Happy Easter Holidays!

I am still in the middle of preparing the lunch, but my cakes are ready, wanted to wish you all a very Happy Easter.

The below are variation to Anett's pudding filled muffins I've done them with almond pudding filling.

Happy Easter Everyone.

Red Nose Day Bake Off Zoo

We had a bake-off at work as part of the Red Nose fundraising. I find this type of community fundraising amazing, it something that we'd need to learn at the part of the world that I come from. in a week's time by doing a bake-off, a pu quix, and one person getting dressed in her onesies on the 25th we've managed to raise over 1000 pounds for Comic Relief. Makes me really proud.
We had our bake-off on Wednesday and initally I was thinking of baking a more traditional Hungarian cake, the zserbo, unfortunately I didn't find one of the necessary ingredients the ground walnuts for it, so I've reverted back to my option B, some inspiration I got from bakerella 

According to bakerellea's original  recipe these muffins are supposed to be mini muffins, but as I didn't have any mini-muffin form at the time, I've decided to make traditional size muffins.

Also instead of confectionaly sugar I used ground coconut to keep the muffins less sweet, loads of Cadbury Milk buttons, and other chocolate decoration and the result was these lovely pandas, and owls.

It still makes me smile, and as we were baking something funny for money, they were also popular with my colleagues, luckily.

Frost dried strawberry and lavender muffins

This was supposed to be a Kitchen Aid winning recipe. I should have properly read the terms and conditions and not submit the recipe 8 hours after the submittion deadline (just because I wanted the perfect picture... )

And it was the perfect cupcake according to my taste, chocolate and strawberries, what could possibly go wrong?... 

Well, the ingredients were: 

• 175g self-raising flour
• 25g cocoa powder
• 175 g stevia sugar
• 100g unsalted butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon lavender
• 1 tube freeze dried strawberries
• 125 ml almond milk
• 12 small strawberries
• chocolate frosting

Preparation:
Prepapare the batter as usual (dry ingredients mix in one bowl, butter and egg in the other, and then mixed together) and add the lavender to it- Pour a tablepoon of batter into the cupcake papers and place a small strawberry in the middle of each. Cover the strawberry with batter.

When ready and cooled decorate with chocolate frosting and drizzle with freeze dried strawberries.

It tastes lovely and I love the surprise of biting into an unexpected piece of strawberry... Well no Kitchen Aid for me this time, neither did I get on Hummingbird Bakery's radar with my creation, but this was a nice experiment and I liked it. :)

Frankfurter and kale soup

This is a soup, that every person my age knows very well in Hungary, from the school canteen. A love it or hate it type of food, and I definitely fall into the first category. I love the taste, it's so easy and quick to make, and funnily it's the type soup that goes well with every type of weather, be it warm or cold outside.

The ingredients:

• A smaller kale (around 400g)
• 1 medium onion
• 2 big or 4 medium potatoes
• cornflower
• 200g frankfurters (I usually buy the smoked poultry ones from the Polish deli shop for extra taste)
• 1 bunch of parsley, or chives
• 150 ml soured cream or creme fraiche
• 1 tsp hot Hungarian Paprika paste, which can be bought in Hungarian deli's, or a small spoon of Hungarian paprika powder, (make sure it's Hungarian, as the Spanish equivalents that you can buy at any shop taste completely different
• 2l vegetable stock 

Preparation:

• Prepare the vegetables: peel the potatos and cut them into small cubes, chop the onion, and slice the kale
• Saute the onions on a bit of olive or sunflower oil. When it looks glassy, add the peeled potatos, give it a stir and add tas much stock so that it would cover the potatoes
• Add the kale slices, and add the rest of the stock, just as much that would cover both vegetables, season with salt and pepper (I have used my favourite garlic and herb salt), cook until the potatoes are soft. 
• Place the creme into a lager bowl, and spoon a bit of hot soup on top of it, add a bit of paprika paste and  stir until it becomes a liquid eventually adding more soup to the mixture.
• Stir the mixture into the soup, add the sliced frankfurters, and cook until they are ready, which means, your soup is ready.

Serve with a bit of parsley on top. As it has potatoes I just eat it on it's own, but some might like to accompany it with a bit of white bread and beer.