Christmas checked Cookies

Hi Dears! :) 

Christmas is only 1 week ahead, so I brought one easy hand-made gift idea: checked cookies! 

In the end of the post I shared my little cutie cookie bags that I made for .... (it's a secret who will get those, maybe they read this article...) :D 

Have a wonderful time, and don't forget to listen some Christmas carols while You are preparing something as a gift. :) 

- I just found this country Christmas song, I love it! :D - 

Apple Pie -2-

Hello Dears,

Sorry for my absence, I missed You and blogging, however I had tons of work to do... But luckily I finished my thesis for my diploma! :D  

- picture of it at the end of the post -

So let's go back baking. :)

Here's another apple pie! :)  (this was last years). 

This time it has a net decoration on the top. It's a little bit flat but it was really delicious! :)

♥○○○♥ It could be nice for the Holidays as well. :)  ♥○○○♥

Walnut Brownie

Hey-ho! :) How are You? Advent is coming soon! :D

I am so exciting. I love this season. Usually, I start to be in Christmas mood only in December, but the hotel is in full of Xmas decoration for about a week, where I work as a receptionist, so I decorated our room as well, a bit at home. :D 

I can't wait to bake the gingerbread cookies, I would like to decorate them right now if I could. :) 

Instead I baked this Brownie some days ago with walnuts, when I was busy, finishing my diploma work. So it's an easy, and fast recipe. 

Let me praise myself, it was really good. :D

Mole-hill cake with fondant

Hi Dears! :) 

Feeling good? I'm really fine, as I nearly finished my diploma work. /the clever ending is missing, but I think in another off day from work I can do that as well/ :D Yay! 

Recently my boyfriend celebrated his birthday, and this cake was my creation for him.

To be honest it wasn't intended to be a Mole-hill cake, haha, but as the pot-cake didn't come out nicely after it was baked, I decided to change the form of the cake... 

So this mole-hill cake happened, which I think is even more fun than a regular. 

I covered it with home-made fondant. It should represent a half apple, but my boyfriend thought it was a cherry, so... Whatever You think it is. :D

Coffee Brownie

Hello! :) 

I hope You can spare a little time, when the weather is fine, to go out a bit to the nature. I love the autumn colors and I would love to go out! :) 

It's a pity that this year I'm writing my thesis every single day when I'm not at work so I can only go out to the garden. Which is beautiful as well, as You can see. :) 

I baked this Brownie for my best friend, as we haven't met for months, so it would have been a shame for me, if I didn't bake anything for her.

 So autumn gave me the inspiration, and this Coffee Brownie happened, as I had some leaf-shaped cookies with me. 

It was sweet, soft and delicious. Give it a try! :) 

Big Sandwich

Happy Halloween! :) 

Do You celebrate it? Here we don't really. Of course there are some Halloween themed parties around the city, but for the fun part, children don't gather sweets with 'Trick or Treats'. 

However I would love to create some tricks if I were younger. :D 

Usually the All Hallows' Day spirit enhance the previous days here, and we go to graveyards for visiting loved relatives. 

Maybe in some years, we will have the Halloween part as well, with all those funny sweets as well.

 ( I collected some incredible ideas on Pinerest for them)

And I created this Very Big Sandwich a while ago. I saw it on Facebook many pages, so I decided I had to try it. :)

 I  bought a big loaf of bread, bacon, cheese and onion and gave it a go. :D Usually we (4 people in the family) don't eat 1 kg of bread in once, but we ate this one in secs. So be careful with this, if You are on a diet! :D 

Vanilla baskets with pomegranate

Hello!

How are You? I feel  really sad these days, but as I have a lot desserts from last week, I came to share it. It makes me busy and cheers me up a bit.

Like these vanilla baskets, the inspiration came from the famous Creme brulée-s. 

The basket is made of cookie pastry, in the middle there is vanilla cream, on the top a tablespoon of baked egg white foam, and of course pomegranates. 

Lentil Pottage

Hi Dears,

So I've just brought You another Hungarian main course instead of a dessert as I would. 

Actually, I don't cook every day, but I love it as well as baking, just usually I don't need to cook. (I get lunch in the canteen at work, or my mom's or my boyfriend's mom cooks lunches in the weekends) But still, I learnt cooking for about 1,5 years in College, and whenever I have time, and have an empty-of-mothers kitchen I can cook. :)

And this one is a pottage, which is a side dish here.

 (And not a soup :) ) It's much more thicker, You should try. 

In the traditional restaurants they use thickening (with oil and flour) , in the modern ones they skip it, and they mix half of it with a blender to get it more thicker. But me, I prefer the thickening with milk + flour, You will see. 

Lazy whipped cream Cake

 

Hello! :) 

Would You like to make a great looking cake , which is easy, and requires about 30 minutes to make, without any baking talent? 

(Okay, this needs some hours to sit in the middle of the fridge), but honestly, this cake is the easiest of all. :) That's why I called it "Lazy".

I made it for my Daddy's 50 birthday. ♥

And in the old posts I called cookies as biscuits, but I got some comments asking if they were supposed to be the same or not. So, in my blog yes. :D Because I thought the only difference was British or American English I was using  . But I just learnt that biscuit means a real different dinner roll type as well, that I would call scones, so.. If I was confusing using the word 'biscuits' a lot in the previous post, sorry. :) You can use any type of cookies for these recipes. :)

And I really liked this cake, especially with a big cup of milky coffee. (I even put a ball of it to the top of my coffee once, so You can use it for extra comfort in the morning as well, besides the regular cake form. :D 

Sacher Cupcake

Hello Again! :)

I've chosen to be the representative of Hungary in an international recipe eBook. Yay! :D

(I don't know how popular  a recipe eBook can be nowadays? Personally, I haven't got any... And to be honest I don't have an eBook reader, neither. I prefer reading real books. But still... This makes me so proud. :D ) 

And as I have found my lost recipes, I can share them with You now. :) Like this Sacher Cupcakes.

I made them for my colleagues' birthday, which was one day before mine, so we had a group celebration at the hotel. And the inspiration came also from them, as my colleague has a secret Sacher recipe...

I don't know if I can tell the secret, but... Here is it:

 Step 1: Grab the brownie from the canteen.

Step 2: Cut it up horizontally.

Step 3: Fill it with jam. 

That's it... :D 

So, honestly, mine is a little bit more complicated,  as we didn't have brownies at home, just simply ready. 

But it's easy, and fun. And as I have a Sacher Cake on the blog with the original recipe (You can check) I decided to make them in cupcakes. :) Cheers!

Cake with Cocoa Rolls

Hello! How are You? :) 

I have big changes in my life. I moved in with my boyfriend ♥ (partly). So that's the reason of my missing, and another, that because of the lots of packing I lost some of my recipes... 

But don't worry, I have them now. :) So for example this cake was my idea to bake. I thought it would be like the Cocoa rolls from the bakeries, but actually it tastes more like a dense cake.

Coffee & Marzipan Biscuits with chocolate on top

Hi! :) 

Do You like biscuits?

This one I baked for our 4th anniversary for my boyfriend.

 Usually I bake a cake, or cupcakes for these events, but this time I decided to bake heart shaped biscuits. I think they are cute enough for the occasion. :D

 He likes coffee, I like marzipan, and we both adore chocolate, so this recipe needed to happen. :) 

(I got roses from him, and also we decided to live together, so it was a big event. :) ) 

The biscuit got a lot of good complaints, so I can recommend this to You as well. :) 

Potato Pasta

Hello Dears! :) 

To continue the Hungarian main courses list on the new page here, I brought an easy dish with the use of the Hungarian paprika as well. 

This is one of the easiest  and the less expensive dish of all, so that's why it's one of the most popular. And we love it, it taste so good.

 (Only it's full of carbohydrate  so if You're on a diet, this one is not for You...)

Plum Pie

Hi there!:)

How is it going? Here it's extremely cold. I know talking about weather is dull, but right now I'm sitting in front of my desk in 2 sweaters, big socks and gloves! In September, inside the house... Crazy...

I have just rescued my cats from the heavy wind from outside. Sweet ones, they are sleeping near me right now. :) 

I baked this pie a week ago, when it was so shiny and warm that I could take this photo outside. 

 This was really tasty, my family ate the whole in 1 day. :D

 I made it with the plums from our tree, so it was extra home-made . :) I would recommend it to You as well, You should try it, with any fruits You like. :) 

Gulyás soup

Hello! I missed You so much. :) 

I was so busy these days, I couldn't reach my laptop to post the recipes... 

But it doesn't mean that I haven't done a thing. In the contrary! :D

I have at least 6 dishes to post to You. And Voilá! 

Here's my first main course post to this page, and to be loyal to our national tastes, I decided to start with the most famous soup of Hungary, the Gulyás. 

Yes, it's a spicy soup  with the Hungarian red paprika and it's not a stew. :) 

To reach the original taste we have to make it in a cauldron. We made this with a bunch of friends, it's so fun cooking together in the garden. :)

 The recipe is enough for  at least 12 people! :D 

light Swimming pool Cocktail

Hello Darlings! :)

Do You miss summer already? 

To bring it back, just a little bit more, I made You a summertime cocktail. :)

It's a lighter version of the Swimming pool cocktail, but as my friendship is not so alcoholic (thank's god :D ) we really liked this drink. A taste of pleasure! 

Cottage Cheese and Biscuit Balls

Hello! :) Do You like autumn?

The school has been started already. I remember I loved this time when I was in high school, that I could meet again with all my friends. :)

But for now, that I am working, it's not too different from summer, however, I do prefer this season. The nature is beautiful and we can dress up in great clothes, like I can wear my favourite leather jacket with my boots. :D 

And we can eat more sweets, haha. :D No more bikini style. So I brought You now some no-bake dessert. It's easy to make and great to taste! :) 

Layered Pancake CAKE

Hello! :) How are You?

 I was in a romantic mood these days. Fortunately I got 2 days holidays that I could enjoy with my Love.

I planned to cook him a dinner, with dessert as well. The menu would have been Spaghetti Bolognese and this Chocolaty Layered Pancake CAKE. 

However, my Honey put a really good movie on in the evening, and I couldn't leave it, so we watched it in the kitchen, while we made the dessert.

 After the film, a little too late for dinner, I cooked the spaghetti as well, while he prepared our romantic dinner table with candles... And guess what... He put on a video of fire in a fireplace on the big TV, so as it would seems like we had a real one. It was funny, and actually it did brought a cosy atmosphere, so if You would like to have fireplace for any occasion go on youtube and have it! :D 

Greengage Jam

Hello! :)

I have good news Everyone! (says always the professor in Futurama, Have You ever seen an episode? My friends and me loves it, it's so funny.) 

But at  the moment this is my good news. 

It's time for making a lot of jars of jams. :) And after that You can have cookies, donuts with delicious home made jams. And they are perfect as gifts as well. :)

These ones were made by yellow Greggages from the garden, they are like small yellow plums. I flavored it with a pinch of gingerbread spice.

Chocolate Croissant

Hello Dears,

Tomorrow is the 20th of August, one of the biggest celebration in Hungary. 

The anniversary of the foundation of the country, so we will have great programs throughout the city. :) And at night there is a 30 minutes long firework show.  We have this every year, so if You would like to visit Hungary someday You can choose these times as well. 

But for now, I brought some home-made Chocolate Croissants. They are flavored with a pinch of cinnamon, so their fragrance was truly amazing when they came out of the oven. :) Try them! :)

3 layered ICE CREAM

Hello! :)

How are You? :) Right now It's so good.

 I'm just sitting in front of my window , that is fully open, enjoying the wind with the summertime weather on my off day from work.

 Actually, this is my first summer that I have to work through, so these free-days that I have seem to be even more valuable than before my school vacation times.

 And yes, I'm having this home-made ice cream as well, that cools my body, with all the 3 layers that it has. I made this some days ago, and left it in the freezer so we can enjoy it for a little time ahead. :) 

It's really so easy to make, You don't need to have ice-cream maker machines, not even fancy ingredients, so give it a try!

 And have Your home-made ice-cream in the summer! :) 

Plum Jam

Hi Dears! :)
Do You have a garden? We do have, and there's a plum tree in it with lots of bushes and flowers. But that's the only tree with fruits. And these times we have more than enough plums , completely bio, so it was time for me to make some jar of jams. :) 

I added some cinnamon to it, to enhance the flavor, and I should say that these are really tasty. If You have more fruits with You that You can eat by themselves, You should give it a try to make jam. You can do that in 30 minutes.

Lemon slices

Hello! :)

Have You realized that it's August already? Time flies too fast. 

If You haven't enjoyed summer yet this year, go ahead, go to a beach, explore a city, or relax for a moment with a good novel, to have some good memories.

 Or if You already did that, bake a cake like this, to make Your holiday sweeter. :) 

It's a crater kind of cake, it means that inside the sponge some tablespoons of  pudding can be found, that was spooned randomly to the batter.

 I have a chocolate crater cake recipe on this page as well, if You would like to see that. :) 

These one, the Lemon slices much more fit to summer. Enjoy!

Chocolatey Sponges with Biscuits

Hey there! :) 

Do You like weddings? 

We were in a cheerful wedding some days ago. Actually this was the very first that I was attending, so I was really excited. :D That was the reason for the happening of this cake. You know , not for the wedding cake, just for the one that guests are bringing.

 What do You like the best in weddings? :) I think the couple related personal games are the bests, or the cake. :D And don't forget the dresses! :D 

So, this sponge cake was delicious, soft and it doesn't contain any eggs so it's really easy to make. You should try! ;)

Apple Smoothie with Biscuits

Hey Guys! :) 

Everyone is all right? 

I don't know if I am in  time with my usual recipe update, because working days are just flying with me, and I lost my usual daily system. 

But it's getting better. :) I like helping guest in the hotel (You know I'm a receptionist trainee now.) And on my weekly 2days holiday I still can make some desserts. :D

So here's a super easy, fruity dessert to You! Make it, put it to the fridge, and You will have a wonderful, cooling smoothie. :) Enjoy!

Cherry Chocolate Cake

Hello! :) 

Are You having a great vacation time? Or is it your busyly working, house renovating period? 

I try to have both. :) On my free days, I usually bake something, and try to relax. Just trying, because You know, household chores are always there...

Anyways, this cake was so good. Really fruity, and chocolaty , so 2 in 1.  :) 

It can be a great group work, baking together with a friend, or with your loved one, just like I did. :) You should try this. ;)

And I wish You great summer days! Enjoy !

Peachy Yogurt Cake

Hello Darlings! :)

How is Your Summer lately? Mine is really busy. 

I haven't got too much time to enjoy the vacation after my last semester, as my trainee program have begun. But no complaint, it's very useful, and my colleagues are sweet and helpful. Only I have to study the methods as soon as I can, and it can be real confusing sometimes, but I  try to do my best. :) Yoda would say: "Do or Do not. There is no try." So fingers crossed. :D

But baking remained my favourite hobby , so here's a tasty, spongy, fruity, refreshing cake. Enjoy! :)

Cottage cheese Pancakes with Berries

Hello Sweeties! :) 

I brought You a special pancake filling, a cottage cheese cream with all kinds of berries,  so in the end You will get fresh, Summertime dessert! ;)

I came back from my one-week-long holiday just recently, although this pancake was born before that. (Just the hectic packing, organizing, and excitement took all my time. I hope You can forgive me, to post this so late) :) 

Food art competition

Hello Darlings! :) 

I created some fun stuffs from food! 

There is a food art competition on one of the Hungarian written recipe site to create something artistic from 

A: fruits

B: vegetables

C: desserts

So, I did all the 3 tasks, and I'm here to show to You them, as well! :) 

Check them all out! 

xoxo: Hajni

Banana Cupcake Monsters

Yay! I did all my exams!!!  :D

(I'm still waiting for the result of the last one, but I'm not worried about  that.)

So, I thought it was time for me to bake something FUNNY, and these 

Banana Cupcake Monsters were born. :) 

I even made a video for You, which can be found below. :)

 Oh it's so great feeling vacation time. Happy Summer to All of You! :)

Gastro-programs for June! :)

Hey Guys! We are nearly at the beginning of SUMMER, 

(although the weather has another opinion),

 even some of us has reached his/her Vacation time! :) 

/not me, I still have 1 exam left../ 

But if You're coming here this month, or if You are just interested in our country, I'm sharing some

really enjoyable gastro-programs,

 to You! :) 

So, be prepared, there will be beers, strawberries, strudels... See below ;)

Sacher Cake with apricots

Hello Summer! :) 

I wake up on the first morning of summer with a great smile on my face every year. I just love this season, and even if the weather is not so sunny, it always starts with a great happening, as my Mother's Name Day is on the 1th of June. 

This year she wanted me to bake her a Sacher cake, so this yummy cake needed to happen. :D 

This time I searched the original recipe from Vienna, and followed that, with a little change as I decorated it with apricots.

The cake is seriously yummy, with a lot of chocolate inside, it's worth to try! :D

Pina Colada Cake

It was a soft, juicy, sweet cake, yum yum! :D

We had a Girly Evening at my friend's place, who had just received her bar mixer qualification diploma. So, we celebrated with beautiful cocktails, that she was mixing for us! :) Therefor, it wasn't a question for me, what to bake for that occasion, because my favourite cocktail is Pina Colada. :)

Even at our collage, we could try to mix this drink during a catering course. It was real fun! :D

Chocolate Cupcakes

 I think I am not the only one who just LOVES chocolate, so I created something delish, for us! :D

Well if You are on a diet, and you're still reading it, I can't help. You will break your rules. :D 

This cupcake is definitely worth it, (or the plus 20 minutes of sport ;)) 

Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate and Peanut butter frosting :)

Little Potato Pie

Hello! :) This time I brought You a real Hungarian speciality, a salty, little potato pie, "Krumplis Laska" or "Lepényke".

That is a typical dish in 'Palóc' folk region where my mother and her relatives are endemic. :) It's in the North of Hungary, and in the South of Slovakia. 

My mother was happy, when she got her first piece of it, because the last time she had this, her grandmother made it a long time ago... 

Although the preparation is a bit longer than expected (I guess I started with too large amount of ingredients) , however the taste worth the time to make it. :)