Mexican Street Food

Last night my friend Lauren and I went to a restaurant in Covent garden called Wahaca. It's a really good Mexican restaurant with authentic Mexican "street food", no tex mex!

We drank hibiscus margaritas...

and ate fish tacos, so good!

Cheers!

Thanks Lauren for a fab evening!

Hello

The photo "shoot" went well, hurrah! I've got lots of good photos I can use in my header and the neighbours got to have a good laugh, so everyone is happy!

Chocolate & Cheesecake Muffins

These are my best muffins. They are so good I can easily eat three in a go! Because what can be better than cheesecake and chocolate combined?

20 muffins

Ingredients: (Swedish measurements in brackets)

1 1/2 cups [3,5 dl] flour

1/2 tsp [1/2 tsk] baking powder

1/2 tsp [1/2 tsk] bicarbonate of soda

1/4 tsp [1/4 tsk] salt

125 g butter, room tempered

1 cup [2,5 dl] demerera sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup [1 1/4 dl] cocoa powder

1 tsp [1 tsk] vanilla extract or vanilla sugar

2/3 cup [1,5 dl] milk

150 g dark chocolate of a good quality

Cheesecake filling:

300 g Philadelphia cream cheese

1/3 cup [3/4 dl] sugar

1 egg

1 tsp [1 tsk] vanilla extract or vanilla sugar

~ Preheat your oven to 175°c/350°F ~

Mix flour, baking powder, bicarbonate and salt in a large bowl and put to the side. Whisk the butter and demerera sugar with an electric mixer and add the eggs one by one. Using a wooden spoon, mix in the cocoa and the vanilla extract, then add milk and the dry ingredients you prepared earlier. Mix well but don't stir more than necessary. Lastly, break the chocolate in chunks and stir them in.

Make the cheesecake filling by using the electrical mixer to whisk the cream cheese until soft. Add sugar, egg and vanilla extract and whisk it all together so it becomes smooth and airy.

Now place around 20 muffin cases on a baking sheet, and spoon the chocolate batter into each case so it is about 2/3 full. Fill them up with cheesecake filling.

Bake in the oven on 175/350 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Daily Drop Cap

appy Weekend everyone!

Do you like the "H" in the beginning of this post? Then you should check out the "Daily Drop Cap" website by Jessica Hische. She has designed lots of cool letters that you can use in your (non-commercial) blog! I think it's a great idea! Here are some of Jessica's Daily Drop Cap designs:

You should also check out her portfolio website for more cool fonts and designs, my favourite is this one:

A New Life!

Yesterday I got a brand new niece! Ok, technically she's my boyfriend's niece but I like to say she's mine too! :) She's amazing, and it was incredible to hold her on the day she was born.

Photo by Emily Lynch.

Soda Bread Ingredients in Swedish!

Vick asked me to post the soda bread recipe with Swedish (European) measurements for the ingredients. Here they are:

Ingredienser:

• 4,5 dl mjöl + extra för knådning
• 1,3 dl fullkornsmjöl
• 1 msk bikarbonat
• 1 msk salt
• 40g smör, smält
• 1 msk mörk sirap
• 3–3,4 dl fil

Enjoy! :)

How Do You Like Them Buttons?

Wihoo I have finished my new blog navigation buttons! I have also added an 'about me' page. What do you think?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Take care of your loved ones! xo Lisa

Image sources: 1,2,3,4,5 and 6

Soda Bread Recipe

This is probably the easiest bread I have ever made! The recipe is created by Lorraine Pascal, the presenter of "Baking Made Easy" on BBC2.

I like baking my own bread for two reasons; firstly it's a hundred times tastier than store bought bread, and secondly you can control exactly what goes in your bread. Bread from the supermarket usually contains lots of sugar, I find that really unnecessary. This recipe doesn't include any sugar or sweetener, and it's still delicious!

Ingredients:

• 370g/13oz plain flour, plus extra for dusting

• 130g/4½oz wholemeal flour

• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

• 1 tsp salt

• 40g/1½oz butter, melted

• 1 tbsp black treacle

• 300–340ml/11–12fl oz buttermilk (or alternatively use warm milk plus 1 tbsp lemon juice)

  
  

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6 and ensure the top shelf in the oven is in position.

Place the flours, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a large bowl and stir together.

The best way to remove treacle from the tin is to run a tablespoon under a really hot tap for 10 seconds before dipping it into the treacle. This ensures the treacle runs easily off the spoon. (How beautiful is this treacle tin by the way!)

Make a large hole in the centre of the flour mixture and pour in the melted butter and treacle, plus enough of the buttermilk to make a loose sticky dough.

Tip the dough onto a lightly dusted work surface. The dough will be quite sticky. Knead the dough for one minute, then shape it into a large ball with a taut, smooth top. Place the dough on a baking tray and flatten it a bit - I find the easiest way to do this is with a rolling pin.

Take a wooden spoon, put some flour over the whole handle, then hold it horizontally over the bread. Put the wooden spoon handle on top of the bread then push it down until you feel the baking tray at the bottom. This mark is the first half of the trademark soda bread cross. Repeat with a line at right angles to this.

Dust with some flour then bake in the oven for 30–40 minutes, or until the bread is brown, has risen nicely and the dough inside where the cross was made is not damp. (Instead of dusting with flour I brushed the bread with a beaten egg and prinkled sesame seeds, poppy seeds and sunflower seeds on. I like seeds! :)

Serve fresh from the oven with butter and jam, or a slice of mature cheddar cheese. This bread does not keep well, so is best eaten on the day that it is baked – but if you have any left, it does make good toast.

The Glass of Water...

that I use when I paint looks quite beautiful sometimes...

Jealous!

My friend Tove has just bought this amazing painting by Lovisa Burfitt, so jealous!

Lovisa Burfitt is a Swedish illustrator, I have been a huge fan of her for a while now. I love that watercolour style that almost looks accidental, but of course it isn't, I read that she painted about 50 versions of these legs before she perfected the lines.

Lovisa Burfitt also illustrated this new line of crockery called "Mademoiselle Oiseau" for Swedish brand Rörstrand. I love the little box and coffee mug!

Photos from Rörstrand's blog Design by Day.

Yesterday's Outfit

Here is the dress I wore last night, it's from a market in London called Old Spitalfield's Market. I really recommend visiting that market if you are in London, they've got lots of cute and unique clothes and accessories, I have bought two dresses there and I absolutely love both of them!

Spitalfield's is open everyday except Saturday, the nearest tube station is Liverpool Street. A little London tip for you! :)