26

I celebrated my 26th birthday this past week. My birthday was on the 1st so we invited some of our closest friends here over for some cake and bubbles. I made my favorite devil's food chocolate cake filled with a white chocolate raspberry ganache and topped it with my favorite chocolate cloud frosting. There were macarons and cookies too! (By the way, macaron success! I tried making macarons for the first time following Strangas' recipe and they turned out great!) It was a super low key get together on Sunday afternoon. I just wanted to see everyone and have lots of sweets for everyone to enjoy! The husband and I also had dinner at Kødbyens Fiskebar that night as our own little birthday date. I'll have to post about that separately, but oh my goodness, amazing dishes! Seriously, I love seafood and they take it to a whole other level.

We also celebrated with the in-laws on Monday, the actual day of my birthday. I also got a bouquet of flowers at work which was a nice surprise! For dinner we had some more seafood, surprise surprise! We made this scallop and pea starter and had a more Chinese style baked cod dish for dinner (side note, I follow the recipe for the fish and ingredients but cook the veggies separately and instead of baking it with the fish).

It was a great birthday spent with my closest friends and family here in Copenhagen and I got spoiled by everyone and all their gifts! After a busy week, we've got an even busier weekend! Have a great one everyone!

Birthday Weekend

We celebrated the fiance's birthday on Saturday! There were balloons, a pavlova cake, and presents of course! We spent the afternoon with some friends before having dinner with his family at Barbie and then coming back to our place for cake.

The fiance loved his birthday cake so I thought I would share the recipe with you! The pavlova is almost the same as my chocolate almond meringue recipe, just with a little extra thrown in!

Chocolate Almond Raspberry Pavlova Cake (slightly adapted from Nigella)
Makes one 9-inch, 2 layer cake

6 large egg whites, at room temperature
300 g granulated sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
50 g dark chocolate, finely chopped (I used 80% cacao)
50 g almonds, coarsely chopped

400 ml heavy cream
200 g skyr or greek yogurt
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
500 g raspberries, washed and dried
50 g dark chocolate, finely chopped

Preheat the oven to 180C or 350F. On a piece of parchment paper and with a pencil, trace the bottom of a 8-inch cake pan twice for your two pavlova layers. Leave some space between the two circles if possible because the pavlovas will expand in the oven. Turn the parchment paper over so that the pencil marks will not touch the meringue mixture later.

Beat the eggs on high with a mixer until you reach soft peaks. Add the vanilla extract, gradually add the sugar, and continue to beat until the meringue is stiff and shiny. You should be able to turn the mixing bowl over with anything spilling out. Sift the cocoa powder over the meringue and throw in the balsamic vinegar, the chopped dark chocolate and almonds. Gently fold everything into the meringue.

Divide the meringue mixture into two and spread it out on the baking tray over the two circles you have drawn. Place the baking sheet into the center of the oven and immediately turn the heat down o 150C or 300F and bake the meringues for 1 hour and 15 minutes. When it is ready, the meringue should look crisp around the edges, dry on top but still marshmallowy in the center when you touch it. Let the meringue cool in the oven, with the oven door left slightly open. You can store the pavlovas in an airtight container for a day or two before serving.

When you are ready to serve the cake, beat the heavy cream until you reach soft peaks. Add the tablespoon of sugar and vanilla extract and beat again until you have whipped cream. Fold the skyr into the cream. Place one pavlova on a large plate or cake stand and spread half of the cream on top of it. Place half or your raspberries on top of this first layer before stacking the second pavlova on top. Spread the rest of the cream over top and add the remaining raspberries. Garnish with some more chocolate and serve immediately. If you are in Denmark or celebrating a birthday, top the cake with some little flags and a candle!

Birthday in Photos + A Crepe Cake Recipe

From cocktails on Saturday evening to brunch on Sunday morning, my birthday weekend was wonderful. It was full of yummy drinks, a crepe cake, macaroni and cheese, and most of all I got to spend it with my favorite people here.

Instead of serving a cake at brunch, I made a crepe cake! It was delicious and I can't wait to make it again. I've been wanting to make this berry filled crepe cake after seeing this recipe on Pastry Affair. I use a different crepe recipe normally but I thought I would just follow the recipe on Pastry Affair. Unfortunately, the buttermilk pancake/crepe recipe just didn't work for me. The batter was thick on the pan and it didn't cook properly. It was difficult to flip and the texture just seemed off. So I threw out that batter and turned to my usual crepe recipe instead. After my crepe crisis, everything turned out beautifully! I absolutely loved the addition of skyr to the whipped cream. It gave it more body and the cream held nicely in the cake. Yum!

Crepe Cake with Forest Berries and Cream (adapted from A Tasty Love Story's recipe on Pastry Affair and Cakies)
Enough cake for about 8 people

Crepes (slightly adapted from Sweet and Savory Tooth)

Makes about 10 large crepes

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/3 cup water

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 tbsp sugar (I used homemade vanilla sugar)

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp butter, melted

With a blender or with a whisk, blend or mix all the ingredients until smooth. The batter should be the thickness of heavy cream. 

Heat a non-stick pan or skillet on medium high heat until hot and grease the pan with a little bit of butter. Take the pan away from the stove top and pour in about 1/3 cup of batter. Tilt and rotate the pan so that the batter coats the surface. Cook until almost dry on top and lightly browned on the edges, about 1 minute. Loosen the edges with a spatula and flip the crepe over. Cook the other side for another 30 seconds or so until it is lightly browned. Place the crepe on a plate to cool. Continue with the rest of the batter remembering to grease the pan after each crepe. (I placed a sheet of baking paper between each crepe to ensure that they wouldn't stick together.) Allow the crepes to completely cool on the counter or in the fridge before putting your crepe cake together.

Berry Compote

2 1/2 cups (300g) mixed forest berries (blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, red currants, etc.), fresh or frozen

2 tbsp sugar (I used homemade vanilla sugar)

Place the berries in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the sugar and gently mash the berries with a potato masher. Allow the berry sauce to simmer for 8 to 10 minutes, until it is not runny but also not as thick as jam. Fully cool before using. This can be made a day or two in advance and stored in an airtight container in the fridge.

Topping and Layers

1 cup heavy cream

1 cup greek yogurt or skyr

2 tbsp sugar

fresh berries (I used strawberries and pomegranate seeds)

Whip the heavy cream and when it starts to thicken up, add the sugar. Continue to whip the cream until you get soft peaks. Gently fold in the skyr or whipped cream. 

Assembling the Cake

Place a crepe on a plate or a cake stand. Add a layer of cream or the berry compote or both and top with another crepe. Continue with this until you reach the last crepe. Top with the rest of the cream and pile some fresh berries on top and voila! 

I know this crepe cake sounds like a lot of work, but it is really tasty, perfect for brunch, and it is a great alternative to a birthday cake! What do you think? 

Clay Ornaments

I made some clay ornaments that doubled as birthday favors for my birthday brunch as well as christmas decorations for my friends who celebrated with me. This was a really simple DIY/craft that you can do in under an hour. You can paint them, use a sharpie or something to draw or write on them, or you can form them into different shapes with your hands. Go crazy and experiment and try jazzing them up! I liked the light white color so I left mine really simple. To go with the holiday theme I used a dala horse, moose, star, and heart cookie cutters. I borrowed a set of doily stamps from a sweet friend and used that for some texture and pattern and I also stamped all of my friends' names onto the ornaments as well with a tiny alphabet stamp set I received from my sister.

What you will need is: air dry clay (I got mine at Panduro), some cookie cutters, and different stamps or things to stamp the clay with to give it some pattern and texture

Roll out the clay to your desired thickness. Stamp the clay with different designs and patterns before cutting the clay with your cookie cutters. Carefully remove the clay from the cookie cutter and poke a hole around the center of the ornament with something sharp and round (a straw or a skewer would work). Place clay ornaments on some baking paper and let it dry. It takes about 2 to 3 days for the ornaments to fully dry but check with the brand of your clay and how thick your ornaments are. To finish, place some string or ribbon through the holes in your ornaments and that's it! 

Now that my birthday has come and gone, we can really start bringing Christmas into the apartment!

Birthday Weekend

I am turning 25 on Sunday and I don't really know how I feel about that ha! I am not exactly happy about getting older but I am really happy about where I am now. I am so incredibly thankful for my family who continues to support me in every way while we are thousands of miles apart. I wouldn't have been able to pursue my Master's or be able to live here in Copenhagen if it weren't for my parents. The older you get, the more you realize how great your parents and siblings are. The things you don't realize when you are a teenager! Some things just come with age?! Sometimes I'm like "I'm not actually that old"! I always thought I would already have worked for a few years at 25 but then again, I just finished school a year and a half ago so I'm not so far behind. I did always hope to get married at 25 and well, that's happening! So I'm partially on track with where I had envisioned myself a few years ago.

So, birthday weekend! The fiance and I invited a few of his good friends over for some cocktails, cake, and Citadels tonight. We're going to have a cake that he is baking! It was one of my birthday wishes and I'm really looking forward to it! And then on Sunday morning, the day of my actual birthday, we've invited a few of my girlfriends over for brunch. There will be champagne, fresh bread, my spiced pear and pomegranate fruit salad, a frittata, bacon, potatoes, and a crepe cake! I've been running around to three different grocery stores the last few days and I still need to pick up some things later today in the city, birthdays are a lot of work! But I am really looking forward to everything, I mean I woke up today at 6am all excited! For today, I'll enjoy my last day of being 24!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Photo credits: candles

Send Your Friends Some Glitter

I really like making and personalizing cards for my friends' birthdays, valentine's, and just little notes to say hi. I bought a Sakura Quickie Glue pen a long time ago and haven't gotten to use it until now. There are sales going on everywhere in the city right now and while I was at Panduro, I found this pack of glitter for 18kr. Since it is one of our friends' birthday tomorrow, it was the perfect time to create a sparkly birthday card.

All you need is some card stock, a glue pen, and glitter in whatever colors you like. Since I was creating a birthday card, I drew some balloons. I did one balloon at a time as the glue dries quite quickly. Draw the outline of the balloon with the glue pen and fill it in. Right after that pour a decent amount of glitter over it. Wait a few seconds and tap the card a few times over some scrap paper so the excess glitter falls off.

I'm really loving the sparkle of these cards and I have a feeling I will be glittering some more cards in the next little while. I'm also surprised at how strong the glue on these glue pens are. Who would have thought!

Everything Under the Sun

It was the boyfriend's birthday on Friday! We made two gateau marcel's for him to take to work and share with his colleagues. When he came home in the afternoon we went for coffee on Gammel Kongevej. After coffee we had dinner with his family at Sticks'n'Sushi and they came over afterwards for some coffee and profiteroles and the boyfriend opened his presents. It was a really relaxing and cozy evening. 

Yesterday afternoon we biked to the opera house to watch the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series here in the harbor with some friends. It was amazing to watch all of the divers free fall, do twists and flips from the roof of the opera house and dive into the water. 

Earlier this week my classmate posted a link to a new dessert and cocktail bar that just opened in the city. The bar is called Candeur and it is located at Ny Adelgade 4. The boyfriend and I went there with three of his friends and I had a great banana cake topped with banana chips and served with chocolate ice cream as well as a refreshing lemonade. The boys had some cocktails and everyone really liked the idea of going out after having dinner at home or a restaurant, and having desserts and cocktails later in the evening at a different place. Plus they had really awesome service. We will definitely be going there again.

I wanted to bake something this morning and I asked the boyfriend what he felt like and he said scones. Luckily, we had everything we needed in the fridge already so scones were made! I have a go-to recipe for lemon blueberry scones but I thought I would try a new one today so I went with this recipe from Pastry Affair. They are not very sweet which I like but I found them a bit dry. So next time I make lemon blueberry scones, I think I will stick to this recipe from Baking Bites that I've used several times but maybe decrease the lemon juice in the dough a little bit because it can get quite wet. Now that I've been writing about them I feel like having another one! 

And that has been our weekend so far! I can't believe we are in the last week of June already. What have you got planned for the summer? What are you looking forward to doing? 

24

I tend to forget how old I am. Each year seems to go by so quick these days that I've found myself telling people that for example I am 22, when really I am 23. And well, since it was my birthday this last Saturday, I know for sure that I am 24 now. But ask me again in a few months and I'll be like "I'm 23, oh wait, what year is it? Ah! No, actually I'm 24".

One of my best birthdays was the year I turned 20 while I was on exchange in Hong Kong. I invited my closest friends to our favorite Mexican place for dinner and that was it. I didn't have a big party or anything, but it was just super special because I had made some amazing friends in a few short months and we were living in a really awesome city having the best time together.

This year definitely makes the list of best birthdays. I was sick half of last week but by Friday morning I was feeling a lot better and baked the whole day to prepare for a cozy little party. I invited some friends I've made through the boyfriend and one of my good friends from my master's program came as well.  It wasn't very many people but it was just super nice and hyggeligt. I decorated with some white paper roses and some white crepe paper garlands. For the party I made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate peppermint frosting (substitute peppermint extract for vanilla extract from this recipe), chocolate chunk cookies, lemon almond meringues, and some danish snowballs. The boyfriend and I set up a little bar in the kitchen for people to mix their own mojitos and gin tonics or whatever they could come up with what we had on hand. All our friends were super thoughtful as well and got me some really wonderful gifts. I now have many (many, many!) cupcake liners, a cupcake/dessert stand, some delicious hot chocolate sticks, and some new perfume. I really liked having only a handful of guests as then everyone could talk to one another within the group instead of having 3 or 4 different groups split up in different parts of the apartment. And as not all of the guests are friends with each other, it was nice to have everyone get to know one another.

My birthday was on Saturday, December 1st. And most of the day was just spent with the boyfriend. It was a super relaxing day with just the two of us. First, he surprised me with a new camera for my birthday present. He knew that my old Lumix had a few scratches on the lenses which were really noticeable on some of the pictures I took so he got me a new Canon Ixus! He also wrapped my present in some of my favorite paper from Bungalow. He's pretty wonderful. And then on Saturday morning, I thought it would be really nice to go to the kurbad/spa at the local swimming pool. As I was still coughing and had a sore throat and what not, I thought going to the steam room would help with my congestion. We spent a few hours at the kurbad and used everything from the dead sea pool to the eucalyptus steam room to their winter sun lamps. We went out for lunch after the pool and then spent the afternoon doing some painting at the ceramic studio in our area. We were working on some Christmas presents so I don't think I can put up any pictures of that yet! The boyfriend's work was throwing a big party later that night so we had sushi take out for dinner and spent the early part of the evening getting ready for the party. The boyfriend's work party was held mostly for their 10 year birthday but also for Christmas. Some of Denmark's socialites were there as well and I got to see the former princess, now the Countess, again for the second time in the last few weeks (she was also at the boyfriend's graduation ceremony a few weeks ago. I want to speak Danish like her one day!). It was a great party and it was a lot of fun to dress up and go out in the city.

I had a really awesome birthday weekend and I'm really looking forward to this year of being 24! A big, big, big thank you to my friends all around the world who thought of me on my birthday! The messages, cards, and presents from everyone is so incredibly sweet and reminds me of how great and amazing my friends are!

MT Love

It is no secret to my friends and family that I L O V E masking tape (MT)/washi tape. Whenever someone tells me "I got you a present", my first response is, "Is it tape?!". I bought my first rolls of this wonderful tape last summer and have been adding to my collection ever since. Really, this is just colorful masking tape but you can use it in so many ways. Check out my MT Love board on Pinterest for some ideas as to how you can use tape!

I use MT a lot for making and decorating cards and envelopes. I made a birthday card last night and an everyday card to send to some friends in the next few months. The birthday cake is inspired by Omiyage. I have made a cupcake card and a few birthday cake cards now and it is such an easy way to send someone a handmade and personalized card. With the "du har det dejligste smil i verden" (you have the prettiest smile in the world) card, I just cut the quote out from a free postcard you can find all around Copenhagen and used layers of tape to attach it to the white cardstock I have. Easy peasy.

The boyfriend and I are also currently on the hunt for some photographs or nice prints to place in some new picture frames we bought to hang in the apartment and as we don't have anything right now, this will have to do for the next little while!

Go out and get some mt tape and see what you can do with it! And if you have a growing tape collection like me, I'd love to hear how you use it and any ideas or suggestions you may have!

Have a lovely weekend!