Homemade almond-hazelnut milk

Mandel-Haselnuss-Milch -5I know, I know, the trend to make your own nut milk has been overly exhausted by now. There are probably a billion recipes out there, so why should mine be any different? Well, to anyone who says “geez Ineke, get creative, I´ve already done it a thousand times”, I hope you´ll accept me into the nut-milk-lover-club. To anyone else: You have to try this recipe!! Continue reading “Homemade almond-hazelnut milk”

German Easter challah bread with cranberries and marzipan

Osterzopf-1My favorite excuse to ignore my university duties is „if I edit the pictures and write the blogpost today, I´ll have more time to completely focus on my essay tomorrow”. Yeaaaah…like that´s going to work. Anyone who knows me knows that tomorrow I´ll find another excuse to procrastinate. Like cleaning the bathroom, watering my herbs, cleaning out my closet or taking out the trash. All very important things that definitely need to be done, because then I can concentrate better. So this blogpost is brought to you by my politics essay which as of now is still unfinished. I´ll get to it tomorrow, I´ll promise. Continue reading “German Easter challah bread with cranberries and marzipan”

Pancakes with yoghurt and pomegranate seeds

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Soooo…how are your New Year’s resolution going? Have you been to the gym three times this week, eating only salad and green smoothies, cleaned out your closet, organized your desk and filed your tax return? No? Well, I´m not surprised. Most New Year’s resolutions are made known fully well that they are never to be kept anyway. Although sometimes having a goal can really motivate you, other times too many resolutions are just frustrating. You know, like when you got so much stuff to do, you decide to take a nap instead? I hear you!

Don´t worry, I am not here today to make you feel bad. Instead, I am here to tell you that you can have your (pan)cake and eat it too! Continue reading “Pancakes with yoghurt and pomegranate seeds”

Homemade granola with vanilla, cranberries and nuts

IMG_8871The last couple of weeks I didn´t really get to blogging, mostly because I just didn´t have the time, due to University, being sick and other things that just piled up. I became really restless during those weeks, I just couldn´t wait to get back in my kitchen and behind my camera again. This week, I finally had some time so I whipped up this batch of homemade granola for you.

Yes, I know that Christmas is around the corner, especially since the first Advent is this Sunday. And I did make the first Christmas cookies already but the recipe for this granola is rather un-christmassy. But then again I thought, a balanced breakfast is the most important start in the day and this is true all year round, so here we are. If you are looking for Christmas cookie inspiration, you can find the world’s best Vanillekipferl recipe here, and my grandmas Zimtsterne and an explanation as to why Germans go crazy during Christmas time here. Continue reading “Homemade granola with vanilla, cranberries and nuts”

Healthy breakfast carrot-cake muffins

Breakfast-carrot muffins 5It´s official. I moved! My new apartment is all set up and now it´s time to get to know life in the new city. Although I´m still bummed that I had to move at all, my new apartment kind of tries to make up for it. For starters I know finally have my own oven!! I know, it´s amazing. In my old apartment, I had to use the common kitchen for baking, which involved me running up and down all the time, panicking about whether I will get the timing right or everything might burn. I also have those huge windows that face west which means that I have a lot of light. I´m really excited to get behind my camera and experiment with all that light but until then I have a recipe for you that has been in put on hold for quite a while. I think it fit´s this October just right: carrot cake muffins! Continue reading “Healthy breakfast carrot-cake muffins”

Red currant vanilla muffins

IMG_7384Do you know that feeling, when you got something carefully planned and then you end up doing something completely different? My original plan was to try this blueberry-peach galette recipe that I´ve been thinking about for a while. So I went to the famers market to get some fresh fruit and that’s when I saw those red currants. Red, juicy, beautiful red currants that were just waiting to be bought. Of course I couldn´t say no so I found myself buying them without a big recipe in mind. It was the first time I had them this year and they are not my typical go-to fruit but you got to admit that red currants are some of the sexiest fruit out there. Just look at them all cute and delicious. I ended up making the galette as well, while I was thinking about recipes that could use some red currants. The muffin recipe was a spontaneous idea, which turned out be even greater than the galette and deserves to be shown first.

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Baked oatmeal with rhubarb and strawberries

IMG_7004 I´m a breakfast type of person. I do love dinner though. Actually, I think food is always great, regardless the time of day. But breakfast is very important to me. My Spanish roommates would always make fun of me when they saw me in the morning, eating my bread, eggs and orange juice. Then again, breakfast is not that big of a deal in Spain, typically consisting of coffee and a cookie. But here in Germany and in so many other places in the world breakfast is really important. I just can´t leave the house in the morning without a good foundation for the day. And I absolutely loooove me a good brunch. IMG_6980 Continue reading “Baked oatmeal with rhubarb and strawberries”

Breakfast muffins with walnuts and raspberries

IMG_5185I know, I know, there have been quite a few muffin recipes on this blog lately. But I just had to share this one with you. We are talking about breakfast muffins. That´s right: dessert for breakfast. Plus, these are guilt-free healthy muffins. Meaning they are made without wheat flour and sugar. Say whaaat? It´s a crazy world we are living in.

IMG_5144Usually, I am a bit skeptical when it comes to super healthy vegan, gluten-, sugar- and fat free desserts. Don´t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of eating healthy. I have at least 5 different types of flour in my kitchen, I love whole grain bread more than anything and I can´t go to the farmers market without buying tons of fresh fruit and vegetables. But when it comes to dessert I was always more of a “the more the better” kind of person. Life is too short to not eat dessert. And the best cakes are just the ones made with tons of butter, cream and chocolate. Also most of the super-healthy-low-carb-sugar-free recipes require a lot of ingredients that are (a) hard to get and (b) kind of expensive. That being said, I was very interested when I saw the recipe for breakfast muffins over at Green Kitchen Stories. They are made of things you usually have at home or can easily find at the supermarket, like walnuts, oats, bananas and dates. And the combination sounded really great. So I decided to give this whole healthy-baking thing a try.

IMG_5137The result was AMAZING. The muffins are soft and fluffy and surprisingly very sweet. They taste like a mixture between granola, oatmeal and pancakes. So they really are perfect for breakfast. The original recipe is with turmeric and blueberries. I adapted it a little by using cinnamon instead of turmeric and adding raspberries. I also altered the granola topping by adding some caramelized walnuts. Because things are always better when caramelized!
IMG_5161Makes about 18 muffins:
100 g walnuts
85 g rolled oats
130 g buckwheat flour, spelt flour or whole grain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp freshly ground cardamom
½ tsp sea salt
160 ml buttermilk or plant yogurt
80 ml oil or butter
2 ripe bananas, mashed
5 fresh dates, mashed
3 large eggs
Raspberries, frozen or fresh
For the granola topping:
1/3 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup chopped walnuts
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp runny honey
1) Using a food processor or a blender, mix walnuts and oats into a coarse flour. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and mix with the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cardamom and salt. With a blender or a food processor, mix buttermilk, oil, bananas and dates. Mix with the dry ingredients. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl for a minute before carefully adding them to the batter. Add raspberries.
2) Divide the batter among the muffin tins. For the granola topping, mix all the ingredients and let them caramelize in a pan. Add on top of the muffins. Bake the muffins in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes at 180°C.

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Banana bread with chocolate chips

IMG_4008At the moment I am finding out what it means to be an adult. I´m doing an internship and that means getting up early. And being gone for most of the day. And not having that much time left for baking and even less desire to make something complex and fancy once I get home. Seriously, kudos to everyone who is blogging on top of their full time job! How do you manage that? I am already looking forward to the free time and flexibility college life offers.

In college I already noticed that I am not a huge canteen fan. Most of the ones at college do offer a great variety and try to be as fresh and organic as possible. And the one at my Internship is not bad either. I just prefer to cook at home or bring my own stuff to work. Before I started this internship I was imagining all the yummy things I would take to work but reality is me frantically searching for stuff to throw together the night before. Maybe I should reconsider the whole grown-up-responsibility-thing.

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Winterbrunch

IMG_2859Christmas is over, the New Year is just beginning and I am still full from all the food I ate. But it was all worth it, it was just so good. And once a year it is perfectly okay to eat until you can´t move no more. We can start counting calories again when summer starts. If it was up to me, I would still try to avoid any cookies, cake or other sweets but since I am taking part in a baking challenge, I had no other choice but to get back in the kitchen and start getting creative.

The challenge consists of me going to the Metro Warehouse and picking up the ingredients they provided for me. I have to use everything they gave me, leaving something out is strictly forbidden. I can however add anything I like and I don´t have to use all the ingredients in only one recipe. The Ingredients were whole grain flour, cane sugar, olive oil, butter, soft cheese, cranberries, marzipan, mango puree, cream cheese, pretzel sticks, chocolate-espresso-spread and mustard.

IMG_2708 Continue reading “Winterbrunch”

Chocolate Brioche

When it rains I always have this urge to start baking. Lazy Sundays, with nothing to do and on top of it bad weather…you will definitely find me in the kitchen, whipping up some pancakes or in this case chocolate brioche. It´s french, it sounds classy, it involves chocolate – sounds good enough to me! It´s not that I only get inspired with the typical german weather (it is supposed to be summer but it´s 16 degrees, raining and I haven´t seen the sun all day). On sunny days I invent all kind of different combinations for salads, stormy wheather is perfect for baking muffins, cupcakes, waffles and don´t even get me started on christmas season – hot chocolate, Plätzchen, Bratäpfel…I will always find a good reason to make on particular type of food. This time in Ineke´s kitchen: Chocolate Brioche!

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