Time to collect pine cones for Christmas

We have had an Indian summer here in Munich this autumn. One of my favorite things to do in autumn is to go outside and have a walk, enjoy the colorful leaves and to collect various things for Christmas decorations like pine cones. There are so many various possibilities to use them as decoration:

Picture: Skonahem

Picture: expli

or just keeping them in a jar :

picture: elbgestoeber

Fig Jam

One of my favorite desserts is warm goat cheese with either honey or fig jam. October is the season for many nice fruits, like apples, pears and figs, so I should hurry up to make some fig jam. I've found a new and easy recipe which I would like to try:

Picture TV4

Here is what you need:

1 litre fresh figs
2.5 dl sugar
1 vanilla bean
2 table spoons of water

Rinse the figs with fresh water and cut into pieces ( do not peel). Split the vanilla bean pod lengthwise into two halves and scrape the seeds. Put the figs, the pod and the seeds together with the sugar and the water into a cooking pot and let simmer for ca. 30 minutes until the figs are tender. The jam needs to cool down a little before filling it into sterilized jars.

Kram,
Isabell

Back in autumn time

I know, it's been along time since my last post… but I'm back now from my summer holiday. I truly needed it, the new job had been more stressful then I thought it would be. I'm happy to be back and I'm looking forward to autumn, to all the colors and season of apples, pumpkins, plums and baking.

picture: lantliv.com

The picture you see above is Swedish buns with cinnamon, it's called "Kanelbullar" in Swedish and I'm going to bake them today and this week and use different recipes. I'll get back to you with the winner ;)

Have a lovely sunday!

Isabell

Bees wax candles

One of the typical things you can find in Germany during winter and the advent season is bees wax candles. They really smell like honey and when I was a child one of my teachers in elementary school was a beekeeper. On the first of december she had arranged a fir branch, a straw star and a bees wax candle on each table for every child. I can still remember that moment when I entered the class room and as it was winter it was still quite dark outside and she had lit all the candles, transforming the entire class room in a sea of warm lights and the air had this special honey scent. This memory came to me today when I stood in the grocery shop looking for something completely different and I saw these candles after a very long time.

Picture: bienenschwarm

The result: I bought a package of bees wax tea candles, if you ever get a chance to buy these, try it, I'm sure you will like it as much as I do!

Kram,

Isabell

House lantern

End of September was always the time to make lanterns in my childhood and it is strongly connected to autumn, dark nights and the lantern procession with all the other children. This memory came into my mind when I saw this wooden House lantern, so I couldn't resist and had to buy it. I will have a look at the different transparent papers tomorrow after work. I think it would look great if the windows would have different warm colours like a real lantern, wouldn't it?

Hope to be able to give you an update soon... :)

Kram,

Isabell

Preparations for winter

I'm very structured and I can plan things up into the tiniest detail at work ( because it's my job). But when it comes to my private life, I'm just the contrary. It seems like all that planning energy goes into my business life and there is no or little energy left for home for that. So I have started to make "preparation for winter" lists for our home. And one of the things on it is to stow away my bicycle, which I've managed to do today, as well as Tim's bicycles.

Photo: 1zoom.me

It feels really good to be able to cross out some private to do's on that list and be unstructured again for the rest. :)

Have a really good night!

Isabell

Start the season of the (candle) lights

I know that many people don't like autumn and winter. But you'll never get that coziness during summer like during autumn and winter. There is something special about the red, yellow and brown colour of the leaves, the way it feels when you come into your warm home when it's cold outside. It's the season and scent of apples, plums, cinut of course also the start of the candle light season.

Kram,

Isabell

Late summer

They days get darker earlier and in the morning when you go to work it's so cold that you can see the breath already now in late summer. I love this part of the year too, I've put many candleholders back on the divers places, back from where I stowed them during summer.

In Sweden I've been in the "stearinljusfabriken" which is a little factory for candles and filled my stock of candles for autumn and winter. So I'm ready for that time of the year :)

Photo: gymglam

But I must admit, I'm also looking forward to having a little bit more summer in California end of September!

Isabell

Äppelkaka - Swedish Apple cake recipe

When I went to work this morning, it was quite cold and you could smell this typical autumn flavour of wet leaves. I started to think about autumn and all the things I like about it. I'm one of these persons that like all 4 seasons, because I think every season is special in a way. Autumn for me means that you have so many different rich colours, plums and apples and the cozy season starts. I've planned to make a Swedish Apple cake (Äppelkaka) tomorrow and this is the way it will look like:

Photo: arla

This recipe is from my family, it's simple and perfect for a windy, rainy cold day. Here is what you need:

• 5-6 Boskop apples (or other apples that aren't too sweet)
• 1 dl breadcrumb and 2 slices pumpernickel
• 1 dl sugar
• 2 msk cinnamon
• 100 g butter (room temperature)
• custard or vanilla icecream

Preheat the oven to 225 °C, peel the apples and cut into small pieces, remove the apple core. Butter an oven-safe form and fill with a layer of apples. Mix the butter with the sugar, the cinnamon, crumb the pumpernickel and the breadcrumb, spread over the apple layer. Add another layer of apples and then the bread-cinnamon-sugar-breadcrumb-butter mix. Continue until the form is filled and make sure to finish with the mix not with the apples and spread some small butter flakes over the last layer. Bake for approx. 20 Minutes in the oven until the apples are soft.

Serve with custard or vanilla ice-cream.

Kram,

Isabell