very berry muffins

It's the weekend and what better time is there to make muffins? I promise these fruity muffins will only take about 10 minutes to prepare, so baking these won't occupy you the whole afternoon ;)

Here's my recipe of berry muffins that I like to use whenever I have buttermilk leftover from another baking adventure. These muffins are super fluffy and berry and much lighter than chocolate chip muffins.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup (150 gr) white sugar 
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup (125 ml) sunflower oil
• 1 cup (250 ml)  buttermilk
• 3 cups (375 gr) flour
• 3 tsp baking soda
• 1 pound frozen berries

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

Using a stand mixer, mix together sugar and eggs. Add the remaining liquid ingredients one after another and keep mixing. In a separate bowl, mix flour and baking soda and add the mixture to the stand mixer bowl. Mix until you get a smooth mixture. Fold in the berries. Fill the mixture into muffin cups. I ended up with 20 muffins.

Bake for about 25 minutes or until done. You can test whether they're done with a toothpick. Take them out of the muffin pan to cool. 

quinoa asparagus salad

Sometimes I discover a new food and get totally obsessed and ask myself how I survived 23 years without eating it. That's what happened to me with quinoa the other day. So far I've only tried it in a casserole and in salads but I love it and can't wait to try even more recipes.

I bought fresh asparagus today and of course I had to try it with quinoa. I have a pinterested board for my latest food obsessions and found a bunch of quinoa salads with asparagus. I looked at a couple recipes and came up with this yummy salad. Here's how I made it:

Easy Quinoa Asparagus Salad (serves 2)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup quinoa
olive oil
green asparagus (I used 7 spears)
lemon juice (freshly squeezed)
frozen peas
chopped almonds
one avocado
fresh basil
salt + pepper
some honey dressing

Directions:
1. Cook the quinoa according to the directions on the package and set aside to cool.
2. While cooking the quinoa, chop your asparagus into bite-size pieces and roast in a pan with a tbsp of olive oil over medium heat. Add the frozen peas(I used about had a cup), a handful of sliced almonds and lemon juice from half a lemon. Set aside.
3. Dice the avocado.
4. Mix the quinoa, asparagus and avocado in a large bowl, add fresh basil, some garlic and salt + pepper to taste. Pour some dressing over it and enjoy!

Here's my go-to honey dressing:
2 tbsp olive oil
freshly squeezed lemon juice (from half a lemon)
some honey
chopped fresh basil
salt + pepper

Combine all the ingredients in a container that has a lid and closes properly. Shake well. Voilà.

If you haven't tried quinoa go ahead - give it a try. You can thank me later ;)

sunflower seed bread

I'm the kind of person who studies at home whenever possible, because my brain only seems to function if it has a constant supply of energy. As in there's no way I can study without food and a variety of drinks on my table which kind of makes it impossible to study in the library for more than a couple hours.
So I've come up with a rewards system to keep myself motivated to study because the prospect of spending the next 10 hours at home studying isn't very motivating to me...
So it's usually revise one chapter or one past exam (usually 1 1/2 to 2 hours) and then take a 15-30min break to re-watch another episode of parks and rec, talk to my roomie or bake something :)

Baking bread is great because it forces you to take breaks; e.g. this bread takes about 10mins to prepare the yeast dough, then let it rise for ~45mins, then add the other ingredients, let rise for another hour, preheat oven, wait 15mins for the oven to preheat and put bread in the oven, bake for 50mins, done.
So bread baking isn't only a great activity to help you structure your day of studying at home, but it also gives you the feeling of having done something productive and it saves you a trip to the supermarket.

For this bread, I made a simple yeast dough (with warm water, not milk) out of one pound of flour, added some roasted sunflower seeds and two tablespoons of olive oil et voilà, you get a super fluffy and tasty sunflower seed bread.

ps: I just realized that our kitchen looks kind of easter-y because the candle holder looks kind of like an egg and my fluffy bum bunny somehow ended on our kitchen table. whoops. I might have to pick some flowers to add a little summery feeling to our kitchen!

raspberry smoothie

I love smoothies for breakfast. Here's one of my favorite combinations: banana and raspberry!

For two servings you'll need:
- one banana
- one cup of frozen raspberries (you can also use fresh raspberries and add some ice cubes)
- one cup of yoghurt or kefir, depending on what you have in your fridge
- two cups of milk (vanilla almond milk and soy milk also work great!)
- half a cup of oats (if you want a long-lasting breakfast)

Blend all your ingredients in a blender and enjoy!

Baking Days // Rocher-chocolate muffins

It's the beginning of January and most people still try to keep up with their resolutions on eating helathier etc. Well, I have to admit that I have no such resolutions, thus I don't feel bad for making delicious Rocher-chocolate muffins and sharing them with my friends in class (while several people watch us enviously...). On Tuesdays, I only have classes until 3pm and we have our weekly stitch n' bitch so it's the perfect baking day.

This week, I was convinced I'd make a blueberry cake until I saw that Ferrero Rocher were on sale.  Buttermilk was sold out so I had to kind of improvise on these but they turned out really good anyway, so I'm sharing my recipe with you:

Ingredients for 16 muffins:

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup yoghurt
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup oil (I used sunflower oil)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 3 tsp baking powder
• if necessary, some milk
• 16 Ferrero Rocher

Preheat oven to 300°F (150°C).
Add all the ingredients (except the Rocher) and mix until you have a creamy batter. Depending on the type of flour and the amount of cocoa powder I use, I sometimes add a little milk to get a creamy batter.

Pour the batter into the muffin pan (I like to use silicon liners because they don't need extra grease and they're reusable). I usually do this by filling each cup with ~2 tbsp in each cup. Don't fill the cups to the top because we still have to add the Rocher!
Next, put one Rocher into each cup and gently push it inside the batter until only the top half is visible.

Bake for 20 minutes(I use a convection oven. you might have to adjust the baking time if you're using a conventional oven) or until your muffins pass the toothpick test. Enjoy!

Baked // Russian Zupfkuchen

Although this cake is called 'Russian chocolate cheesecake' it really is a typical German recipe. It's a very smooth cheesecake with a chocolate crust - it's delicious!
There are some ingredients that are hard to find outside Germany, e.g. quark. Here's a similar recipe that's made for North American ingredients ;)

Ingredients
for the crust
90g      sugar
100g    butter
200g    flour
40g      cacao
1          egg
2 tsp    baking powder

for the filling
180g   sugar
160g   butter
4         eggs
500g   quark
1 pkg  vanilla pudding powder
2 tsp    vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350° Fahrenheit / 180° Celsius
Prepare the crust: mix sugar and butter. Add the other ingredients for the crust. Knead well.
Butter a springform pan and line it with about 1/2 - 3/4 of the chocolate dough.
Mix all the ingredients for the filling and pour the filling into the springform pan.
Pull little chunks of the remaining chocolate crust dough and randomly place them in the filling.
Bake for about 55 minutes.
Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate. Enjoy!