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New (?) cocktail 6 May 2010

Posted by Mekekamps in Happiness.
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As I was looking at our grandiose collection of spirits and fortifieds, I decided to try to mix myself a night cap… I am not the most adventurous type, but if I say so myself, I should do this more often! The result was a simple, clean taste on the sweeter end of the spectrum. Yet to come up with a name for it, because it is too simple for no one to have come up with it before. Anyone know?

1 measure of sweet white Vermouth (like Martini Bianco)
0.5 measure of red Vermouth (like Martini Rosso)
0.5 measure of Vodka (Absolute)
2 measures of slightly sweetened lime juice (Nuoc Chanh Ep if you are in Vietnam)

And voila!

It is Advent! 1 December 2009

Posted by Mekekamps in Baking, Christmas, Happiness.
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I love Christmas. And I love baking. I love filling my house with the smells of pine tree, spices, oranges and mouthwatering recepies. I like to decorate the house with candles and ribbons and shiny things.

I will not be at home this year, so a lot of the baking that I normally like to do will not fit into my schedule. So instead I will blog about it! At least I will still feel like it is Christmas, even when there will be no snow, no dark nights with frost descending over valleys of houses with candles in the windows. No last minute Christmas shopping in the freezing cold streets of Oslo.

But by God, there will be Pepperkaker.

And to celebrate the start of December, here is my essential recepy for the month: Really easy Pepperkaker (translated from Norwegian for the inaugural cooking class tonight)

Enjoy!

Pepperkaker

Ingredients:
150 g butter
100 ml syrup or molasses
200 ml sugar
100 ml cream
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
450 g plain flour
Icing sugar and lemon juice for decorating.

Method:

1. Place the butter, sugar and syrup in a saucepan. Heat until all the sugar is disolved. Cool.

2. When cooled down a little, add the cream. Combine.

3. Add the flour, spices and baking powder, and stir until a smooth mixture.

4. Cover the mixture and place in the fridge overnight. This is important to let the spices infuse the dough, and for the butter to harden.

5. Sprinkle some flour on the benchtop and a rolling pin. Roll out some of the dough to about 2-3 mm thick. Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes. Try to be economical, as you don’t want to have to roll out the dough too often, due to the extra flour being added every time you do. Note: if you wish to hang the cookies in the Christmas tree, cut out a hole before baking that you can thread a ribbon through.

6. Place the cookies on baking paper on a baking tray. Bake at 175 degrees celcius for 10 minutes.

7. Cool.

8. Decorate with icing sugar.