Chocolate deliciousness

Just in time for when I got this annoying sore throat and cough, I made the perfect pick-me-ups for when you have a cold: chocolate pastries. More precisely I made Sarah Bernhardtbakelser, a more luxurious version of the swedish chocolate macaroons (chokladbiskvier). While chokladbiskvier usually are filled with a plain or chocolate buttercream, sarah berhardt pastries are filled with chocolate ganache. It's a rich chocolate truffle on a crispy and chewy almond cookie, coated in even more chocolate (usually not white, that's just my preference).

Not a lot of people make these themselves -- unless they're part of the recent homebaking trend (though those people seem to prefer elaborate cupcakes and french macaroons) -- as they're considered time consuming and hard to make. While they might not be the thing for new or stressed bakers, they're not that difficult to make at all.

My best trick for making these as painlessly as possible is actually to make the almond macaroons (i.e. the bases of the pastries) one day and then finish them another day. At times I've made a relatively big batch of the macaroons and popped them all in the freezer only to thaw and finish a few at the time later.

My second trick is to choose the right recipe for the almond macaroon base. Normally I love Sju sorters kakor and I do follow their recipe for the chocolate ganache, but I never use their almond base recipe. It's too firm. It's much better to double the amount of egg white, making it more runny (like cake batter). That way you'll get a real smooth surface and not too thick cookie that doesn't bake properly. However, if you prefer a thick base then Sju sorters kakor's recipe is for you.

And last but not least: make sure the ganache -- once on the macaroons -- is really cold and set before dipping in the chocolate. And make sure the chocolate isn't too hot as it'll melt the ganache and/or result in a really thin coating.

I made the white chocolate coating way too thick this time, but you can't really have too much chocolate, now can you?

If you've never eaten these -- I promise they taste 10 times better than my crummy pics make it look! Promise!

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Footnote: Sju sorters kakor is a very popular recipe book that was first printed in 1945 and has since been reprinted and revised many times (in 2005 they printed the 83rd edition). That's almost 70 years that it's allegedly never been out of print. My mum have three different editions of the book, I have one. The title can be translated as "seven types of cookies/cakes" (kaka means both cake and cookie/biscuit, though not cake as in tårta/gateau/torte) -- the number of baked goods you were supposed to serve when having guests. Of the seven on should be a soft cake, e.g. sponge, and one should be a kaffebröd, e.g. cinnamon rolls. The published have printed an edition in english called Swedish cakes and cookies [link to Amazon page with preview].

Sneakpeek

What I'm working on right now.

Meowy Monday: Cat photos of the week

I was going to show you some newer pics of cats and wood anemones, but then I found these pics taken one day when I was trying to get some nice sunset photos. As usual some of the cats wanted to go with me (using it as an excuse to play near the road, not just for the company). In this case I ended up with Julle and Uggi, the latter having that usual energy burst he gets in the evening. This time not running up a huge tree (I'll get back to that at the end of this post), but rather balancing on an old fence post. Many of the cats like that post.

That's Uggi on an easy-to-handle playful mode. He can be much more of a handful in the evenings, though, as you can see below.

As usual Uggi likes trees. Preferably big trees. Unfortunately, he doesn't just want to climb up them (and out on the smallest of branches) -- he sometimes thinks high up in a tree is a great place to play with another cat. And nowadays Uggi can be real wild so it's attacking and jump up behind cats, not just something more tree-friendly as lying on a branch trying to catch another cat's tail. No it's all "Julle, I'm going to run back and forth, hit you with my paws and consider attacking 3-4 metres up in a tree!!!!"

Uggi thought we were big bores when telling him off and not letting him play up in that canopy, both for his own sake and Julle's. He has no fear of heights at all that cat!


Update: Today my sis said Uggi climbed up the climbing rose on the barn wall. Apparently, se didn't give him enough attention when planting flowers. And, no, he didn't mind the thorn (nor was he hurt by them).

Maneki's bead blog recap weeks 18-19

The cold is getting a bit better (and even more so, my throat which was horrible raw and sore this morning is better) so I thought that I might as well take the opportunity to post a recap already on a friday. Before forgetting as usual. Hope you find something of interesting to read on or via the posts!


It's time for another recap of what I'm blogged about on Manekis Pärlblogg, my blog for beaders and jewellery makers. This time subjects range from sustainable precious metal and jewellery art to silk ribbon projects and new swarovski colours to contests and cake.

All that and more after the break.

May bead soup palette

I don't normally show the monthly bead mixes on this blog first, but this month's an exception.

For May I went with a simple, cool colour combo using sand (which is a cold beige), icy sage and purple with hints of rose. Two of the three bead colours are pretty expensive, but there are many other similar shades that are more humane price wise.

As usual the beads have been selected from my limited (hey, everything is relative and it's very limited in my eyes!) seed bead stash so I didn't really choose between matte or shiny surfaces, it just happened. I this case, though, I it feels like the colours look very good in a silky matte finish.


Now, I do realise that we all have our favourite colours and than some colours and combos keep popping up even though I try to vary my palettes. This time it was purple again and in many ways it's a muted -- sun bleached, perhaps? -- version of the november palette of last year or a cooler version of the pink-and-green june palette. Heck, it might even be similar to the december palette when you think about it. What can I say? My bead stash is dominated by certain colours, but I am trying to broaden my views. But I rarely buy beads based on them matching beads I already have -- especially seed bead purchases are just about my falling in love with a nuance. And sometimes I get an idea for a palette using bead colours I don't have, but can't really justify shopping for colours or bead types I rarely use just because I want to create another palette.

The red tulips

I took that photo above a couple of days ago (before getting some sort of cold/sore throat/cough from the lovely weather -- it's so backwards to get ill when the weather's warm and sunny...). About mid-afternoon. In the evening, some 5,5 hours later, I checked on them again and they'd already on those few hours begun to open up. That's the middle tulip you see in the photo above.

The next day they look like this.

Sometimes flowers grow really fast!

Meowy Monday: Cat photos of the week

The other day, when I took these photos, I of cause had two assistants with me. And it was as usual Uggi and Julls. Of the two, Uggi spent a lot of time running up trees while Julle was more interested in posing for photos.

 That's Uggi in the tree top. Not the highest tree he's been up, but still a long way down for a kitten. In the photo below, he's already on his way down: he was higher up in the above photo.

Another pic of Julle posing on a rock. And below one of him running along a stone wall. For some reason they preferred to run/walk on the wall to running on the ground. Walls are more fun, perhaps? Or why do I even ask -- everyone who's ever been a kid knows that it's more fun to walk/balance on a wall than to walk on plain ground! And for cats there's the added bonus of perhaps hearing a mouse or a vole among the stones.