Lemon Frosted Carrot Cupcakes

Ingredients

Carrot Cupcakes
200 grams of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of homemade vanilla sugar
200 millilitres of sunflower oil
2 eggs
200 grams of plain flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
200 grams grated carrot
50 grams of almonds\walnuts

Lemon Frosting
Lemon juice
200 grams of Philadelphia or other cream cheese
1 teaspoon of homemade vanilla sugar*
Icing sugar (powdered sugar)

Making Lemon Frosted Carrot Cupcakes

Set your oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Peel the carrots and grate them, put them aside. Crack the eggs in a big bowl and add sugar, vanilla sugar and sunflower oil. Beat with a wooden spoon until the mass swells up. Measure out your dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and soda, salt and vanilla sugar) and sift them in. Fold the flour mix into the egg batter until you have a smooth dough. Roughly chop the almonds and add to the dough together with the grated carrots. Take out a muffin tray (with room for 12) and cover it with paper muffin forms. Distribute the dough evenly into the forms, using two spoons. Put the muffin tray in the middle of the oven and leave to bake for 25-30 minutes. The muffins are done when they have a golden brown colour and you can press down the middle and have it bouncing back. Take the muffin tray out and leave the muffins to cool in the tray for five minute. When the five minutes are up you need to take them out of the form and have them rest on a baking grid. When the muffins have cooled down you can start on your icing. If you are not too fond of icing don’t despair, they taste brilliant without it.

Now the reason I haven’t specified the amount of lemon juice and icing sugar is that I am not quite sure how much I added. I also think it’s very individual how sugary or lemony the icing should be. Just experiment adding some of each and having a taste. Keep in mind that the mix shouldn’t be to runny if you want to decorate the muffins using a decoration bag, store-bought or homemade.

Carrot Cake with Lime Frosting

Ingredients

Carrot Cake
4 deciliters of sugar
4 eggs
4 deciliter of plain flour
2 teaspoons of baking soda
2 teaspoons of powdered cinnamon
1 teaspoon of homemade vanilla sugar
2,5 deciliter of neutral vegetable oil (rapeseed or sunflower)
Grated Carrots (ca. 6 deciliters)

Lime Frosting
200-250 grams of Philadelphia Cheese
150 grams of powdered sugar
Zest and juice of one lime
Zest of one lime (for decoration)

Making Carrot Cake with Lime Frosting

Put your oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Crack the eggs in a bowl and add the sugar. Whisk until it becomes as fluffy mass. Sift in flour, baking soda, cinnamon and vanilla sugar and fold it in gently. Add oil and grated carrots and stir in gently. Take out a cake tin 24-26 centimeters in diameter and cover it with baking paper. Add the cake mass to the tin and put it in the middle of the preheated oven for about 50 minutes. Use a cake pin to check that it is baked all the way through. Leave to rest in the form on a baking grid until it has cooled down. (It can help to turn it upside down, as it becomes more even on the top). When the cake has cooled down it’s time to begin with the frosting.

Add the cream cheese to a bowl and sift in the powdered sugar. Grate in the lime zest, remember to wash it thoroughly before hand, cut it in half and add the juice. Taste the frosting and add more lime or more powdered sugar to fit your taste buds. Instead of lime you can also melt chocolate and shape into forms on a baking sheet, when the chocolate has stiffened you can set the shapes around and on top the cake. I did this for Halloween, alas I forgot to take a picture.

Tip: This cake tastes better the longer it sits in the fridge. I found it tasted the best after 3 days, if you allow it to last for that long it is :)

Mini Macaroon Fruit Pies

Ingredients

1 Crunchy Pie Crust
4 apples
ca. 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
ca. 100 grams of almonds
1 handful of gløgg mix (mix of split almonds & raisins)
1 glass of pitted dessert cherries (370 grams )
1 deciliter of sugar
Juice of 1/2 lime
1 teaspoon of Maizenna (corn flour)
4 teaspoons of brown sugar

Making Mini Macaroon Fruit Pies

Ok, so technically this is not a recipe for macaroons, but seeing as we were a bit cheap on the dough, the top did not connect to the bottom, and voila what you get is a macaroon shape, and room for cream or ice cream under the lid I might add.

Before you start on the filling I recommend you have a go at the pie crust, following the instructions on the link above. The pie crust needs to chill for at least one hour in the fridge so having it out-of-the-way and in the fridge before you begin on the filling is a good thing. Right, you need to get your ingredient on your counter. Start with the almonds as they need to be finely ground.

Now move along to the apples, peel them, cut out the stalk and chop them into cubes. Add the cubed apples, the grated almonds, cinnamon, cherries with juice, gløggmix, lime juice and regular sugar to a pot. Let warm up and come to the boil, stirring, to make sure it does not burn. Gløggmix is a mixture of split almonds and raisins, very popular in scandinavia. When the apples are tender, take the pan of the heat and sift the mix through a strainer. Leave the mix in the strainer and put the juices back on the pot with maizenna and some brown sugar (taste the sauce before, if it’s too sweet leave the sugar out). Let the sauce thicken, before taking it back of the pot, add the strained fruit back in the pan, mixing well.

Preheat the oven to 225 degrees celsius. Take out a big muffin tray and one of the pie doughs from the fridge. Put some flour on your baking surface and start rolling out your dough, not too thin, we don’t want it breaking. There should be enough dough to make circles for all 12 macaroon pies. Use a big cup to make the circles, try one out to see if the circle is big enough to cover the bottom and the edges when it is flattened. If you want the macaroon look you use the same size for the lid. Scoop fruit mix into the dough fold and take out the dough for the lid. Same process as before unless you want it to connect all the way. I tidied the edges of the bottom and top lid together, and then I made 4 slits in the lid, as seen on the picture above, of course these slits closed, there of the pressure that separated the lid from the bottom, so alternatively you can also do it the way it is shown in this recipe.

Place the tray in the middle of your preheated oven and turn it down to a 180 degrees celsius. Leave to bake for 20-30 minutes, until the pies turn a golden brown. When the pies are golden take the muffin tray out and put it on a grid. Leave to set until cool. Use a sharp knife to cut along the edges and a fork to tip it out carefully.  As with the apple pie these little pies also keep for three days in room temperature. I kept them in one of my pretty metal boxes to be sure.

Apple & Cinnamon Scones

Ingredients

125 grams of apple
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 tablespoon of sugar
450 grams of plain flour
3 teaspoons of baking powder
120 grams of margarine
1 pinch of salt
5 table spoons of milk
2 eggs

Making Apple & Cinnamon Scones

Set your oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Peel the apple and chop it into smaller pieces. Add it to a bowl with sugar and cinnamon. Mix well. Add flour, margarine and baking powder to a bowl. Mix together until it becomes a crumbly mass. Make an indentation in the mix. Whisk eggs and milk lightly together in a bowl or a cup. Add the apple to the egg and milk mix and pour it in the dent that you made in the crumbled dough. Mix well  until it all makes one dough.

Add the dough to a lightly floured work surface and roll it with a rolling-pin until it is about 2 centimetres thick. Stick out rounds ca 7 cm across, use a jar a cup or a christmas cookie form. Make as many rounds as you can, and fold the rest of the dough together, don’t knead it, and roll it out again and stick out new rounds. Do this until you’ve used up all the dough. The last one I just made with my hands. Add the scones to a baking tray covered in baking paper, brush milk on top and put the tray in the pre-heated oven. Let them sit for 12-15 minutes. When they are golden brown on top they are perfect. Take them out and let them rest on a baking grid. When they are lukewarm and ready to be eaten, cut them in half,and add a your favourite jam.

Tip: The scones freeze well. Just pop them in the oven, turn it on to 150 degrees Celsius and give them a 15 minutes.

Tip: #2 If the butter/margarine isn’t room temperature pop it into the microwave for a few seconds (only a few)

Tip: #3 check out my Bacon & Cheese Scones, my Fruity Breakfast Scones and Ham & Cheese Scones.