Feeling of the Day...

[ via Art People Gallery ]

Feeling of the Day...

[ via we ♥ it ]

Feeling of the Day...

[ via we ♥ it ]

By all these lovely tokens September days are here, 

With summer's best of weather and autumn's best of cheer.

- Helen Hunt Jackson

 

 

Feeling of the Day...

[ via Gruener Baum ]

I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. 

-Frank Lloyd Wright

La Cuisine: Strawberry Cupcakes

I saw those wonderful deep red strawberries on the market and simply couldn't resist. They looked so delicious! And they were! Those little sweeties are perfectly going with some coffee on a summer's day... Very refereshing!

Strawberry Cupcakes

Ingredients
makes 12 cupcakes

For the sponge
2 eggs
120g sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
75g butter
75ml milk
150g white flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
peel and juice of 1 lemon
200g fresh strawberries

For the topping
250ml whipped cream
250g curd cheese
250g Quimiq
1-2 T sugar
fresh strawberries to decorate


Preparation

Preheat oven to 180°C (356°F).

Beat eggs with sugar and vanilla sugar until very light and creamy.

Melt butter. Mix with milk and  fold into the egg-sugar mixture.

Fold in flour, baking powder and salt. Add lemon peel and juice.

Wash strawberries, cut into slices and carefully fold into the dough.

Fill into 12 paper cups in a cupcake tray up to 2/3.

Bake on medium shelf for about 15 minutes. Then let them cool off.


For the topping, mix Quimiq with curd cheese and sugar. Beat whipped cream until stiff and fold into cream. Let it cool in the fridge for 1 hour. Fill into piping bag and pipe onto the sponges. Decorate with sliced strawberries.

Bon appetite!

La Cuisine: Stracciatella Raspberry Cream Cake

Yesterday I had some friends over for a BBQ to celebrate the birthday of one of them. This was a perfect "excuse" to try out this fantastic cake! The combination of chocolate sprinkled cake with a raspberry cream topping was perfect for a warm summer night in my garden... Looks quite fancy but wasn't too hard to make. Besides, I wanted to make it slightly bigger than in the original recipe so I took one and a half times the quantity of everything.

Straciatella Raspberry Cream Cake

Preparation time: around 70 minutes (exclusive cooling time)

Makes 8 pieces

Ingredients

150 g mellow butter

3 eggs, room temperature

250 g flour

1 tsp baking powder

100 chocolate sprinkles

225 g crystal sugar

1 package vanilla sugar

375 g raspberries

5 leaves of white gelatin

400 ml cream

100 ml crème fraiche

50g dark chocolate

springform Ø  16cm

Icing sugar

Preparation

Preheat oven to 180°C (356°F). Grease springform.

Mix flour, baking powder, chocolate sprinkles. 

Melt butter in a bowl over boiling water. Beat butter until smooth and stir in 125g of sugar and beat until foamy (3-4 minutes). Add vanilla sugar and eggs and the flour mixture. Fill dough into the springform.

Bake on medium shelf for 60 minutes. Afterwards let it cool off on a cooling rack.

Cut cake into 4 layers. Put one layer on a cake plate and put a cake ring (9 cm high) around it.

Put a few raspberries aside. Now puree the rest.

Soak  gelatine leaves in cold water for about 4 minutes. Beat cream until stiff. Put gelatine into a pot and dissolve at medium heat. Add 5 tablespoons of raspberry puree and the rest of the sugar (100g) to the hot gelatine and mix together. Take pot off the heat and add the rest of the puree and crème fraiche. Put the pot into cold water until it turns slightly jelly. Stir occasionally. Whip in 1/3 of the cream, then add the rest. 

Put approx. 3 tablespoons of raspberry cream on the first layer and spread it. Add second layer on top. Repeat the same procedure with all 4 layers. 

Remove cake ring. Spread cream all around the cake. Fill the leftover cream into an icing bag with a star-shaped nozzle (10 mm) and place 9 (or as many as you like) rosettes (spots) on the top.

Put cake into the fridge for at least 6 hours.

Finally, melt chocolate in hot water bath. Place leftover raspberries on top of the spots. Dribble liquid chocolate over the cake.

Shortly before serving, sprinkle icing sugar over cake. It will keep in the fridge for up to 2 days. 

And it looks pretty awesome from the inside too. I added some extra raspberries in between the layers because I had way too many.

Bon appetite!

Feeling of the Day...

[via we ♥ it ]

I am Summer, come to lure you away from your computer... 

come dance on my fresh grass, dig your toes into my beaches. 

~Oriana Green, @NatureSpirits

Feeling of the Day...

[ via National Geographic ]

Enjoy yourself.  It's later than you think. 

~ Chinese Proverb

Feeling of the Day...

[ via panniella ]

Just living is not enough...

 one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.  

- Hans Christian Andersen

Feeling of the Day...

[ via we♥ it ]

Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes,

 and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit.  

A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief

 that all's right with the world.  

- Ada Louise Huxtable

Feeling of the Day...

[ via Cornelia Wahlberg ]

It's officially the end of summer today...

En Vogue...

[ via Late Afternoon ]

I love the dresses and also how they "arranged" everything in the photos... Makes you feel all summer again and dream about beaches and seaside...

Feeling of the Day...

[ via we ♥ it ]

Back from Crete... and already missing it!

Feeling of the Day...

[ via we ♥ it ]

Ah, summer, what power you have 

to make us suffer and like it.  

~ Russel Baker ~

Feeling of the Day...

[ via we ♥ it ]

From Russia with Love...

 [ via Damon Hart-Davis ]

Austrian-Russian Summer School / 

I almost forgot... I'm going to Russia in summer. To Sankt Petersburg to be exact. Exactly where I wanted to go. I applied for summer school some weeks ago and on May 12 received confirmation. I'm so excited. Lucky me! There were only 20 students chosen from all of Austria... Ever since my first visit to this amazing city back in 2001 I wanted to go again. And finally... I made it! I'll be in Piter from August 2-23 - and then off to Sweden, to pay a visit to my dearest friend Julia in Stockholm.

En Vogue...

[ via h h v m ]

I think I already mentioned that I'm girlish and hopelessly romantic and playful... so this fancy design was like made for me. Plus, I have this thing for strapless tops and dresses and the pastel colours and tiny flowers look absolutely great on tanned skin!

En Vogue...

Summer Must-Have! I need a new bikini anyway... Oh, and how I love those polka dots! And it's blue. It's just perfect. (Really, Esprit has to stop sending me all those newsletters with all the beautiful fashion newbies...)

[ via Esprit ]

Feeling of the Day...

[ via we ♥ it ]

Rain! whose soft architectural hands have power 
to cut stones, and chisel to shapes of grandeur 
the very mountains.  

~ Henry Ward Beecher ~

Les Adorables...

[ all images via we ♥ it ]

Flowers always make people better, happier, 
and more helpful; they are sunshine, food 
and medicine for the soul.
~ Luther Burbank ~