Kitchen Wonderland of Sugar Plum Fairy

Miffy butter cookies

2010-08-24T11:04:00.000-07:00

Do you know Miffy? Let me introduce her to you.
Everyone, that's Miffy.
Miffy, that's everyone, say "Hi!"
Despite she's over 50 years old, she's the sweetest rabbit in the world.
As she is not very popular in Poland (how can it be?!), she flew to me from Asia. Miffy, did you enjoy the flight?

I don't think there is something sweeter than Miffy butter cookies. But there's also a little bit of salt. Perfect supplement.
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 ounces butter
3/4 cup icing sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla. Mix. Then sift the flour with the rest of ingredients. Knead the dough and wrap it into a foil. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes.
Then roll out the dough on a floured board and cut out cookies.
Bake until liht golden in 350 degrees F/180 degrees C.

Recipe from great baker from Poland.

Three Musketeers / Milky Way cupcakes

2010-08-11T10:41:00.000-07:00

There are few flavours which reminds me childhood. One of them is Milky Way bar. And here's a problem, because in Europe Milky Way looks like US Three Muskeeters. Nice Wikipedia has it explained here.
And what's better, than a favourite bar? Cupcakes with it!

As it's my experimental recipe (it was well done experiment!), it's a recipe for 6 cupcakes. You know, if something went wrong...

1 egg
2/3 cup flour
3 ounces Three Muskeeters bars, cut into pieces
1/3 cup caster sugar
1/3 cup buttermilk
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 ounces butter + 2 tablespoons

Mix 1 and 1/2 ounces butter with sugar. Then add egg. Set aside.
Melt bars with 2 tablespoons butter. Stir all the time, because it will be getting sticky. Now you can see, how much sugar is in our lovely bars. :) Before the mixture will start getting firm, gradually mix it with butter and egg. Now it's time to add flour, baking soda, baking powder and buttermilk. But don't add everything at one time! Divide it into portions. And better is to end with a flour, than with buttermilk. Mix it one more time and put batter into muffin cups which are waiting unpatiently.
Bake for about 20 minutes in 350 degrees F/180 degrees C.

So now it's time for frosting. The best part of these cupcakes!
1 1/2 ounces Three Muskeeters bars, cut
2/3 cup milk powder
4 tablespoons icing sugar
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup cream (from 12 to about 30% fat)
Heat cream with butter. Add bars and stir until everything comes together.
Then add milk powder and icing sugar.

Mix until fluffy.
Decorate cupcakes with frosting and pieces of bars.
Aren't they cute?!

Zucchini and carrot cake with cinnamon and creamcheese

2010-08-01T08:52:00.001-07:00

Say:vegetables, think: cake!
Maybe we're not talking about onion or tomatoes, but zucchini and carrot, why not? They taste great together.

3 oz. grated zucchini
3,75 oz grated carrot
8 oz. plain four
2 eggs
5 tablespoons oil
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
o,75 cup brown sugar

Three easy steps:
Mix eggs, zucchini, carrot and sugar in a large bowl.
Add sifted flour with cinnamon and baking powder.
Mix everything using spoon and pour batter into prepared pan (about 8x8 inches).
Bake in 350 degrees F/180 Celsius for 30 minutes. Toothpick shoud come out clean from the cake.
When cake is cooled, it's time to make a topping.

And for topping:
8 oz. creamcheese
0,5 cup icing sugar
1 tablespoon soft butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Hm. I should say "it's making by itself". You're only putting everything into a bowl and turning on a machine, which is mixing it.
I wanted my topping to be "more zucchini-like". That's why it's green.

Buttermilk cake with fruits and crumble

2010-07-29T05:30:00.000-07:00

Is there any better way of using buttermilk? Maybe muffins. But I'm not sure, when I think about this cake.
If you've done some yeast cake, you know it takes some time. It's worthwhile, but if you can have something as good and you can do it in 1 hour? Delicate, moist cake. With fruits. With crumble. All the best in one.

1 cup buttermilk
1 cup caster sugar
2,5 cup plain flour
3 eggs
3 teaspoons baking powder
0,5 cup oil (e.g. sunflower or olive oil)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Fruits of course!
And for crumble:
1 cup plain flour
4 oz butter
3,75 oz caster sugar

And what's THE BEST in that cake? Yeah - you have to put everything apart from fruits in a bowl. Then mix it. You can do it with a simply wooden spoon. Put the dough into prepared 25x25 cm pan. Now you can lay fruits on the top.
And crumble - very easy too. Melt butter on a small heat. Mix flour and sugar. Add hot butter to the flour mixture and stir until it will be looking like.. hm. crumble? :)
Sprinkle it over the cake.
Bake for about 30-40 min in oven preheated to 340 degrees F/175 degrees Celsius. You can do toothpick attempt. It should come out clean from the cake.

So, enjoy!

recipe from here.

Oreo truffles (nearly.. :] )

2010-07-27T11:18:00.000-07:00

Cookies&cream. No matter, who invented it. I would give him/her gastronomic Nobel. Oreos are everywhere. In cheesecakes, cupcakes, fudge, truffles. And what can I do, if we haven't got it in Poland?! Yeah, it's sad. We have all kinds of sandwich cookies - choc-vanilla, vanilla-caramel, choc-coconut, vanilla-halva...
And I'm too lazy to make DIY oreos in aim of using in to make truffles. :<
But our chocolate cookies with vanilla cream were good. And truffles were brilliant. You can not trust me, but everyone can trust HIM.

So, let's do it. Let's have about 30, delicious truffles.
1 pound/450 Oreo cookies
8 oz./225 grams cream cheese
4 oz. chocolate - dark, white - as you like

Finely crush cookies. Reserve 1/2 cup of crumbs for later.
Mix remaining crumbs with softened cream cheese. You can use a spoon.
Roll the mixture into small balls. Then, refrigerate for half an hour, so you can easily coat in chocolate later.
Yes - it's time for a bath!

Melt chocolate and dip balls into it. Set aside on a wax paper. Refrigerate for a short time.
Better to hide it, because you never know, where the Cookie Monster is..
Enjoy!

Recipe here.

Saying Hello with chocolate and cherry cupcakes

2010-07-26T06:33:00.000-07:00

So, hello everyone! Nice to see you here! Let me be a bit nervous. I just wanna get out from the woods.
I'm 17 and I live in Poland, central Europe.
I think that you already know that it will be blog about baking. Cookies, cakes, desserts, ice-cream and all that sweet stuff. Maybe nothing special, when there are many delicious blogs.
But I would like to share with you how we're baking here. Is it more difficult? Yes, maybe. I have to say we don't have many things like food colourings, decorations and even vanilla extract and so on in 'normal' shops. Thank God there are online shops. And maybe you would like to know how life is rolling on here. And I also want to be more up-to-date with what people are baking out of my country. And to know more recipes. Hundreds of tasty recipes. Yeah. That's why I decided to write my second blog in english. (By the way, sorry for my poor language. I'm still learning. Promise - I have holiday and despite that, I'm going to english classes.)
The way to heart is through the stomach. Anyone thinks it isn't true?
So break the first ice with choc and cherry muffins.
Sugar Plum Fairy's theory says that sweet cherries are too good to use it to jam or a cake. Best way for sweet cherry is from a sink, to a bowl and then straight to mouth. But I had a very big bowl. I had to do something with it. Tasty? Delicious!

300 g/10,5 oz plain flour, sifted
one teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 cup of icing sugar
pich of salt
61/4 cup oil
1 cup and two tablespoons buttermilk
1 egg
1/2 cup of chocolate chips or chopped chocolate
1 cup of pitted sweet cherries, chopped

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F/190 degrees Celsius.
Mix in a bowl flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. Add chocolate. Set aside.
Now whisk egg with oil and buttermilk. Add that mixture to flour and stir jus until incorporated. Now it's cherries' turn. Add it to the batter. Now divide butter between muffin cups, and bake about 25 minutes until golden.

I love looking as the're growing bigger and bigger. Yeah, kinda.. relaxing?
Remove from an oven and cool.
Don't forget to try it before they'll disappear.

Sorry, dear Muffin. :<

Recipe froom here.