An advent calendar is a must!

pattern advent calendar

Yes, I know, Irma is still too little, to be excited about and advent calendar. She is only turning 2 in April and doesn’t understand the whole hustle around Christmas.

But that doesn’t matter, I love Christmas and now I have a good reason to have an advent calendar too.

Until I moved out, my mom put up an advent calendar with little bags, filled with little goodies,  every year. Without was no option and now Irma should get one too.

So I was sewing like crazy, to finish the advent calendar before December.

And here is my first self made advent calendar..

advent calendar

All figures are sewed double and in between I sewed in fleece, so the pockets are firmer.

The little pockets are made out of quilt. Therefor one side stays open, so you can put something in it.

Here you can find the pattern for the adventcalendar.

On the upper edgeI sewed in 3 loops, so you can pull trough the bar. So can hang the quilt on the wall.

Measurements for the advents calender

The idea for the houses I found on the website of ginihouse3

The idea for the reindeers I found here.

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A friend for tiger Tim..

pattern tiger

In the summer my nephew Edgar got an Angry Bird bath robe from me.

He really liked it, but he subtly let me know, that if I ever sewed something for him, a stuffed animal would be a great idea. For example I could make a friend for his tiger Tim and white tiger would fit very well.

So I sewed the little prince a white tiger for his 8th birthday and tiger Tim got a friend too.

It wasn’t that easy to sew the tiger though.

It started with finding plush with the right tiger print - you can mostly only find zebra print - and ended with the fact that I couldn’t find a pattern for the stuffed tiger.

Finally I found plush with tiger print at stoff 4 you and I made the pattern myself.

And I think it turned out kind of cute, even when the proportions are not exactly correct.

The most important thing is, that Edgar was super excited and even tiger Tim seems to get along very well with the “new one” too.

Tiger Tim and his new friend

For those, who want to sew the tiger, here is the pattern.

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Cheesecake New York Style á la niner bakes..

recipe The Best Original New York StyleCheesecake

On my search for a tasty recipe for a delicious cheesecake, I came upon the website of niner bakes.

Es sollte ein "richtiger" Cheesecake, creamy and delicious with a taste of New York sein.
Also bitte kein Topfenkuchen.

It was supposed to be a “real” cheesecake, creamy and delicious with a taste of New York.

So please no European curd cheese cake.

And you can find such a recipe on the website of niner bakes.

The Best New York Style Cheesecake.

When my mom came to visit, I thought it would be a good  time to try out this recipe. First of all I have a babysitter and can concentrate on baking and secondly my mom loves every kind of cheesecake. So the perfect guinea pig.

Before I even started with the preparations, we already were extremely excited about the delicious cheesecake.

But then I read the whole recipe and realized, that it didn’t seem to be difficult to bake the cake, but it would have to bake in the oven forever and you would have to leave it overnight.

So a little word of advice: postpone your excitement for the next day.

But I can say, it’s worth it!

You can enjoy your cheesecake just like this or with fruit. I additionally made raspberry sauce, and I think that the creamy sweetness of the cake goes really well with the sweet sourness of the fruit.

But even without sauce the cheesecake tastes heavenly juicy and creamy. Simply irresistible.

Whoever is interested in the recipe, please go on the website of niner bakes. She has a lot of helpful explanations, since this recipe has a certain method to it.

Here the link:

The Best New York Style Cheesecake

And don’t be surprised, at first sight the recipe seems to be complicated  than it actually is.

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Äppelpaj de luxe with Kumoi..

My mom came to visit and brought a couple of slices of Kumoi cake, that she made on the day before, with her.

 

She has a Kumoi tree in her garden, that carries an unbelievable amount of fruit every year.

Kumoi is a chinese fruit, that tastes like a mix of pear and apple.

We had the experience, that Kumoi doesn’t taste good as long as the fruit is not ripe yet, since the shell is really bitter.

When it’s ripe it tastes really good, very sweet and juicy. But then the fruit turns out not to be eatable very fast.

That means, that my parents have to eat, give away or process the Kumoi fruit as soon as it’s ripe.

You can process the fruit just like an apple, so it is a great ingredient if you bake a cake.

My mom found a recipe for a äppelpaj de luxe (apple cake de luxe) and of course had to try the recipe.

And indeed, everything is in there what an apple/Kumoi cake needs and it tastes good!!

Actually you have to enjoy every Swedish äppelpaj with vanilla sauce!

But the slices that my mom brought with her were gone so fast, that no one thought about that.

I added a recipe for a testy vanilla sauce for everyone, who wants to make it “right”.

Äppelpaj de luxe

Short Crust:

4.2 oz butter, room temperature

6.3 oz flour

2.1 oz powder sugar

1 egg yolk

Mazarin Filling:

6.7 oz almond mass

1 teaspoon cardamom, ground

2.8 oz butter, room temperature

1 egg

3 egg yolk

Apple/Kumoi Filling:

4 apples or Kumoi

1 teaspoon cardamom, ground

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1.7 oz almond, planed

1.7 oz fluid honey

1.4 oz raw cane sugar

Oat Crumble:

1.7 oz sugar

3.2 oz flour

0.7 oz oats

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2.1 oz butter, room temperature

Vanilla Sauce:

8 egg yolk

6.3 oz sugar

1 vanilla stick

1.3 Ibs whip cream

5.3 oz milk

1.2 oz butter

1.     Preheat the oven at 347F.

2.     For the short crust put all ingredients into a bowl, and stir until the dough is well mixed. You can use your hands too.

3.     Fill the dough into a cake form with 8.7” and spread with hands and press down, so the dough is approx. 0.1” thick. The dough should cover the bottom and the sides up to the edge of the cake form. Then let the dough cool in fridge.

4.     For the mazarin filling rip the almond mass into little pieces and mix it with the ground cardamom in a bowl. Add butter little by little.

5.     Stir the egg and the egg yolk little by little into the almond mix until it is a smooth mass.

6.     For the apple/Kumoi filling peel, core and cut the fruit into squares or slices.

7.     Mix the apples/Kumoi with all the other ingredients.

8.     For the oat crumble mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add butter and knead with fingers, so a crumbled dough forms.

9.     For the vanilla sauce mix egg yolk and sugar in a bowl.

10.     Cut vanilla stick in half and scrape out the vanilla seeds. Put the stick and the seeds in a pot.

11.     Add whip creme and milk into the pot and bring to boil.

12.     Take the vanilla stick out of the milk and pour the milk into the bowl with the egg-sugar mix, stir very well so the egg won’t curdle.

13.     Then put vanilla cream back into the pot and bring lightly to boil, in the process stir the whole time, until the creme becomes thicker.

14.     Take the pot from the stove and add the butter.

15.     Let vanilla cream cool down.

16.     Take the short crust out of the fridge.

17.     Spread evenly first the mazarin filling on the dough and then the apple filling. Top with the oat crumbles.

18.  Bake the cake at 347F for approx. 35-40min.

19.  Let the cake cool down a little and pour vanilla sauce on it.

 

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