Sweet Tooth

Have you had any sweet treats this week?

The last two weeks I have been super into having a warm bowl of oatmeal with a good dash of cinnamon, a teaspoon of vanilla scented sugar, a tablespoon of chia seeds, and lots of apple chunks for breakfast. Are you an oatmeal person? How do you eat it? The fiance eats his oatmeal uncooked with some cold milk and sugar sprinkled on top. There are so many recipes and ideas online for ways to have oatmeal in the morning but I like to stick to my usual combo.

Remember how I mentioned having a scone at Strangas last Sunday when I was there for a macaron course? Well, I've still been dreaming of scones. A warm blueberry lemon scone would be perfect for this sunny spring day!

We received a Smartbox for a sweet treat this week from some friends of ours. Since the gift card was expiring this weekend, we had to use it! There are several places you can choose to redeem your gift card at. For example, you can have cake and macarons at Strangas, you can have cupcakes at Serenity in the city, or you could try a mix of baked treats and meringues from Dessertdragen. Since I've already tried most things at Strangas, the fiance and I decided to order a box of treats from Dessertdragen. I was pleasantly surprised by how delicious their berry tarts, brownies, and shortbread cookies were. Their meringues though were by far my favorite. They were amazing! They tasted like chocolate chip cookie dough in a meringue form. I'm already thinking about how I can recreate them at home! By the way, we didn't eat everything in one sitting, we actually spread all of the treats out over three nights!

Another day, another ice cream. My friend S and I went to Social Food in Frederiksberg yesterday for some ice cream. Wow. Their vanilla bean ice cream was phenomenal! Seriously. I normally try to taste more "exciting" flavors when I have ice cream out, but this vanilla bean ice cream just looked too good to resist.

And now it is the weekend! Any sweet plans for this last weekend in March?

Bridesmaid Looks

Another wedding post coming your way today! What do you think about mix and match bridesmaid's outfits? 

I will be having my two younger sisters and my best friend in Norway as my bridesmaids at the fiance's and I's wedding this July. I was in a friend's wedding a few years ago and we all wore the same everything. The same dress, the same shoes, the same jewelry. The dress and the shoes I wore in my friend's wedding were nice, but I haven't worn them again. They weren't really my style but I was happy to wear them for my friend at her wedding. 

I like the idea of having my bridesmaids' different personalities and styles come through. And I really want them to wear something that they themselves like and would wear again. So! I've told my sisters and my best friend that they can pick any dress that they want. I did give them a few guidelines though. I would like for them to wear a dress that is soft and flowy, something that is in the baby pink/cream/light peach range, and something that is around knee length. So they do have some things in common, I have requested that the three of them wear nude shoes. 

Have you been a bridesmaid before? What was your experience? And if you are a bride, what are your ideas for your bridesmaids? Are you having them all in the same look or are you doing the mix and match thing too?

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Making Macarons at Strangas

I've attempted making macarons at home three times and every time the macaron shells have either been hollow, or they haven't developed feet, or they've just plain stuck to my baking paper and crumbled when I tried to take them off. I love eating macarons but they are definitely not easy to make!


My future mother-in-law remembered that I had mentioned that Strangas offers a macaron course, and so for Christmas my future in-laws gifted me with the opportunity to take one of Nikolaos' macaron classes! Yesterday morning I, along with seven other participants, spent four hours in the dessert boutique learning how to make macarons using Strangas' own recipe.

We started the class off with some of his amazing scones and some coffee. (If you haven't tried his banana seabuckthorn jam, you really need to. It's delicious!) Then we paired off and started making two types of macarons. One with a dark chocolate ganache filling, and the other was filled with a raspberry chocolate ganache. We dived in and made the ganache first before starting the macaron shells. All along the way, Strangas guided us and helped us through the different steps.

I really enjoyed the class and how hands on it was. Rather than just watching Nikolaos make the macarons, we did everything on our own with him stepping in from time to time. He also went over the different types of chocolate you can use in a ganache. He gave us three different Valhrona chocolates to sample and talked to us about the differences in flavor and richness with each one. Making perfect macaron shells takes a lot of precision, and we learnt what to be careful of and how different steps in the process can cause mistakes and potentially ruin our macarons. I'm just hoping that I can replicate the macarons we made today at home!

Have you made macarons before? Do you have any tips to making the perfect macaron shells? And what do you like to fill them with? Strangas almost only uses ganaches, but I've also filled mine with lemon curd and vanilla bean buttercream.

If you would like to learn how to make macarons in Copenhagen, I can definitely recommend taking the class at Strangas. But then again, I always recommend everything I have from there! And now I am off to eat another macaron! Have a great Monday!

Cinnamon Buns, Again

I jumped off the gluten free train this weekend when the fiance asked if I could make him some cinnamon buns. There are just a few gluten filled things that I can't resist. One being pizza and the second being Swedish pastries. I haven't noticed any changes in some of my symptoms which I thought could be from eating gluten but I still plan on sticking to this "diet", just with a few exceptions.

Back to the buns, I always turn to Linda Lomelino from Call Me Cupcake when I want to bake Swedish treats. She has two wonderful blogs and she always provides recipes in both Swedish and English. I have made cinnamon buns following her recipe before, but this weekend I noticed that she had a new and improved version on her blog. Of course I went for the new recipe and I can definitely say that this new recipe is so much better than the old one. The texture of the dough after I kneaded it was amazing, it felt like a soft pillow. And after baking in the oven, the buns were soft and doughy with a bit of chew. Plus these cinnamon buns are packed with cardamom, only like the best spice ever. So here we go, cinnamon buns take two!

Cinnamon Buns (from Call Me Cupcake)
Makes 30 to 40 buns, depending on the size you make them

For the Buns
150g butter, softened
100 ml sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp freshly ground cardamom
500 ml milk
50g fresh yeast
840g flour

For the Filling
175g butter, softened
100 ml sugar
2 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp freshly ground cardamom
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Egg Wash
1 egg, lightly beaten
Pearl sugar, chopped almonds, or granulated sugar

To make the dough for the buns, start by creaming together the butter, sugar, salt and cardamom until smooth in a large bowl.

Heat the milk in a small saucepan over low-medium heat until it reaches about 37 degrees celsius. Crumble the fresh yeast in another bowl and pour the warm milk over it. Stir until the yeast is completely dissolved before adding it to the butter mixture.

Gradually add the flour into the wet mixture and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic feeling. Cover the bowl with a cloth or a lid and leave it to rise until it doubles in size, about 45 minutes to an hour.

While the dough is rising, mix the filling ingredients together and set aside.

When the dough is ready, divide it into two. Start by rolling out the first ball of dough into a large rectangle, about 40 x 50 cm. Spread half of the cinnamon filling over the rectangle.

To make knotted cinnamon buns, fold the rectangular dough up like a business letter so that you will get 3 layers of dough. I folded a third of the top part of the rectangle down and then folded the bottom third up.

Cut out strips of dough, about 2cm wide, and then cut each strip lengthwise leaving the top part uncut. (It should look like a pair of pants!) Twist the dough into a knot and place on a tray lined with parchment paper. Repeat these last few steps until you have used up all your dough.

Cover your cinnamon knots with a cloth towel and leave the buns to rise for another 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 250C or 480F. Brush each bun with some egg wash and sprinkle some sugar on top if you'd like. Bake for 8 minutes (or a few minutes longer if your buns are larger, but I have not had problems with 8 minutes). The cinnamon buns are best the day they are made, but you can always freeze them once they have cooled. Our freezer is stocked with frozen cinnamon buns right now!

Loved

I have been feeling lots of love the last few weeks.

First of all, I've been cuddling my friend S's sweet new baby a few days the last week. Did you know that baby hiccups are really cute? Well, let me tell you, they are.

Over the last few weeks I've also been getting messages from friends from different parts of my life, whether it be from my exchange to Hong Kong, from my studies in Lund, or old family friends, telling me and the fiance that they have booked tickets to come to our wedding. How awesome is that? Copenhagen is quite a ways away from New York, Toronto, Vancouver, and Melbourne. I'm so happy and so thankful that we have such amazing friends who want to celebrate our wedding with us and I'm so looking forward to getting married and having one big friend reunion. Seriously, so excited to see all of my friends together, in one place. It's going to be the best.

The fiance has also been super sweet and has planned a two day trip to Aarhus for us in April right before Easter. He's been wanting to show me different parts of Denmark and I'm excited to see the other side of the country. Living in Scandinavia the past few years I've been more interested in traveling to other cities in Europe than exploring the countries that I've been living in myself. I've heard that Aarhus is a lovely city and it'll be fun to go on a mini getaway!

How have you been lately?

Industrial Cool

Scenes from yesterday. The fiance, his parents and I went for a walk in the Holmen/Refshaleøen part of Copenhagen yesterday afternoon. The sun was out, the streets we walked down were quiet and I loved walking between all the different, old and abandoned buildings out by these former shipyards. We also took a walk to the beach on Amager while we were at a friend's place for dinner. The fiance used to live a 10 minute walk from the beach so we would go there a couple of times during the summer for dips in the sea but now that we live in a different neighborhood we don't visit the beach as much.

It's nice to get "out" of the city sometimes and explore some of the quieter parts of Copenhagen. 

Lately

Some things I (and the fiance) have been enjoying recently.

Fish tacos. We made these last Friday and seriously, they have been better than any other taco we have made at home. We made a delicious white sauce to go with our tacos and made a habanero salsa to really spice things up. (I am not really a fan of these crunchy tacos but they are gluten free. I am thinking about making my own corn tortillas though! Has anyone tried it?)

Saturday night coffee dates. We didn't have plans a few weekends ago and rather than going out for cocktail we went for coffee in the neighborhood. It's so nice that some cafes in the city are staying open later these days.

We borrowed the fiance's parents juicer and we've been juicing the last two weeks. Carrots, beets, apples, blood oranges, lemons, ginger, cucumbers, pears, basically anything we have sitting in our fridge we've juiced. Yum. We've also been mixing some chia seeds in our juices for an extra health kick.

Also loving simple and easy to make dinners that are healthy and delicious. The other night we just chopped up some veggies and threw it into a baking tray with some salmon filets we were having and just baked and roasted everything in the oven. Sometimes not having to stand at the stove for like an hour is really nice. Plus roasted vegetables are amazing.

I have also been listening to a lot of Birdy recently, I've been replaying her song Heart of Gold a lot. Give her a spin?

What have you been into lately?

Invitation Inspiration

There are so many gorgeous wedding invitations out there today. From independent designers on Etsy to companies and brands like Rifle Paper Co. and Minted, there are a lot of beautiful designs to choose from. The fiance and I are currently finishing the wording and layouts for our wedding invitations. A really sweet friend gave us the images and layouts for parts of our invitation suites and I absolutely love them and am so grateful we get to use them. I'll wait to share our invitations with you after the wedding but here are some other lovely invitations that I have come across!

What is your invitation style? I feel like I like a lot of different things. I love calligraphy and the handwritten look, I love all things floral (I have like five Rifle Paper Co. floral notebooks lying around the apartment), but at the same time I really like the simple yet fun look of invitation suite number two that I shared on here. Have you designed your own invitations? Did you DIY your invitations? Or have you found the perfect template from places like Minted? I would love to hear about your invitation experiences!

I am really looking forward to getting our invitations printed and sending them out. There is only four and a half months left until the big day!

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