SUNDAY BAKING pt. WHATEVER; CHOCO-COCO RAW-MUFFINS

Time for some Sunday baking! Or, by the time you'll get to it it will be Monday already. Alhtough it's Easter so Monday is kind of like Sunday anyways but oh well peanuts! 

...which is what we will be using here; or not peanuts-peanuts but nuts and fruits mainly - these muffins are raw. It's a muffin version of the cake I made some time ago. I've been refining the recipe a bit. It is originally based on a layered raw cake on mulberries and walnut with a raspberry filling from Jolie. I was about to transport these away from home today so I decided to make them into muffins instead of a cake. Although a more proper word would perhaps be pastries. But yes yes thats peanuts-schemanuts again.

These will stay good a day or two  refridgerated. They are pretty heavy so one or two per person is quite enough. This batch makes 15 small sized muffins. 

So,

you will need 4 dl of nuts and 4 dried fruit (the measurements are a little bit so-so, I usually just go for one handfull = one dl, but I tried to be precise here!), cocoa powder and coconut flakes, berries (fresh or frozen), coconut cream, coconut oil and honey (or agave) and small cupcake molds. If you are a puritan you will use all-raw ingredients but I use basic items that can be found in most grocery stores.

First, we make the crust. Or cake. Not sure what to call it. Muffin:
2 dl walnuts
2dl almonds
1 dl dried figs (about four big)
1 dl raisins
2 dl dates (about 8 mid sized)
1 table spoon dried apple in bits
1 dl cocoa powder
coconut flakes

You can do this on only walnuts too and you can use basically any fruit or dried berries for the batch, as long as half of it is dates.

If the fruit is very dry chop it into pieces and soak in water for some time. I needed to soak the figs and the apple for about 30 min. Pressed pitted dates can require longer for example.

Grind the nuts in a food processor. (If you do not have a monster machine that can take the whole amount at a time -but a bullet or hand mixer with a cutting blade- you need to do this in small phazes. Believe me, I've broken several smaller mixes when I've been to eager...)
You can leave a little texture to the nuts, they don't have ti turn into smooth flour. If you mix walnuts for too long the oil will fall out which makes the batch greasy.

Add the fruit in a few bits at a time and the cocoa powder, mix to a rather smooth paste. If it feels too moist you can add a spoon of coconut flakes.

Scrap out of the mixer, put some coconut flakes on your working surface, moist your hands and roll the batch into a ball. Cover with plastic and put in the fridge.

Meanwhile, take out the berries from the freezer if you use frozen ones.
You'll need about 2 dl.

Now, let's make the frosting -

For which we need:
One pack (200g) coconut cream
3 table spoons honey (or agave for the all-vegan version)
4 table spoons cocoa powder (or more for a darker frosting. Makes sense.)

And oh, 2 large table spoons of cold pressed coconut oil.
Put the oil in a cup and place the cup in a pot of warm water, so that it will melt.

Place the coconut cream in a strainer so that any excess fluid runs off. Note that coconut cream is not coconut milk, but a firm paste.  (Btw I realized I had never had the need to use the word strainer in English before in my life and had to look that up. Funny. )

Add all ingredients in a bowl or in the food processor. I sprinkled some ground vanilla on top. 

Mix togehter by machine or hand, both works fine.  Put in the fridge for a while to set.

This makes a great chocolate mousse too btw to eat with fruit salad or refrigerated as ice cream.

Take out the dough and roll it into balls, place them in the molds. They are actually quite good just like this but we won't leave it to just balls now will we. Flat the balls with a teaspoon and form a little pot.

Mash the berries.

Fill the pots with berry mash, about a teaspoon each.

Take out the frosting and decorate the muffins by spoon or knife or with that squisher-thing that makes swirls like this.  (Another word I didn't know. But then again I can't seem to know the accurate word for it in Swedish or Finnish either. Or any other language. Lets call it swirler.)

And then we're done! Serve. These are the kind of pastry you can serve to people without mentioning that they are raw or healthy if you want to; you can easily fool most skeptics. 

Best eaten by spoon. Yum!

YOUR COVER BOY (AND -GIRL)

Dag and I are on the cover of family magazine KaksPlus (translated Two Plus). I was featured in an article on how to maintain one's style, or how style changes, with a baby.

The article itself is well written but I freaked out a little when I saw the headline on the cover labelled mommyfight and "High heel mothers vs. sweat pants mothers". Whoah! But it wasn't that bad. Just covers and selling headline, you know...

PAINTED

Nadja Mikkilä used one of my pictures for the latest painting in her stencil series! This is a photo of the painting. You can see more of Nadja's art work from her site nadja-art or at her blog.

RASPBERRY

I love it when you have an idea you've been waiting to realize forever and then you finally get around doing it and it turns out just as you planned; right - we put up wallpaper in the small hall between the back porch, kitchen, laundry closet and bathroom-in-the-making.  As it is pretty much just a walk-trough space with four doors no one ever really stays in I wanted the walls to be bright, colorful and heavily patterned, kind of like a piece of candy you can spot from the other more calm rooms. En karamell.

And I wanted it to be this exact wallpaper, Vadelma (translated: raspberry). Kind of looking like something people would have put up during a previous renovation in the sixties that we would have discovered under the eighties wall paper we torn away.

Like most of our other wall paper also Vadelma is from Tapettitalo, a company that sells old and classic patterns from past decades and centuries as well as vintage dead stock of old their factory rolls. The doors are old, we've moved them around a bit from room to room, opening to opening.

I know this post totally makes it seem like I would have been putting these up but I so did not this time (phew), the handy men and Eddi did it.


Bonus pic: You can see the bathroom coming along in the background. But that is still for laters, as is the kitchen... but looking pretty good so far, right?

VINTAGE; FLORAL; FLOWING

I got myself a new vintage dress kind of by accident, spotting it on the mannequin at Helsinki's smallets but most delicious vintage store. (That would be Hoochie Mama Jane.)  Long and soft with a bold pattern and with some dangerous cash in my pocket it had to be mine right there right .

I've been avoiding polyester since my teenage years in tight non-breathable seventies shirts but when it comes to certain garments - a flowing dress like this one- I have to admit it can acutally be rather comfy and soft against the skin.. So I let go of my old ban of 100% polyester. With a slight temptation to cut this one into knee-lenght, I am also letting go of my fear of long hems; the dress will remain ancle length. I see it with a big rolled up do, or 30's style waves, or my black turban; with heels, sandals or boots alike. Versatility rocks.

DESATURATED IN THE USUAL MANNER

Here's my Atelieri O.Haapala performer photo from this year's burlesque festival!

THE DOG TOOTH SKIRT

It's all about re-discovering skirts nowadays! I tucked this old thrifted one away a couple of summers ago when I in a unusual, delirious moment of practical thinking realized it is not so-so smart to keep up space in the closet for clothes that belong to another season (like wools skirt in summer etc). But to be honest the actual reason for hiding this skirt away was the one that it had, ehrm, strangely shrunken to be a bit too tight around my hips. I decided to try it on the other day and noticed that it oh-yah! is no longer uncomfortably small but just right!

SCENES FROM A BELATED SPRING

Mint green left heel: (tiny voice) Ummm... hello?


 (small, desperate, squeeky voices) Let us out!

And hey! Don't forget us over here! We're trapped in here!

Wear me! Wear us!

Weather (determined): NO!


Winter boots (fatigued tone): We are so done and tired! We're supposed to be off-season already!


Winter (mad scientist voice): MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

ENAMEL AND ADVERTISING

You may remember reading about how I love everything enamel a few times before...  well I do.
Now, after stocking up son seom vintage enamel kitchen wear the last time it was time for some accessories; I got myself a pair of enamel earrings and a bracelet. They are from Nea's Stiching on Etsy, who I found via a Project Wonderful ad her eon my blog actually. I almost never have time to properly browse Etsy or such but my own ads help me, heh :) And I rather often end up buying something too... so see, it is worth it,  advertising here pays off!

You can place small ads here in my sidebar via Project Wonderful and slightly bigger ones on Blogads.

And yes my nail polish matches our wallpaper. (It's kure Bazaar's natural nail polish in the shade Boyfriend, if interested.)

BURLESQUEPOLIS

Molla by Atelieri O.Haapala at Burlesquepolis

I can't wait to get my hands on this year's Atelieri artist portrait I took at the Helsinki burlesque festival! the back drop was inpired by Metropolis and Blade Runner, which I think you can spot from the featured photo above.

THIS HERE...

...will soon turn, or; is very much already turning into a bathroom. And it will oh yes fit one damn big tub too! Which I am looking very much forward to.

BROWN AND BLUE, CORDUROY LEATHER AND WOOL

 I've been digging trough the piles and drawers of my closet, mixing textures and re-discovering old items.

Well there are a gazillion pictures of me here with a black beret looking out into the unknown. But the swirl here is new, bigger than before, very 2.0 :)

So I  ended up weating lots of things I haven't worn in a very very very long time.
The skirt is my grandmothers old, vest my mom's old and the bag vintage, the rest just plain old.

AND THERE WAS LIGHT

With an evening light this bright and fine, it does not even matter that the kitchen is a bit messy! (Or, as you hear read me say every time this year; the windows in need of washing.)

There will be a lot of going on about the returning light, there are a lot of posts about that everywhere up here already. But you got to hand it to us; it's been reported that we've just had the darkest winter in fifty years. And so I believe it was. But give it a few weeks and the winter coat and dark mornings will be long forgotten!