Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanutbutter Frosting

Yay, it's Oscar night. And since I still have free time, I can watch it without feeling guilty and be completely overtired the next day. I am not sure I manage the whole show, but I will try my very best. Also, it is time to celebrate one of my favourite flavour combinations, so I will have something to snack on tonight :-)
It is chocolate and peanut butter and it is about time I came along with a new cupcake recipe.




Ingredients for the cupcakes:

• 125 g butter
• 125 g sugar
• 125 g flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 2 medium free range eggs
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp vanilla sugar/vanilla extract
• 4 tbsp milk

And how to make them:

• beat the butter until creamy
• add sugar, flour, baking powder, vanilla, and cocoa and mix
• add the eggs, for extra fluffyness you can also separate the eggs and whip the eggwhites before carefully folding them in with the rest
• add the milk
• spoon into muffin tin (with muffin papers)
• bake in a preheated oven at 190 °C for 20-25 mins.

Now on to the frosting:

• I only give rough directions as I never measure it out...
• take 2 large tbsp of creamy peanut butter and equal amounts of butter and whip until soft and creamy
• add a pinch of salt
• now slowly add icing sugar while constant whipping until you have the consistency you are looking for
• then add a bit more icing sugar, so that it looks a bit too dry
• now add a little bit of milk and bring it back to a smooth paste
• that's it

Once the cupcakes are cooled, add the frosting in any style you like and top with some crushed peanuts. I use the roastes salted one to have a bit of contrast to the very sweet buttercream frosting. It's a bit like salted caramel. But you might as well use unsalted ones or leave them out completely.

And now, the winner is....

Honey, Lime & Ginger Prawns

I had nearly forgotten the bag of prawns in my freezer. But I remembered them in time and I came up with this recipe for them, partially inspired by the internet... You can leave out the ginger and/or the garlic but it's way better with both in :-)





Ingredients:

• juice and zest of one large lime (or two small ones)
• walnut-sized piece of ginger, grated
• 1 large clove of garlic, crushed
• 2 tbsp of honey
• pepper and salt, chili flakes if you like
• 1/4 cup of olive oil
• 20-25 king prawns, shelled, raw

And how to make them:

• mix all the ingredients for the marinade in a freezer bag
• make sure all the honey is dissolved
• then add the prawns - if you use frozen ones like me, let them sit in the marinade until they are thawed and came to room temperature, if not, put bag in the fridge and let marinate for 1 h, then remove and let come to room temperature
• once ready, take out of marinade and put on skewers and fry in the hot griddle pan
• alternatively put in an oven-proof dish and bake for 20 mins at 180 °C
• the honey will caramelise and therefore the prawns will become partially dark, but that doesn't matter at all
• serve with some salad or just with some bread
• if you want, you can boil the rest of the marinade for about 5 mins and use it as a sauce to drizzle over your prawns (don't forget to dunk the bread :-)

Enjoy as a starter or as a light lunch. I had mine for dinner, followed by a bowl of carrot&coriander soup :-)

Finnish Oat Cookies

Me again, it seems to become a habit :-)
I was out of cookies! Seriously, this is an issue, it's almost as bad as being out od chocolate. Fortunately, I had all the ingredients at home to make some myself. Usually in this kind of occasions I either make yummy shortbread or american style cookies. This time I opted for something very different scandinavian style oat cookies. I have eaten them before and they were always good. So after some internet research I found a recipe easy enough to follow. But as usual (I don't know, what this is with me..) I just couldn't stick to the recipe... However, for those of you interested, this is the original post, note it is in German:

Finnische Haferkekse

Here is how I changed the ingredients list:

• 50 g butter
• 60 g oats ( I used the coarse ones I usually have in the morning for my porridge)
• 80 g brown sugar
• 30 g honey (or golden syrup)
• 1 heaped tbsp flour ( I "made" oat flour here, just blend 1 heaped tbsp of oats in the blender real fine, but regular wheat flour works well)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 egg

And how I made them:

• mix the oats with the brown sugar, the flour and the baking powder
• melt the butter with the honey on a low heat, let then cool to hand warm
• stir the butter mix in the oats mix and combine thoroughly
• when cooled, add the egg and mix until smooth
• here is now another change I made: let the dough sit for 20 mins to allow the oats to dwell, the result is a slightly thicker dough as before
• pre-heat the oven to 225 °C
• line a baking tray with greaseproof paper 
• and now another change to the original recipe: I poured the whole mixture out on the sheet and distributed it equally, the original post says set small amounts with a tsp on the sheet. The first one will give you one giant cookie that I have then cut into squares, the last one gives you round cookies
• now bake for 5-7 mins, don't leave the oven, they brown very quickly!
• then take out, let cool a bit
• if you have poured the whole lot out, then now cut the shapes you want before the cookies are cold and therefore crack easily OR wait until completely cool and break random bits of, so you get a random shaped selection of cookies
• if you made the round version, just let the cool on the sheet before stacking them

That's it. Very simple. Can be done in 15 mins total time. No electric mixer needed. I have mine with a cup of tea (how could it be any different...) or a coffee. Also, they keep quite long in a tin, if you manage to keep away from them long enough!

Steak marinades

Hello everyone,

since I am suffering from a Norovirus infection the past few days (a nasty one that is...) I am constanstly craving for a steak. Honestly, I don't know why. I am not that much of a meat eater at all, but sometimes I like a proper steak. Usually, I add it to a asian glasnoodle salad, a recipe I will have to put up at some point as well. Sometimes I just have it as such with roast potatoes and some green beans. When I just put it on the grill, I like to add a marinade. And that is exactly the reason for this post - steak marinades.


here are two of my favorite ones:

1) Lime and ginger marinade

• zest and juice of one lime
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 3 tbsp vegetable or sesame oil

2) Rosemary and garlic marinade

• 1 sprig fresh rosmary, finely chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp lemon juice
•  3 tbsp olive oil
• black pepper to taste

For both marinades let the meat sit in the marinade for at least 1 hour, better over night but most certainly in the fridge. I usually marinate my meat (both work for chicken as well btw) in a freezer bag over night. Then remove most of the marinade, otherwise it will burn in the pan. I then heat a griddle pan fairly hot and fry my meat to medium rare, but this is to your own liking. Very important is to let the meat rest after the frying is done, otherwise you will loose all these wonderful juices and your steak will dry out. I then cut it into strips and serve it up.