Easter cookies and cupcakes ideas!

Are you ready for Easter yet? If you haven't finished your festive meals, here are a few suggestions of something sweet, of course! One of my biggest pleasures in life is to bake cakes and sweets, so whenever there is a major holiday coming up, it is natural of me to post some recipes on this blog. Decorating cakes is so much fun! So here I am with some Easter inspired cupcakes and cookies recipes, I hope you will love them!

 

I searched all around Pinterest for some inspiration and took some idea from there and decided to create some sort of bunny shapes from frosting while making the ears from sugar paste (or marzipan).

Then I made some Easter egg nests - these are my favorite! -  a few other bunny tails and the ones with strawberries were meant to represent carrots dug up from the ground, but my glazing technique failed me this time and it did not stick to the strawberries, so let's pretend  they are carrots, ok?

I also made some gingerbread Easter egg cookies, now I cheated a bit with these, because I used a dough mix from the store and did not make it myself, but I promise you I spent more than three hours decorating these!

I worked with four bowls or frosting, each in a different color and I messed up my kitchen with glaze, tiny butterflies and food coloring, but I so loved the final result, I mean, the whole designing process gave me such satisfaction!

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Easter is all about pastel colors and fun shapes, so creating these was so much fun for me, just looking at them brings me such joy, I bet that by tomorrow they will be all gone, at least I hope they are delicious too!

Here are the ingredients I used:

For the cupcakes dough: your basic 150 g flour, 120 g caster sugar, 2 eggs, 100 ml milk, 100 g butter and a bit of almond extract - my favorite.

Mixed all these and bake them for 25 minutes at 175 degrees Celsius

For the frosting - I used the same frosting for the cookies and cupcakes:

180 g of mascarpone cheese, 200 ml of whipped cream, a bit of vanilla extract.

You also need food coloring and various cake decorations, you can find them at the baking department in any hyper market.

I hope you like them and I will leave you by wishing you a very happy (and delicious) Easter!

Christmas cupcakes ideas!

 

One more day left and Christmas is here! 

I think that actually the most joyful part of this holiday is all the preparation and anticipation for it rather than Christmas day itself - oh wait, there also the gifts opening on that day, nevermind what I just said, that is the most exciting part! 

So in honor of this holiday, as I felt very festive, I decided to make some Winter themed cupcakes which I am totally excited about. The idea came into my mind in a minute and in the next hour I was out purchasing all the necessary ingredients. The decorating ideas came into my mind as the baking process went all along, so naturally, I was missing some red pigment or some glitter, I'm also not too happy about the cupcake paper forms, they started to disintegrate in the oven, but after all this, at least they are insanely delicious and my level satisfaction was sky high!

 

I have my snowmen which I made with extreme care out of fondant and I used some pretzels and chocolate tiny bubbles as I like to call them, as decor

Next I have my polar bear paws made out of chocolate glazed biscuits and chocolate almond dragees - I actually had to glaze them myself because I could not find anywhere small chocolate biscuits with glaze on them - it was mission impossible IX

Aaaand my little reindeer and snowballs, I used the same fondant for both, some dragees and lots of coconut flakes as decor!

For these cupcakes I used simple ingredients, like 250 g flour and sugar, 3 eggs, a teaspoon of baking powder, 100 ml sour cream, 170 g of butter and some vanilla extract for the dough. Baked in the oven for 20 minutes and done!

For the white icing, I used 100 g of cream cheese, 25 g of butter and 50 g of powder sugar.

As for the brandy icing I used 200 ml of whipped cream, 30 g of powder sugar, one tablespoon of soluble coffee and a bit of brandy for flavor.

Simple right? The decorating part is the most challenging but also, fun to do!

With this, I am wishing you all a very Merry (and sweet) Christmas and I hope you are also feeling as festive and joyful as I do! 

See you soon!

The sweetest Halloween

 

Happy Halloween guys! 

 I overdone it this year, as I am not very much into Halloween, it's not a traditional holiday in my country, but it started to grow on me, the pumpkin carvings, the candles and the costumes, it creates such an eerie atmosphere and cozy at the same time. Additionally, I wanted to make something sweet for this occasion, so I though a few themed cupcakes will be just the right thing! 

I got inspired from various recipes and photos around the web and I wish I had a fondant to create more funny or scary shapes to decorate the cupcakes, but I didn't have time to make one or order it online, but there is always next year!

 For a first run, I am quite pleased with these cupcakes, the dough was very easy to make, your typical flour, eggs, butter, sugar and with a twist of fresh savor given by the scraped orange peel. I also added a coat of icing, made from powder sugar and a spoon of lemon juice, just to balance out the heavy taste of sugar. Next, I added the chocolate frosting and the strawberry frosting for the brain looking like cupcakes - they were the sweetest! 

For the other decorations I used scraped biscuits, a red pigment to paint and marshmallows.

We decided to carve the pumpkin after I made the cupcakes, needless to say, there were gone in about 10 minutes, so that is why the pumpkin appears faceless in a few photos and two-faced in the others. 

Anyway, I hope you're having a great (and creepy) night and maybe you'll feel inspired with my cupcake ideas!

 

Bonus, here is a photo of my black cat, the "scariest" cat you'll ever see; she is currently in a zen, lazy mood, as always.

The secret wine bar

 

Happy Monday everyone! If you are not a "Monday person" like 89% of Earth's population, then keep on reading this post, maybe you'll feel inspired or leave with a smile on your face.

Have you ever encountered a place that was capable of charming you so hard that you couldn't just not think about it for days or weeks? Such a place is here in Cluj, I can't take the credit of finding it, but ever since I went here for the first time, I was struck by this simple idea: "I need to take photos here!" It is too beautiful not to photograph, not just for me, but I really wanted to show it to you as well. 

 This gorgeous place called Sax, it's a jazz wine bar, so you can only drink wine of all kinds, the bottles are exposed on two big walls and the offer is outstanding, so it can be a little overwhelming if you are not an expert in wines - much as myself. The kind gentlemen who run the place will tell you the story of the wines they offer and make suggestions according to your preference. Pretty classy, right? 

 The idea is that this place is quite secret, I can't tell you where it is, apart from the fact that it is located in Cluj, Romania, if you are in the city, you can visit their Facebook page, give them a call, make a reservation and ask for the entry password. Yes, there is a password - I told it was secret! 

 The fact is that the owner wanted to create this place for private gatherings and while they did that, they wanted to offer a taste of their wines and music (oh, their jazzy music is just a true delight!) to other people as well. Therefor, gradually, people started to find out about this place from mouth to mouth, much like the old folk tales, and that is something I find to be so cool! 

 Scroll down for more photos and I hope you will be charmed as I was!

    

They even have a little terrace filled with flowers, such a gem right? 

 Aren't the furniture and decorations amazing? Every little piece was refurnished and there are so many tiny details that can get your attention, you just need to look. The style is so glamorous and the colors! Aren't the colors just enchanting? 

 And you can't even imagine how lovely it is during the night time, when both rooms are filled in a romantic mood with dim light, it just feels really cozy, as if you are visiting a close friend's home.

 If you are a vintage and jazz lover, this is a place you simply cannot miss! 

 Hope you enjoyed this article as much as I did creating it.

Welcome to Distrikt 42!

 

 I love themed restaurants, wether they are vintage, aristocratic, gothic or rustic, I am there to check it out! So, when I heard about Distrikt 42, a rather new place in Bucharest, I had to see what it was like and of course how the food tasted - another thing about me: when I travel, I love to eat in new places and check out exotic dishes. The place is decorated in steampunk style, a style that is so in trend right now (there are already three steampunk pubs in Cluj already) so that really caught my attention.

 At a first glance you might think the place is quite small, but there are about four different salons each decorated differently one from another, and the decorations simply mesmerize you. Of course we took our time and took photos there and a waitress was kind enough to lend me the classic steampunk top hat even though I didn't ask for it, so thanks to her I was in the theme!

 I hope you like the photos and do check it out if you have the chance, the food is also great!

   

If you want to check it out,  Distrikt 42 is located at Sf Dumitru 13, Bucharest


P.S. By the way, I just started posting on Instagram, if you want, you can follow me @lola.wonder

Happy weekend guys!