Peanut Butter Choc Chip Shortbread

 These are another great Pinterest find! This recipe comes from the blog 'The view from the Great Island'. If you are American then click the link to see the recipe. If you use European measures then here it is converted:

113g butter
250g peanut butter
188g flour
31g icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp sea salt
120g chocolate chips

Cream the butter and peanut butter until smooth and then add in the vanilla.
In another bowl mix together all the dry ingredients except the choc chips.
Add the dry to the wet and mix until it becomes a dough. I used my hands for this bit!
Add the choc chips and knead the dough until they are all mixed in.
Put the dought onto a sheet of greasproof paper and make it into a log shape. Wrap the dough in the paper, twist the ends to close them and leave in the fridge for at least 15mins.
Take the wrapped log out of the fridge and cut it into discs about 1cm thick. Place them on a baking sheet and bake at 160C for 12-14mins.
Let them cool on the sheet for 5mins before transferring them to a wire rack.

Beware - they are very addictive! I won't tell you how many I've eaten today. I will have to give the rest away as my husband doesn't like peanuts and I really shouldn't eat any more!

Thanks again to 'The view from the Great Island' for sharing such a great recipe!

Raspberry Smores Cheesecake Recipe

 It worked this time! So here's the recipe as promised.

Pie Crust:
185g biscuit crumbs
70g melted butter
55g sugar
a pinch of salt

Add the biscuit crumbs to the melted butter and stir until the crumbs are coated in the butter. Add the sugar and salt and mix well.

Press this mixture into a 24cm flan tin and refrigerate for 45mins.

 Interesting Fact: Biscuit crumbs with milk is popular for breakfast here in Bosnia and Herzegovina so you can buy them ready made - there's no need to buy biscuits and smash them for recipes like this!

 Cheesecake Mixture:
250g chocolate cream cheese
1 egg
50g sugar
2 tbsp sour cream
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
40g melted marshmallows
120g raspberries

 Chocolate Cream Cheese - another local ingredient!

Instructions:
Whisk the cream cheese to get some air into it. Add the egg and keep whisking. Add the sugar, sour cream and vanilla and mix well. Add the raspberries and stir them into the mixture. Melt the marshmallows and then pour them into the mixture and stir well.

Pour the mixture into the flan case and bake for 20-25mins at 180C

Leave to cool on a wire rack. When cool, refrigerate for 1 hour and then serve and enjoy :)

Apple and Cinnamon Doughnuts with Maple Syrup Glaze

I made these at the weekend as we had a guest who has given up eating chocolate for lent and so I needed to find something yummy but un-chocolatey to make. I found the recipe for the doughnuts at peaceloveandfrenchfries.com and the glaze I just made up. I changed the recipe a bit to fit with ingredients we have available here and I changed it to European measures.

Ingredients

Doughnuts:
340g apple sauce
1 egg
1 tbsp sunflower oil
100g brown sugar
280g all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp cinnamon

Glaze:
6tbsp maple syrup
250g icing sugar

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 200C and thoroughly grease your doughnut pan.
In a large bowl mix together the apple sauce, egg, oil and sugar.
In another bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon.
Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well.
Add the vanilla essence and mix well.
Pour the mixture into the doughnut pan making sure each doughnut hole is filled to no more than half way.
Put them in the oven on the middle shelf for about 8mins or until they have risen and are springy to the touch.
Remove them from the oven and leave them to cool on a wire rack.
This should make around 24 doughnuts.

When the doughnuts have cooled mix together the maple syrup and icing sugar until it is thoroughly combined and then spread the glaze onto the doughnuts.

Enjoy :)

Raspberry Cheesecake Flapjacks

Cream cheese is currently my favourite ingredient. I love the combination of cheese and sweet, of cheese and cake. A while ago we were in a restaurant which offered for dessert 'cheesecake of the day'. We asked the waiter which cheesecake they were offering . He was foreign and perhaps the concept of cheesecake was foreign to him because his answer was, 'it's a cheese and a cake!'. Even after we asked him a few times, trying out different wordings of the question, he still kept saying, 'it's a cheese and a cake!' We ordered it anyway and it turned out to be a very good honeycomb cheesecake.

Last night I made these Raspberry Cheesecake Flapjacks. It's an idea I've been mulling over in my mind for a few days and last night the idea made it into reality. Once again I think the combination of cheese and cake makes these a very yummy, possibly kind of healthyish snack.

Raspberry Cheesecake Filling:
125g low fat cream cheese
100g raspberries
100g icing sugar
1tsp vanilla essence
1/2 a vanilla bean.

Flapjacks:
100g yoghurt butter (you can use normal butter, this is just lower fat)
100g brown sugar
300g oats
3 tbsp maple syrup
1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 190C and line a brownie tin with baking paper.
In a large bowl mix together the cream cheese and icing sugar. Add the vanilla essence and vanilla bean seeds and mix well. Add the raspberries and mix until you have a deep pink creamy mixture.
In a saucepan melt the butter and sugar until they are combined. Take the pan off the heat and add the maple syrup and vanilla essence and mix well. Add the oats and mix until they are totally coated in the syrupy mixture.
Pour half the flapjack mixture into the cake tin and press down so it is evenly spread across the whole tin.
Pour the raspberry mixture over it and spread it out so it is evenly spread across the whole tin.
Add the rest of the flapjack mixture on top. Press it down lightly so it spreads evenly across the whole tin, but doesn't sink into the raspberry mixture.
Place it in the oven on the middle shelf and cook for 20mins.
Leave to cool.
When completely cold, cut into squares.

Another happy customer!

 This little bunny found it's way to it's owner today. It's always nice to receive positive feedback from customers.

 He always travels prepared, with a carrot in his bag. If you'd like to have a go at making a little carrot yourself then click here to go to my tutorial.

Chocolate and Cinnamon Doughnuts

A couple of months ago I saw a doughnut baking pan in the random everything shop across the road. I didn't buy it, but I did start thinking about making doughnuts. Recently I've seen a lot of lovely looking baked doughnuts on Pinterest and on Thursday we were out shopping and I bough the pan. This morning I read a lot of different baked doughnut recipes and with a bit of mix and match, came up with my own recipe. The main recipes I learned from were this one by Lara Ferroni and this one by loveveggiesandyoga.com.

My recipe goes like this:

Doughnuts - makes 12
100g flour
40g cocoa
80g sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
30g sour cream
60g natural yoghurt
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
14g butter, melted.

Grease your doughnut pan thoroughly and preheat the oven to 180C.

In a large bowl mix the flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt until it is all combined.
Then add the sour cream, yoghurt, egg, vanilla and butter and mix well. At first I thought I would need to add more liquid, but persevere with the mixing and it will come good! It should end up looking like this:

Then you need to put the mixture into the pan. Most of the recipes I read recommended using a piping bag so you get a nice neat circle of dough in each space in the tin. I don't have on so I just used a spoon. You need to fill each space between 1/2 and 2/3 full. If you overfill the hole will disappear when the dough rises.

Put the pan into the oven on the middle shelf and bake for 6-8 minutes. If the dough springs back when pressed, they are done. I was really surprised by how quickly they were ready. They only took 6mins in my oven.

Loosen them round the edges with a knife and then pop them out and leave them to cool on a wire rack. Whilst they are cooling it's time to make the glaze.

Vanilla Glaze
120g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
5 tsp milk
sugar sprinkles

Add the vanilla to the icing sugar and then add the milk a teaspoon at a time, mixing constantly. When the glaze is liquid enough to drip off a spoon, drip it onto the doughnuts. Beware - this can be very messy! When you have iced all the doughnuts pour sugar sprinkles over them. Leave them for a while so that the icing can set.

And then eat and enjoy!

Lemon and Poppy Seed Muffins with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

This is another great recipe I found on Pinterest. You can read all about it here on joyofthebaker.com. I have converted the recipe into European measures, so if you're American and reading this then make sure you click the link above to find the recipe in your language!
The texture of the muffins is amazing - firm and moist all at the same time. I decided, rather than make a glaze for these muffins as is suggested in the original recipe, that I would make lemon cream cheese frosting. It worked very well! So here is the recipe...


Muffins:
150g sugar

zest and juice of 1 lemon
250g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
170g sour cream
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
113g butter, melted until browned and cooled
2 Tablespoons poppy seeds
2 Tablespoons granulated sugar (for topping the batter before baking)

Preheat the oven to 200C.  Line a 12 holed muffin tray with paper muffin cases.

In a large bowl, rub the sugar and lemon zest together until the sugar is slightly yellow and sented with lemon.  Add in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and mix. In another bowl whisk together the eggs, sour cream, vanilla, melted butter and lemon juice.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix. Add the poppy seeds and mix well.  Spoon the batter into the muffin cases and sprinkle a little bit of sugar on the top of each one.

Place the muffin tin on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until the tops are golden. Put a cocktail stick into the middle of a few of the muffins. If it comes out clean they are done. Let them cool in the pan for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting:

100g cream cheese

60g butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
zest of half a lemon
375g icing sugar

In a bowl mix the butter and cream cheese until they are fully combined. Add the vanilla and lemon and mix well. Add in the icing sugar little by little, mixing constantly, until you have a stiff and creamy texture. Frost the muffins, and then take a bite!

Enjoy :)

Red Velvet Brownies with Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting

We've been back home in Bosnia and Herzegovina for 5 days now. It's cold and there's lots of snow. Everything looks beautiful but whilst we were away the pipes froze in our house which means we have no water except in the kitchen. As well as the pipes freezing, the water in the toilet froze and cracked the toilet bowl! All of this means that for the last 5 days and probably for at least the next 5 days we have no toilet and no shower. At first it was kinda fun, but now as there is no sign of a thaw coming the reality of it is annoying. To make up for the annoying-ness I decided it was time to do some baking. 


Red Velvet Brownies with Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting:
The recipe for the brownies I got from smells-like-home.com Here it is converted into European measures:


3 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp red food colouring
2 tsp vanilla extract, divided
113g unsalted butter at room temperature
340g granulated sugar
2 large eggs
160g all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt


Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Line a 20cm x 20cm tin with baking paper.
In a small bowl, stir together cocoa powder, food colouring and 1 tsp vanilla to make a thick paste and leave to one side.
In another bowl cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then add the eggs, one at a time and keep mixing. Add the remaining 1 tsp vanilla and mix.
Now add the cocoa paste and mix until the mixture is one uniform colour - red!
Slowly add the flour and salt, mixing until everything is combined.
It should look like this:

Pour the batter into the already prepared tin and cook for 30-40mins, until a toothpick stuck into the middle comes out clean.


Leave to cool in the pan for 30mins. Take them out of the pan and add the frosting, then cut into squares as desired.


I got the recipe for the Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting from chaosinthekitchen.com. I halved their amounts and converted it to European measures:


100g cream cheese
60g butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 vanilla bean pod
375g icing sugar


Slit open the vanilla bean with a sharp knife and use the tip of the knife to scrape out half the paste.
Beat the butter and cream cheese together in a bowl until they are combined.
Add the vanilla pod paste and the vanilla extract and mix well.
Add the icing sugar slowly and keep mixing until you have the consistency you like for frosting. It should end up looking something like this:

How to make a scarf from an old t-shirt

This is another tutorial from makeit-loveit.com found via Pinterest. I didn't follow the tutorial exactly as I made my scarf from an old t-shirt rather than from shop bought t-shirt fabric so I didn't have enough fabric to make it exactly like the one in the tutorial.

How to make a necklace from ribbon and washers

This is another tutorial I found on Pinterest. It is from a blog called Tiny Sparkly Things and is another well written and easy to follow tutorial with pictures to help. Click on the link and have a go yourself!

How to make a 5 way braided hair band from old t-shirts

I have recently discovered Pinterest. It is highly addictive and an amazing resource of ideas for craft and cooking. I've been trying out a few of the tutorials I found on there and I'll do a series of blog posts to show you what I made and to link you to the tutorials I used.

This hair band is made from an old t-shirt! The five-way braid is surprisingly easy and I'm very happy with how it turned out. The tutorial I used is from makeit-loveit.com. It is really well written and has photos to help you as well.

An easy way to make pom-poms!

I came across this on Pinterest and had to share it. It's a genius idea and it really works - I've tried it! The website address on the picture doesn't work so I don't know who took these photos and came up with this idea originally - but all credit to them anyway.

How to customise your pin-board and pins

Have you just gone back to school or college or do you just feel the need to get organised? Well here's a cheap and funky way to do it!

You need: (pictures a&b)

• a cheap pin-board
• metal tacks
• glue
• buttons
• paint

Choose a selection of buttons in a nice colour scheme and in different sized and then glue them to the metal tacks. (picture a)

While you are leaving them to dry paint the frame of the pin-board. Use masking tape to protect the cork whilst you paint. I got the polka-dot effect by dipping the wrong end of a paint brush in white paint and then using it as a stamp.

When the paint is dry remove the masking tape, put the pins in the board and hang it up somewhere. (pictures c&d)

Sock Monkeys :)

Last night we had a bit of fun making sock monkeys! We used the tutorial by Kristine Howe featured on craftbits.com.

How I made this bag and other things...

I haven't posted a blog for 10 days - I think that's the longest time since I started blogging. Why? I guess life has been busy! We're in the last 2 weeks of our summer holiday programme at Klub Novi Most and every day is busy working with young people, preparing activities etc. And as well as all that we've been to camp for 2 days, we've had a visitor from the UK for 2 weeks and we've been house hunting in Jajce.

The house hunting is now over as yesterday we found a really lovely place :) our visitor from the UK is gone and there's no more camp so maybe the pace of life will slow down a bit now.

This bag is something that I made as an example for a sewing night we had at Klub Novi Most on Friday. We had 7 girls come and each of them made a bag similar to this one. It's a very simple reversible bag:

• For the pattern I drew round a piece of A3 paper, folded the fabric in half and cut it about 1cm away from the lines so the fabric is as big as 2 sheets of A3 paper.
• Then I ironed the fold and using a sewing machine I sewed up the 2 sides along the lines I had drawn.
• I did this again with another fabric.
• Then put one inside the other and sewed the tops together. To do this you take the 2 bag parts you have made, turn one the right way out and leave the other inside out. Then put the inside out part inside the part that is the right way out. then fold in the tops of both parts, pin them together so they match and sew.
• For the strap I just cut a piece of fabric as long as I wanted it, folded it in half and sewed along the side. Then I turned it inside out and sewed it to the bag.

Tutorial - How to make bunting from old magazines

How many of you went to an Etsy Craft Party on Friday night? I organised one here in Mostar and we had a great time. I'll post some photos and write more about that another day, today I want to share with you how I made bunting for the party, cos you can't have a party without bunting!

What you need:

• old magazines


• 10 metres of 1 inch ribbon


• pins


• scissors


• sewing machine

How to:

• take a page of a magazine and fold it into 4 (see picture a)


• cut the paper from the bottom left corner to the top of the first fold and then from the top of that fold to the bottom of the next and from the bottom of that fold to the top of the next fold and from the top of that fold to the bottom right corner of the page. (see picture b)


• throw away the 2 end pieces and you have 3 triangles of bunting.


• pin the triangles to the ribbon. (see picture c)


• repeat this as many times as necessary to make the length of bunting you want.


• sew the triangles to the ribbon. (see picture d)

And it's as easy as that!

How to make a mini amigurumi pear

Do you want to make a pear just like the one April has in her bag? If you do you've come to the right place!

These are the stitches used: you can click on any of them for a video demonstration.
Ch – chain
Sc – single crochet
2sctog/dec – decrease

The numbers in brackets indicate how many stitches there should be in that round.

The first step is the one I have illustrated in my blog post ‘the not magic ring’

Use 3mm hook and green wool.

Amigurumi crochet works in un-joined rounds.

• Ch2, 4 sc in second chain from hook (4) – see picture a
• 1 sc then 2 sc in next stitch – repeat 2 times (6)
• 2 sc then 2 sc in next stitch – repeat 2 times (8)
• sc in each stitch (8)
• *2sc in one stitch, 3 sc* – repeat twice (10)
• *5 sc, 2sc in next stitch* - repeat twice (14)
• *7 sc, 2sc in next stitch* - repeat twice (18)
• sc in each stitch (18)
• sc in each stitch (18)

Put the pear to one side

Stalk: take a 5cm length of brown wool and hold it one end in each hand and twist it. Then let it fold in on itself so that it creates a double twisted cord. Tie a knot so that the twist doesn’t come undone – make it quite a fat knot. - see picture b

Leaf: use 3mm hook and dark green wool. This is not amigurumi technique, this is straight crochet.leave a long tail at the beginning.
• row 1: ch 5
• row 2: ch 3

Thread the stalk up through the top of the pear using a tapestry needle – the fat knot should keep it in place.

Sew the leaf onto the top of the pear using a tapestry needle. - see picture c

Resume crochet
• *2sc, 2sctog* - repeat 4 times, 2c (14)
• 2sctog 7 times (7)

Stuff the pear

• 2sctog until the hole is almost closed up.
Fasten off leaving a long tail and using a tapestry needle finish off closing the hole.

How to make hair for your amigurumi

I have 3 different ways that I make hair for my amigurumis.

The first is to use eyelash yarn - as in the picture above.

Here is the pattern I use to make hair for the size of amigurumi head I did a tutorial for in this blog post


Use 3.5mm hook and eyelash yarn in a colour of your choice.


Amigurumi crochet works in un-joined rounds.


These are the stitches used: you can click on any of them for a video demonstration.
Ch – chain
Sc – single crochet

This is the pattern:
The numbers in brackets indicate how many stitches there should be in that round.
The first step is the one I have illustrated in my blog post ‘the not magic ring’
for this pattern crochet in the front loops only.
• Ch 2, 6 sc in second chain from hook (6)
• 2 sc in each stitch (12)
• 1 sc then 2 sc in next stitch – repeat 5 times (18)
• Sc in first 2 stitches then 2 sc in next stitch – repeat 5 times (24)
• Sc in first 3 stitches then 2 sc in next stitch – repeat 5 times (30)
• Sc in each stitch(30)

and then from here add as many rows as you want - depending on how you would like the hair to look. Experiment with different things - have fun!



Curly hair - to make curly hair chain for as long as you want the hair to be - for example 40 stitches and then go back and single crochet back along that chain for 40 stitches and fasten off. Somehow this turns into ringlets! I dont' know how, but it looks great. Once you have enough to cover your doll's head sew them on.



Straight hair - this is the simplest way of doing hair. Just cut lengths of yarn double the length you want the hair to be. Fold the yarn in half and loop it through the head and through itself. Continue until the whole head is covered. Then you can style the hair however you want - pigtails, plaits etc...

How to make a mini amigurumi carrot

Do you want to make a carrot just like the one April has in her bag? If you do you've come to the right place!

These are the stitches used: you can click on any of them for a video demonstration.
Ch – chain
Sc – single crochet
2sctog/dec – decrease

The numbers in brackets indicate how many stitches there should be in that round.

The first step is the one I have illustrated in my blog post ‘the not magic ring’

Use 3mm hook and orange wool.

• Ch2, 4 sc in second chain from hook (4) – see picture a
• 1 sc then 2 sc in next stitch – repeat 2 times (6)
• 2 sc then 2 sc in next stitch – repeat 2 times (8)
• sc in each stitch (8)
• 2sc in first stitch, then 7 sc (9)
• 5 sc, 2sc in next stitch, 3 sc (10)
• sc in each stitch (10)
• 2sc in first stitch, then 9sc (11)

put carrot to one side – see picture b

take a 5cm length of green wool and hold it one end in each hand and twist it. Then let it fold in on itself so that it creates a double twisted cord. Tie a knot so that the twist doesn’t come undone – make it quite a fat knot. – see picture c

Stuff the carrot

*sc2tog, sc* – repeat 3 times sc2tog
stuff the green twisted cord into the small hole remaining at the top of the carrot – knot it first. see picture d

fasten off leaving a length of wool (tail) and then using a tapestry needle use this tail to sew up the hole at the top of the carrot so that the green twisted cord cannot fall out.

Leaf:

use 3mm hook and dark green wool. This is not amigurumi technique, this is straight crochet.
leave a long tail at the beginning
row 1: ch 5
row 2: ch 3
fasten off leaving a long tail
fix the leaf to the top of the carrot.

a tutorial on how to make the pear will be coming sometime soon... so keep reading!

How to make the face of your amigurumi

The head of your amigurumi is the most important bit to get right. The head with the combination of how you do the face and hair is where all the personality for your amigurumi comes from. I often just start making a head, doing the hair and the face and then when that is done I decide what the rest of the body will look like because then I know the personality of my amigurumi! So one of the most important things for the face is the eyes. I recommend buying safety eyes from EnamiEyes on etsy. They are fantastic quality and come in all shapes, sizes and colours. You can see on the picture how different colours and different sizes of eyes really change the personality of the amigurumi. I often use felt to add extra detail to the eyes as you can see in the last picture here. If you look at my flickr account you can see a lot more examples of different ways of doing the eyes. I very rarely give my amigurumis a mouth, but when I do I use embroidery floss and keep it very simple. Click here to see an example. Then finally the nose - as you can see I also keep the nose very simple. I just take the same wool I have used to make the head and sew 2 or 3 stitches on top of each other or next to each other depending what kind of nose I want. Experiment and see what works for you.