FOOD: Rezept für Gugelhupf mit kandierten Magnolienblüten und Karamell Zuckerguss

Guten Abend meine Lieben!

Ich melde mich nach langer Abstinenz wieder zurück. Das letzte Jahr war ein Albtraum, aus dem ich mich Anfang diesen Jahres befreien konnte und nun kehren, mit der immer wärmer werdenden Sonne und den Blüten auch das Leben zurück.

Ich schwelge in Spaziergängen durch meine Heimatstadt Baden-Baden in der üppigen Blütenpracht rund um die Trinkhalle, das Kurhaus und die Lichtentaler Allee und neue Ideen fangen an, in meinem Kopf an Gestalt zu gewinnen.

Eine dieser Ideen möchte ich heute mit euch teilen.

Habt ihr schon mal Magnolienblüten gekostet? Ja, richtig gelesen! Magnolienblütenblätter zählen zu den essbaren Blumen und haben ein angenehmes Aroma von Aprikose in Verbindung mit blumigen Nuancen. Es gibt Magnolienarten, die nicht essbar sind, die bekanntesten allerdings, nämlich die Tulpenmagnolie (bzw. auch Tulpenbaum genannt) und die Sternmagnolie sind bedenkenlos verzehrbar. Von ersterem habe ich Blätter gesammelt und sie für einen ganz besonderen Kuchen verarbeitet.

Gugelhupf mit kandierten Magnolienblüten und Karamell Zuckerguss

Dafür war in an einem meiner Lieblingsbäume an der Trinkhalle, und dort habe ich bereits so viele Blätter sammeln können, dass es für die Garnitur des Kuchens, für den Teig und auch für besondere Magnolienmarmelade gereicht hat. Dieses Rezept werde ich auch gerne mit euch teilen, wenn Interesse besteht!

#forthethrone - Game of Thrones Hot Pie's Direwolf Bread (+ Rezept).

Alle, die mich kennen, wissen, dass ich ein absolutes Game of Thrones Fangirl bin, wobei ich grundsätzlich kein Seriennerd bin. Aber gebe mir Drachen, und realistische, menschliche Charaktere (und Entwicklungen), intelligente Dialoge und eine fantastische, epische Welt und ich bin voll dabei. So war es damals bei Harry Potter und so ging es weiter mit dem Herrn der Ringe und seit 2014 nun auch mit Game of Thrones.

Zum feierlichen Anlass der achten und somit auch finalen Staffel der fantastischen Saga habe ich mir zum Anlass genommen, Hot Pie's Direwolf Brot nachzubacken, welches er in Season 3 Arya zum Abschied schenkte, und in Season 4 perfektioniert hat.

FOOD: Blätterteig Tannenbaum mit Pesto Füllung.

Die Tage werden kürzer, die Temperaturen werden kühler, der Dezember rückt mit jedem Tag näher und in mir erwacht die Vorfreude auf das diesjährige Weihnachtsfest und den alljährlichen Backmarathon mit Shortbread, Marzipankartoffeln und anderen Leckereien. Letztes Jahr habe ich Matcha Butterplätzchen gebacken - dieses Jahr werden es wahrscheinlich wieder Lebkuchen und Mozartplätzchen werden.

Zum Beginn der Weihnachtsbacksaison habe ich mich dieses Jahr an eine herzhafte Tannenbaumvariante getraut. Bei Hagen Grote habe ich einen sehr hübschen Tannenbaum-Ausstecher für Blätterteig gefunden, der mich sofort angelacht hat.

Ich liebe es, mit Blätterteig zu arbeiten, da ich das Knusprige und Fluffige sehr mag ... wären da nicht all die bösen Kalorien - aber man gönnt sich diesen Spaß ja auch nicht alle Tage!

GIVEAWAY: Zeit für Entschleunigung - der Slow Coffee Maker von Leopold Vienna.

Jeder der mich kennt weiß, dass ich der Inbegriff des Foodie bin - ich liebe es, gutes Essen zu genießen und ebenso sehr, es herzustellen. Essen und die Zubereitung dessen ist immer verbunden mit einer großen Hingabe, Leidenschaft und Liebe.

Good food nurtures not only your body, but also your soul.

Good food nurtures not only your body, but also your soul (dtk) - das ist mein persönliches Mantra, das ich versuche, jeden Tag so gut es geht zu leben.

Neben gutem Essen liebe ich auch Getränke, die mit Hingabe komponiert wurden und in denen man die Leidenschaft fürs Handwerk erkennt. Ein guter Wein gehört genauso korrespondierend zu einem perfekten Dîner wie der Champagner dazu, das Leben zu zelebrieren und wie guter, hausgemachter Kaffee zu edlem, französischen Gebäck - oder auch einem einfachen, aber doch perfekten Schokoladen Guglhupf.

Da fühle ich mich erinnert an müßige Samstage mit meiner Mama. Wir hatten die Tradition, die Nachmittage bei gutem Wetter entweder im Park zu verbringen - sie lesend, ich meine Hausaufgaben machend, oder bei tristem, grauen Wetter zuhause zu bleiben und einen Arthouse Film einzulegen. Ich bereitete amerikanische Cookies vor und sie braute einen Kaffee - nicht mit der Filterkaffeemaschine, sondern mit dem Porzellanfilter, mit ganz heißem Wasser. 

Er schmeckte göttlich ...

CHRISTMAS: individualized advent calendar - my schoko world.

[en] ADVERTISEMENT - christmas is just around the corner (i'm already counting the days ...) and one of my favourite christmas traditions since my early childhood days is the obligatory advent calendar, filled with delicious chocolates and pralinés.

my schoko world offers you the possibility to create your very own advent calendar, personalized with your own photographs and filled with belgian milk chocolate.
i tested the service and today i want to show you the result.

i created a special strangeness and charms advent calendar featuring my personal shooting favourites from the past few years. it is very easy to create your own design - you can simply upload your favourite photos onto the website and do not need to download an external software.

i really like the outcome! what do you think of it?
as a special goodie you can win the advent calendar shown in todays post!

VEGAN: fruit inspiration #eattherainbow

[en] hi peeps! delightful, delectable and delicious: all can function as characteristics, or even synonyms for fruits. fruits are full of healthy power, they are beautiful to look at and nourishing. fruits can serve as a whole or breakfast accompaniment, as a healthy snack, they can be eaten for lunch or dinner. they can be enjoyed raw or cooked. there are so many possibilities to become creative with fruits. social media such as instagram inspires us to decorate it in beautiful arrangements to live up to the beauty of this food and because you eat with your eyes (first)! all the photographs in this post are self made and also made their way onto my instagram account. feel free to stop by for a visit!

my favourite fruits are raspberries, strawberries ... i guess all kinds of berries. and of course red grapes.

do you like fruits as well? which ones are your favourites?
how do you love to prepare them?

FOOD: pancake tower with blueberries & chocolate.

[en] hi peeps! you might already have discovered these beautiful and artistic pancake towers topped with loads and loads of beautiful fruits, chunks of chocolate and different sauces which totally overflow social media, especially instagram and which really make your mouth water. definitely #foodporn at its best!

some time ago i decided to try the creation of a pancake tower myself and i can say ... it was definitely worth doing it. le boy and me really indulged in this celebration of calories - a feast for the eyes as well as the pallete!

if you want to try it out yourself, you should definitely stop counting calories. you would feel too miserable and that would be a pity regarding the culinary delight.

it also doesn't take much longer than making the actual pancakes and it's great fun to get artistic in terms of decoration while having the smell of freshly baked pancakes in your nose ... mmmmmmh!

FOOD: handmade nigiri and maki sushi.

[en] hello my dears! today i want to show you some impressions of our very first selfmade sushi session. le boy and me love sushi very much, regardless of whether it is nigiri or maki sushi (and now also onigiri!). i have already made inari sushi before - those fried tofu bags filled with sushi rice (which are also eaten in korea where they are called yubuchobap, slightly different in shape and ingredients for the rice) but never tried maki and nigiri. maki sushi is also known in korea, where you have scrambled eggs inside, pan-fried sesame, cucumber, pickled radish and broad slices. so they are different to maki sushi in japanese cuisine where you mostly have solely one ingredient in the middle of your rice and nori slices. also they are very narrow and high. le boy and me chose traditional cucumber and pickled radish for our maki sushi. some rolls were made with one ingredient, others were combined. 

for our nigiri we chose traditional tuna and salmon filets which we bought just a few hours before at the fresh fish counter at scheck-in in baden-baden and with the rest of our fish filets we created sashimi slices, bedded upon white radish slices.

and OMG it was DE-LI-CIOUS! you gotta try it. it's not that difficult to create your own sushi plate. it is solely important that you choose extremely fresh fish filets for your nigiri (because it is to be eaten raw) and water your hands regularly because the rice is really, really sticky.

in this post i will also share a recipe for sushi rice, so you can create your own sushi in time! enjoy!

FOOD: spanish tapas night.

[en] some days ago we celebrated our 6 month anniversary and at this special occasion i wanted to create a big feast for le boy with loads and loads of different tapas. i believe that the way to a mans' heart is through his stomach and i wanted to do something special for him on this day because he deserved it. because i love him. because he is my best friend, my sanctuary, my safety, my soul mate. i already cooked a tapas feast years ago,standing in the kitchen for more than 9 hours oO, but this time i have been better on track with only 4 1/2 hours XD ... i know i'm crazy, but i'm okay with that, because i'm crazy for him. i have prepared chorizo in red wine, authentic aioli (without mayonnaise, only consisting of garlic and olive oil), dates with bacon, deep-fried chicken breasts, spanish potato omelettes, meatballs with selfmade salsa, pickled scampis and artichokes with salsa. they were accompanied by chalkidiki olives, serrano ham, white bread, vegan cream cheese and pickled sardines. quite a bunch of things any foodie would have loved! before we began to eat we had made some funny pictures showing the OMG moment of seeing all these things for the very first time XD

there was so much left that we also ate another big tapas plate the following night, also accompanied with a nice glass of spanish tempranillo.

FOOD: american pancakes with blueberries.

[en] hello my dears! today i've got a new foodie post for you. this time featuring one of my favourite breakfast/sweet-tooth/anytime-you-want-to-eat dishes: pancakes - the american way. i love them and every saturday me and le boy prepare them for a true breakfast feast, alongside obligatory maple syrup, bread buns, salami, ham, eggs and marmelade. we both already know the recipe by heart and they are oh so easy to make and they look lovely on white and golden vintage dishes. believe me: you won't get enough of them!

CHRISTMAS: rum truffles and marzipan potatoes.

hello, my dears! i have started my first christmas bakery session some days ago and today i want to share some of the results with you. this time i'm sharing some photos of my rum truffles and marzipan potatoes with you. i have made them last year for the very first time ever. marzipan potatoes are an all time christmas favourite of my dear brother, so i wanted to try out the recipe to gift him with some of them on christmas eve, and i succeeded. the rum truffles are a bit elaborate, especially if you grate all the chocolate yourself. each time i do that i have to time 30 minutes more for my baking session.

you can find the recipes of the rum truffles and the marzipan potatoes below.

i'm wishing you a wonderful holiday season!

VEGAN: homemade puff pastries filled with spinach and potatoes.

today i want to show you a simple, saturating and super tasty vegan dish which is also amazingly easy to make.

i have found the recipe on le yuki's blog (click) and approved it.

VEGAN: vegan burgers, steamed carrots, cucumber and tomatoes from the garden

'you're vegan?!?!? 

are you snobbish? 

do you have too much money? 

what you gonna eat? 

and don't you suffer from hypomineralization?'

all of these questions were stuff i already needed to hear when i stated that i have started to eat purely vegan. well.

what should i eat? you can see it in this post. colourful, healthy and saturating meals full of minerals and great ingredients.

VEGAN: homemade vegan apple tartelettes

these tiny totally tempting and delicious apple tartelettes were my very first vegan cakes i have ever made. i didn't think that it would be so easy to make vegan cakes. i thought 'omg how do i replace the egg etc.' and then i have read online that you simply could replace eggs with a banana. because it holds the dough together. and that's the only task egg's have to accomplish. if you don't want your cakes to have too much banana flavour you simply use one's which are still a bit green or simply some which are not so ripe. and butter can easily be replaced by margarine.

those tartelettes look great and taste great. if you got a sweet tooth then what would you want more?

VEGAN: food haul.

some time ago i received packages from different onlineshop with loads and loads of vegan goodies. on the message board of kleiderkreisel.de, an online swap meet for second hand apparel and accessoires, i have read a thread dealing with vegan sweets and candies. 
a member said that there is a brand offering vegan alternatives for mars, snickers and co. - it is called 'go max go'. 
because i somewhat mourned after different sweets i used to eat when i was younger this was quite interesting for me. 

i searched at veganwonderland.de for products of 'go max go' and found/bought 'mahalo', an alternative for 'bounty', 'twilight', an alternative for 'milkyway', 'buccaneer', an alternative for 'mars' (omg that was so amazingly delicious, you cannot imagine !!!) and 'snap', that's puffed rice with a chocolate coat. 

VEGAN: 유부초밥 - homemade yubuchobap / inari sushi.

some days ago i have made my very first sushi - fried tofu bags marinated with maple syrup and filled with sushirice and sesame. in japan these are called inari sushi and in hangul (korean language) it is called 유부초밥, or in western letters 'yubuchobap'.

they are quite easy to make, unbelievably delicious and totally vegan.

유부초밥 was one of my favourite korean dishes when i was a child and up to this day it still belongs to my favourites.

if you need the recipe feel free to contact me!

VEGAN: homemade nutella.

today i want to show you how you can easily make your own vegan, dairy-free, lactose-free nutella - it is delicious and what is more: it is healthy! what would you want if you got a sweet tooth? i have found the recipe on chefkoch.de, tested it myself and approved! it's easy and yummy as hell !!!

VEGAN: homemade vegan pizza.

making your very own pizza dough isn't difficult - it's very easy! just like tarte flambée, you simply need very few ingredients which can be counted on the fingers of one hand. for the basic dough you need flour, yeast, water and olive oil. you can spice it up with sugar and a bit of salt, but you don't have to. thus it's very easy!

below you can read the exact amounts which you will need to mix the dough together.

you can add different toppings. tomato purée and vegan cheese are essential. what you add on top is free for you to choose. for my very first homemade vegan pizza i have chosen onion bits, tomato slices, kalamata olive slices and many different herbs and chili.

it's very delicious and oh so easy to make - you simply have to try it out yourself!

FOOD: my vegan week.

some weeks ago i have started a personal experiment which i now want to share with you. for a long time i had the idea in mind to try a vegan diet. i wanted to solely eat vegan food for a period of 7 days. why did i have the idea? when i was in my teenage years i already have started to live vegetarian - but i only succeeded for about half a year. my mum wasn't quite enthusiastic about my decision - also because i had quite a few deficiency signs in respect of different mineral nutrients and vitamins and although being korean she didn't believe that i could eradicate all of these deficiencies by only eating vegetarian food. during the course of these 6 months she tried to persuade me to become omni again with cooking my favourite omni meals and eating those dishes herself -.- ... well, but that's another story.

FOOD: homemade waffles in my new flat.

two weeks after the house moving i have finally unpacked all of my moving boxes and i was so happy and felt at home, finally. and when i'm feeling at home and at ease i love to bake - so these delicacies you can see in this post are the first waffles i have baked in my all new flat. i decorated them with vanilla sugar, whipped cream and strawberries - and they were delicious! ... unfortunately i have eaten all of the waffles in the course of the day and afterwards i regretted it. but not for very long :D

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