Blondie

Another cold & rainy Sunday afternoon...

Reason enough to bake :)

This time I wanted to try something new:

 

How to:

* Preheat the oven to 175°C.

* Grease a square baking pan with butter & line with baking paper.

* Melt the butter slowly, take the butter of the heat and add 75 grams of the white chocolate

and let it melt. Stir.

* Mix sugar and eggs until thick & yellow. Add flour, butter with chocolate, salt and vanilla essence & mix until well-combined.

* Finish by adding the dried cranberries and mix them carefully with the batter.

* Add the batter in the baking pan and put the rest of the chocolate on top.

* Bake the blondies for about 35-40 minutes. Let cool down and cut in squares.

 

 

The taste was great, but next time I will add the chopped chocolate to the batter instead of putting it on top. And I will also use less heat on the upper side and let it bake a bit longer.

 

The rest of the family enjoyed it to the last crumb so there will definitely be a next time!

 

Bon appetit!

 

Quicker than the squirrels!



With a walnut tree in the garden, October is always a busy month. Busy because we have to be quick. Very quick. Quicker than the squirrels! They love the walnuts as much as we do. But they have an advantage: they just climb up the trunk of the tree and get the walnuts from the branches. We, humans, have to wait, wait until the walnuts fall off the tree. Just hoping that the squirrels have left some for us!

 

This year, the harvest is good: boxes full of walnuts. A whole lot more than last year. Or were we just quicker and more observant?

 

Well, all these walnuts need to be used.

 

To start with cake, a walnut-cinnamon cake.

Here's what you need:

 

And this is what comes out of the oven after about 45 minuten on 175°C

 

 

As a little bit of batter was left, I used it for mini-bundt-cakes

 

Tastes delicious with some whipped cream too!

 

 Oh and I added a 'personal touch': some cider spices :)

Will definitely bake and/or cook more using the walnuts.

To be continued...

 

Wishing you all a nice weekend!

Ours is filled with a family reunion & a nice dinner to celebrate the birthday of a friend!

Happy Birthday Eline!

You know that 50 is the new 40, don't you??

 

 More bakes with walnuts? Click here for banana-nut-cake!

 

Saying good bye to Summer...

With October around the corner, I would like to bring a last ode to this years' Summer.

It has had its ups & downs this year, but, overall, it was a nice Summer!

 

Partying has been one of our favourite activities
 

 

We enjoyed the garden with all its beauties a lot

 

 

 

And of course, we 'vacationed'!!

 

Slovenia

Croatia

Venice

Verona

And rainy Luzern!

 

Ready for fall now!! Are you too??

 

Have a great weekend!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coffee & cake!!

Saturday afternoon... groceries done, bunch of flowers on the table, time to bake!

This time I wanted to make an apple pie, as it definitely fits the fall season that has just started.

But then my eye caught a recipe for apple crumble cupcakes... So apple crumble cupcakes it is!

 

The ingredients

 

The outcome

 

And a triple portion for a teenager who had just played a soccer match :)

 

Enjoy your weekend!

 

P.S. Wanna see another baking post? Have a look here

And should you like to know the recipe, just let me know in the comments,

then I will post it here!

 

Surprised!!

Amazing... What a wonderful weather we had the last weeks. Temperatures rose to 18, 19 degrees Celsius. This is too warm for this period of the year, but I so loooooove it!

I filled some vases with violets, under the violets I planted bulbs in layers: snow drops, blue & white muscari and tulips.

To my big surprise I saw already green leaves from the muscari peeping out between the violets, isn't that amazing? In November??

Can you spot them?

By the way, this is our garden at this very moment: clean & empty, we pruned the conifers and are planning to make a kind of natural fence. I'm already planning lots of beautiful climbers there!

The real work will start again in Spring!

From a different angle:

And yet another rose decided to bloom again, already full of briers,

just one stubborn blooming bud... that's nature!

Time for some action inside the house: there is still some painting to do!

Take care & see you soon again!

By the way, have a look here (mainly for the Dutch speaking!) & join!

We have a winner!!!!

WE DID IT!!!!!! We randomly picked a winner!!

Hopefully...

 the winner has made some space in the living room,

the winner will be happy to have the three of us on the doorstep...

the winner will let you all enjoy the unwrapping process

and see the wonderful surprises that are in the present

by publishing an

ENORMOUS blogpost

and

hopefully the winner will make a delicious apple pie for us

(but somehow, we got the feeling that this will be no problem at all)!

Watch, read, listen......... we made a huge list.... a gigantic list.....

and arranged a random number generator, closed our eyes and had Diana's daughter push the button!!

Constant contact via our mobile phones (Whats App rules...) and then finally the long expected moment...

Number 72

And number 72 belongs to a very lucky person,

Santa Claus will be coming early this year at the house of

*DRUM ROLLS*

COLINDA

Colinda....*HUG*!

Congratulations from the three of us!

ENJOY!!!!

 a HUGE thank you to all the participants, sponsors & bloggers!! Thanks so much for all your enthusiasm!!

We love these kind of virtual parties, don't you?

Wishing you all a lovely, sunny Sunday!!

And more sponsors on the catwalk!

We are proud to present to you, the rest of the sponsors (which brings the total to 23!!!!) on this catwalk:

http://www.juule.nl/

http://homelifestyle01.blogspot.com/

http://www.eljardindelosmuffins.com/

http://www.wonenmetlef.nl/

http://www.feestig-webwinkel.nl/

http://www.ambiente-decoraties.nl/

 

What an excitement, only one more night, one more sleep & we all will know who will be the lucky one to win this enormous package!

Tomorrow at noon (CET +1) the winner of the SFGA will be announced here, here and here.

Make sure to check back tomorrow!!

Who knows...

Sleep well...

...And more sponsors of the SFGA

The first 8 sponsors you can see here but now it's time for the next part. Another 9 sponsors that made this Super Fall Give Away really SUPER!!

On the catwalk:

http://www.tierlantijn.net/

 

 

http://www.verrassendgoed.nl/

 

http://www.countryathome.nl/

http://www.pieternels.nl/

 

http://www.silinbrasil.nl/

 

http://www.dagmar-design.nl/

 

http://www.bellabosso.nl/

 

 

http://www.indenuylenbal.nl/

 

 

http://www.zinkenzo.nl/

 

Tomorrow the last part of the sponsorlist...

And don't forget, there is still time to join the SFGA,

just click here and you will read what you need to do.

 

Who wants to miss the fabulous surprise package??

I thought so... ;)

 

See you tomorrow for the rest of the sponsors!!

Have a wonderful Friday & embrace the sunny fall!