk. 

Lightly fold the flour into the creamy mixture and then add the baking powder.

Put the batter in the liners gently. I would say filled to half makes a good size.
Bake in the lower part of the owen for around 20 minutes and then place them on a wire rack to cool for about 1 hour.

Once your cupcakes are cooled down, you can start the decoration. I used red food coloring for the vanilla cupcakes and used small, round, multi-colored sprinkles as decoration. For the Nutella and Pistachio ones, I used the base frosting recipe above without any additions or color and sprinkled with chopped pistachios.

Enjoy!!!

xox

Anyone up for a Cupcake Affair?

Calling all Cupcake lovers!!

I wanted to turn the spotlight briefly towards one of my newly found favorite stores, located in the centre of Zurich, with a very reasonable walking distance from the Zurich main station. It is a wonderful little gem of a shop who makes and sells very pretty and amazingly yummy cupcakes. The store is called Cupcake Affair and if you, like me, love Cupcakes - I recommend you to go there and give it a try!!!

My favourites so far are Marilyn Monroe, a Chocolate Cupcake with an amazingly yummy Raspberry filling and Spring fling, which is a Poppyseed and Lemon Cupcake filled with delicious berries. Both so good that if I was a dog, my tail would be wagging by the pure thought or smell of them ;)


Something else that I love about the assortment at Cupcake Affair is that the Cupcakes come in two very handy sizes, one normal sized version and one mini sized version, which is just perfect when you are indecisive (like myself) as you can, instead of only choosing one flavour, make yourself a little take-away variety pack! The assortment is not huge though as their philosophy is that only the very best recipes make it to the store....

The store seen from outside

Cupcakes!

The current assortment

Pretty and practical take-away boxes

Address: Spitalgasse 12, CH-8200 Zurich

The opening hours are Mon-Fr 11:00 - 19:00, Sa 10:00 - 17:00 and closed on Sundays and Bank holidays. You can also call or order by e-mail. Details can be found, in German and English on their website: http://www.cupcake-affair.ch

PS. Also a BIG plus for the friendly staff!!

Enjoy!
xox

Rainbow Coloured Cupcakes - Recipe

Coucouuuu!!

I am ridiculously happy as I baked Rainbow Coloured Cupcakes today for the first time and the result was prrrreeeeeetty neat ;) 

I've been obsessing about these for ages and finally decided to give it a go.

It was very time consuming and required a lot of patience and a steady hand, but they are sooooo pretty, so I'd say it was worth every minute! ...oh, well.....I hope you agree?Anyway, do you wanna give it a try? 

Here's the recipe!

Ingredients: Rainbow Coloured Cupcakes

250g butter (chopped)
1 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 ¼ cups white flour
¾ cup milk
2 tablespoons of cocoa powder (I used Bellagio Orange Pecan Gourmet Hot Cocoa)
1 tablespoon milk
Food colouring (I used blue, yellow, red & green)
Sprinkles or other decorations of your own choice (I used pink sugar sprinkles and dragée chocolate hearts)

Ingredients: Butter and Cream Cheese Lemon Frosting

200g cream cheese softened
200g butter (room temperatured)
1.5 dl's of powdered sugar
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
2 tablespoons of cream
2 teaspoons of vanilla
Directions:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Place the cupcake liners (this recipe made roughly 20 Cupcakes) on the baking tray.Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl, using an electric mixer, until pale and creamy. 
Add the eggs, one at a time and also beat in the vanilla, baking powder, cocoa powder and milk.
Lightly fold the flour into the creamy mixture. Divide the mixture into six smaller bowls and mix the desired colours.


Layer the batter in the liners gently. It is important not to put too much batter in each layer as if the layers are too heave, there is a risk of the colours blending all together, making the cupcakes more grey than rainbow coloured ;))


Bake in the lower part of the owen for around 20 minutes and then place them on a wire rack to cool for about 1 hour.


Now make the icing in a small bowl by mixing all ingredients together with an electric mixer and pipe it onto your cupcakes.
Finish off with your desired decorations and Ta-daaaaaa!! You are done!


I hope you enjoy making these as much as I did!! 

xox