nutella = success

I finally did it. I successfully converted and tweaked my recipe to fit Finland's climate and sea level. My delicate bakeress confidence is restored to its rightful place.
This is actually one of my favorite recipes, because anything with nutella...I'm sold. The sour cream adds a tang to it to keep the sweetness in check, without that its kind of an overkill. They're also a lot more dense than cupcakes would be, and lemme tell you I would pick a muffin instead of a dainty cupcake any day.
So if you've got some left overs of nutella (doubtful, i eat it in spoonfuls each night), bake up a batch of these babies.

NUTELLA SWIRL MUFFINS

1 1/4 c flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs (room temperature)
3/4 c sugar
1/2 c butter (softened)
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c sour cream (room temperature)

.....................................................................................
Oven at 350.
Sift all dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl whisk together eggs and sugar, add rest of wet ingredients- sour cream last. Combine both mixtures together. Place in prepped muffin tins/cups. Dollop 1-2 tsp nutella in each muffin cup and with a toothpick, knife or fork make swirls.
Bake for 23-30 minutes.

scandinavian business...

Fun fact- Finland's not even part of Scandinavia...maybe it just became an imaginary part of it though so people could locate it better? Anyway, there's this show called New Scan Cook that i try watch every saturday...makes me feel at home plus i ran into this wonderful recipe from a Norwegian fellow. I've already made it twice with some tweaks here and there. It is...soooooo delicious and easy to modify depending on what suits your fancy.

...:FRIDGE BAKED CHEESECAKE WITH ROSEMARY:...

the crust:

5-6 tbs butter
15ish sheets of graham crackers or oat biscuits
some lemon zest (any citrus fruit will do- try orange, lime, grapefruit too)
chopped rosemary

steps:
simmer butter till it turns a light brown and smells a bit nutty. pour over finely crushed crackers and mix together into a dough like mixture. Press into springform pan and zest lemon over crust and sprinkle some rosemary here and there.

the good stuff:

2 cans (750 g) of sour cream

2 pkgs (500 g) cream cheese 

1 lemon or lime

1 pkg of gelatin (equivalent to 2 gelatin sheets)

1/2 c water

7/8 c sugar

1 tbs honey

steps:

in a pan combine water, sugar, honey and some lemon peel. boil down till sugar dissolves and add gelatin. meanwhile that cools, combine cream cheese and sour cream. take out the lemon peel and pour sugar syrup mix in with the creamy stuff- mix away till even more creamier (: i usually end up adding a bit more sour cream, depending on how diluted i want the sweetness to be.

pour into springform pan with crust and place into the fridge over night. 

(it sucks i know...fridge baking is the worst!...takes forever)

I usually serve it with options, some homemade raspberry jam (smashed frozen raspberries and some sugar) or almonds...any kinda jam words really (:

crinkle crackle...

Discovered while watching "French Food At Home". I found this cake to help me in my darkest hours of chocolate cravings... and it didn't take long people. And guess what- it has no flour either. Which automatically makes this as healthy as vegetables...naturally.

CHOCOLATE CRACKLE CAKE

1 c good quality 70% chocolate (i used giuradelli chocolate chips)
1 c butter softened (2 sticks...or 1 1/2)
1 c sugar
4 eggs



the drill:
melt chocolate in double boiler. whisk in butter once the chocolates nice and smooth. in a separate bowl whisk half of the sugar and egg yolks- till thick, pale and ribbony. in another bowl mix egg whites till foamy and add rest of sugar- mix till it becomes a white, glossy meringue. 
mix together chocolate and egg yolk slowly. then fold in the egg whites meringue mix. 
bake in spring form pan at 375 for 50 mins. let cool till top crackles and sides pull away from pan...run a knife around it so make sure it doesnt stick. 
serve warm with cold whipped cream with some chopped mint or just as a garnish :)