Most important vacation of the year

Finally! I've booked my most important vacation of the year - Sweden. I will be there by end of June/start of July, this is definitely the best time (except for Christmas) to be there I look forward to the silence, the nice people, the woods, the sea, the good fish from the market, I'm counting the days….

Nymphenburg Castle

Yesterday I've been visiting the Nymphenburg Castle in Munich. The castle is situated in the city Munich so you can go there by public transport and it has a huge green park with fountains and swans, the way you would expect a royal park to look like. This is the view you have when coming to the castle:

And some pictures from inside the castle:

After the visiting the castle I spent almost 2 hours just walking trough the park, birds were singing and the scent of the blossoming lilac was everywhere. It was just a perfect afternoon.

Carrot Cake

I like to watch food programs and find new ideas and recipes for baking and cooking. This is a great recipe which I've found on the BBC food channel and which is the best carrot cake I've ever eaten. You need to try it !

picture: yelp

Ingredients

For the carrot cake:

450ml/16fl oz vegetable oil

400g/14oz plain flour

2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

550g/1lb 4oz sugar

5 free-range eggs

½ tsp salt

2½ tsp ground cinnamon

525g/1lb 3oz carrots, grated

150g/5½oz shelled walnuts, chopped

For the icing:

200g/7oz cream cheese

150g/5½oz caster sugar

100g/3½oz butter, softened

Preparation

For the carrot cake, preheat the oven to 160C/325F/Gas 3. Grease and line a 26cm/10in springform cake tin. Mix all of the ingredients for the carrot cake, except the carrots and walnuts, together in a bowl until well combined. Stir in the carrots and walnuts.

Spoon the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and set aside to cool for 10 minutes, then carefully remove the cake from the tin and set aside to cool completely on a cooling rack.

Meanwhile, for the icing, beat the cream cheese, caster sugar and butter together in a bowl until fluffy. Spread the icing over the top of the cake with a palette knife.

Bon appetite! 

Isabell

Ikea Bråkig

"You certainly buy everything from Ikea..." I hear that a lot from people when they hear that I'm half Swedish and well- I must admit I like Ikea. I feel really bad that I missed the Ikea Bråkig series in 2014. It was a special edition they had produced in cooperation with art rebels

picture: art rebels

My favorite from this cooperation pattern is the grey geometric star pattern:

picture: art rebels

Which has been used very nicely in this hall:

picture: solebich

I hope to get some pieces on ebay ;)

Isabell

Spring time

One of the things I like the most in spring is coming back home and walking through our backyard with all the trees that blossom and they have this very sweet scent. No matter how hard the day was I feel relief when entering it. I'm really happy that I have this little secret oasis in the center of Munich right in front of my window:

Isabell

California Dreaming

Tim and I have spent such a wonderful time in California. This was just what we had needed after months of rain and snow and darkness. It is always special to step into an airplane with your winter jacket knowing when you will leave the plan it will be t-shirts and flip flops instead. We've rented a house close to L.A. which was really stylish and we felt so much at home. Most of the time when we travel we prefer to rent apartments or houses to hotel rooms. It gives you the feeling of living there in this country. Tim would move to California immediately if he could, it is his real home. These are some of the pictures I want to share with you how lovely it was and the nice little details:

We're back for almost a month now but we are both still California Dreaming :)

Isabell

Kimono blouses

We've spent 2 weeks in California this Easter ( this is one of the reasons you haven't heard from me for a while :) ) and one of the thing I have bought there and which I think is going to be a new trend this summer are Kimono blouses. The are so stylish and easy to combine with different things, jeans and a white t-shirt and this blouse or shorts like in this picture:

Picture Asos

As soon as the rain stops and it's warmer outside I'll take some pictures of myself to show you the ones I bought.

Have a good start into the new week!

Isabell

Orla Kiely

During our visit in Stockholm at Christmas, the hotel had beauty products from Orla Kiely with the perfume of geranium. It was then I also fell in love with her leaves design -it is very retro, but still simple and beautiful. After this long winter I look forward to some color and I especially like the cushions below:

http://www.orlakiely.com

http://www.orlakiely.com

A new excuse to change the cushions in our apartment  :)

Have a lovely evening!

Isabell

Alof Café Munich

One of the many advantages of living in a city like Munich is that there are so many restaurants and cafés which you can try and you could spend years and would still not be able to try every single one.

This weekend I will go to a café I haven't been before: Alof Café in Hans-Sachs Street. I've heard that this place is very cozy and everything is homemade. I look forward to going there and will be back with a feedback soon. :)

Picture: yelp

Danish Design Homes

Danish Design and Scandinavian Design in general is very clean but also very nice. I like the white base with the geometric forms and the grey and brown and the pastel colors. These are two typical pictures, this is how the apartments of my Danish friends look like, I could ask them to take pictures and send them to interior magazines :)

Picture: bolig magasin

Picture: bolig magasin

Thoughts about Time

When I was a child time seemed to be so much longer. I still remember the feeling during the long summer holidays, how long a single day could be at that time. Playing outside and no need to care about anything.

I sometimes wish a had the same time feeling now that I had back then. A soon as you start to work time just flies and certainly not because you're having fun. When I arrive at work within the blink of an eye it's time for lunch and the next time I look at the clock it's time to leave. The days seem to pass away so fast and the circle of getting up and it is still dark outside and coming home and it is dark again, with almost no time spent outside is something that sometimes gives me a nostalgic feeling. I would love to have more time for myself and for my family. I wish it was a summer holiday and I was in Sweden right now...

VILA Clothes

When I was in Stockholm in december, I found a new brand: VILA. They have modern and very stylish items. Even though it is certainly too cold outside for this dress at the moment, I couldn't resist. Maybe it's the longing for summer, maybe it's just that I need something new that reminds me of summer in my wardrobe. I look forward to the postman bringing it :)

picture: Vila

picture: Vila

Chocolate cake in a jar

It is snowing outside and I'm in a mood for chocolate today. Rich and dark chocolate cake… yummie. I have a really good and easy recipe which I've used today and would like to share with you.

You need:

3 jars ( preserving jars) 1/4 l volume each

100 g dark chocolate ( 70 % chocolate)

3 tsp of cream

100 g butter

3 eggs

100 g sugar

1 sachet of vanilla sugar ( or 1/2 tsp of vanilla essence)

a pinch of salt
200 g ground hazelnuts

1 tsp of butter

2 tsp of cacao powder


Preheat the oven to 160 °C or 320 °F. Butter the jars and add the cacao powder so that the entire jar is buttered and has a cacao layer.

Separate the eggs and beat the eggwhites until stiff. Heat the cream in a pot at low heat, break the chocolate into pieces and add to the cream together with the butter which you cut into small pieces before adding it. Melt everything in the pot until while whisking. Whisk it until everything is of a single consistency. Let cool down a little bit.

In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolk the sugar, vanilla sugar and salt until it’s all mixed up evenly. Add the ground hazelnuts and fold in the stiff eggwhites. Divide the batter evenly among the 3 jars, filling each about 1/3 full.

Put the jars on a baking sheet and slide into the oven. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

Serve warm with a little scoop of vanilla ice cream. :)

Bye bye Christmas

It's only been a few days ago that I have said bye bye to Christmas. It was very hard for me to stow away everything and to take away all decorations this year. I guess it's because the last 3 month have been so incredibly busy that I just wanted to keep the coziness of Christmas a little longer. But all is put back into boxes and back in the attic, waiting for next time.

And as always after Christmas I'm waiting for Spring to come, waiting for the light and the birds to return and the first crocus ...