Birthday baking

For my birthday, just three days before Xmas, I made a cake and bagels for my four guests (+ the boyfriend) that I'd invited to celebrate with me. The bagels took forever to do but they were really yummy! Especially the ones with cheese on top ;)

banana mousse layer

chocolate mousse layer 

marcipan cover 

taa daa! 

bagels growing... 

bagels boiling 

bagels baking 

cheese bagels ♥ 

Saturday off

Having worked last weekend it was nice to have a Saturday at home with my älskling just spending time together. I made some breakfast buns, we went for a walk down to the beach to see the damage that the storm the other day had made. The steep sloaps down to the beach were steeper than before and I can imagine that both wind and water have been pretty  high during the storm. We also paid a visit to the new big thing happening here in the village, a gym which will open just about 100m from our house. I'm not really a big fan of gyms but I really should go and since work pays for half the fee I have no excuse not to go :P so we went home and bought two memberships, so here we go! :)
Also made a gingerbread house (correction: we put together one that we bought) and watched a good film in the evening, a great end to a very ordinary and good Saturday :) 

Oh what a night :)

Tonight I saw Depeche Mode live for the 6th time, second time just this year. They've been my biggest love for more than 20years and it's pure joy to see and hear them perform live!

Christmas carols

Earlier this week the choir I sing in, WiPå-kören, had our annual christmas concerts and on Tuesday evening we sang together with Laholms Manskör in Ränneslövs church and it was a huge success! We share the same choir leader and once and again we do these collaborations and it's always extra special at christmas with the beautiful songs we sing around this time of year :)

here's a small clip from the last song that night, O Helga Natt/O Holy Night:

 http://www.laholmstidning.se/article/20131204/LAHOLM/131209678/-/fullsatt-pa-julkonsert

and here's a full song that we sing together:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtLXlIeoj78

Buns in the oven

 

I got an early birthdaypresent from my dear mum and it is this lovley thing, the OBH Nordica Hercules.

I love baking but hate the whole process with kneading the dough, but thanks to Hercules this whole precess takes just a few minutes and he does all the work ;)

Yesterday I made some cinnamon buns like this:

 The recipe is:

150g butter

5 dl milk

50g yeast

½ tsp salt

1-1½dl sugar

1,3 litre wheat flour

A tip that I got about not overheating the yeast with the hot butter is to just mix it with the salt and let it melt before mixing it with the other ingredients. I can guarantee that it works perfectly!

Hercules did his bit and the dough got to grow to double size before cutting it into two parts so I could make two different kinds of buns. One part with butter, cinnamon and sugar. 

and one part with Philadelphia Marabou chocolate, Yum!!! 

roll it up and cut into even size buns, let them grow again for a while until they are a good size. Brush the buns with a slightly whipped egg and sprinkle sugar on the cinnamon rolls. 

Bake in the oven at 250 degrees celcius for 8-10 minutes depending on size, but when the buns are golden brown, they are done! Enjoy!

A weekend in the capital

Last weekend was spent in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, visiting the boyfriends aunt and uncle, and with us came the boyfriends mum. We drove up and even though I really like my mother in law she has a habit of talking constantly and in the end it can get a bit too much for my head :P Especially when it's a five hour drive.
Anyways, we had a nice time overall with some nice talks, good laughs and a great afternoon in the part of Stockholm that's called Gamla Stan (old town) where we went to a museum called Livrustkammaren. In English it would be something like "the Armoury" where they display old clothes and weapons and armour that the old kings of Sweden has worn and used. All very fascinating and interesting and I could've walked around in there for hours. Then off to the annual Xmas fair at the square in Gamla Stan and a visit to the SciFi bookshop.
We went back home on Sunday and was greeted by two happy cats that were in the mood to cuddle after a weekend home alone.

the Royal Castle

Streiff, the skin from the horse that king Gustav II Adolf rode into battle at Lützen on Nov 6 1632. A quite macabre thing to see in the museum but cool at the same time since the horse was a hero in the war and got celebrated for that.

armour for horse and rider

beautifully decorated armour

lots of incredible dresses are on display

piece of clothing that Swedens queen Kristina wore when she was a child and was actually the ruling queen at age 6 when her father Gustav II Adolf died at Lützen.

houses in Gamla Stan

the National Arena of Sweden, Friends Arena, in Solna where the aunt and uncle lives.

Autumn days...

I think it's some kind of tradition to plant a tree when you move to a house, something in the way of that it'll grow with you as you live in the house or something like that :P Anyways, we wanted to get a tree of our own and talked about some kind of fruit tree but settled on a magnolia and found one that had been left over at the gardencenter so it was half price. I hope this tree will like living with us and grow to be big and beautiful!

This is Pumpkin and he's living with my sister, but after meeting him I really wanted to put him in my bag and bring him home with me ;) It's just that Vincent would probably kill me if I brought home another cat (he's such a mama's boy) so I guess I'll settle for visiting Pumpkin and his friends Ebba and Hasse from time to time.

Holly

front door (which is by the back of the house) with a maple leaf wreath I made

Vincent might be thinking: how the heck did she get on the other side of this glass thingy?

when we renovated the bathroom we made it bigger and moved two walls and this is the wall that is in the hallway out to the garage. We've had stuff here that wasn't really supposed to be there and once I moved them I figured I'd might as well get started on fixing it with filler so we can paint it eventually. We also removed the extra wall they put up by the water heater when it was in the hallway and the wallpaper went down with the wall so now were back to scraping and putting up filler there as well. It's just not a huge priority right now, we'll get it done all in good time :)

Embla, close up

a blue tit on the tallow ball

we're a popular hangout these days. Can you see all the birdies on the ground as well?

A squirrel also visits from time to time :)