baked for santa...gluten-free

santa claus was coming to town...in germany like in most other european countries santa claus, who is called sankt nikolaus, is coming in the night from the 5th to the 6th of december to bring small sweats and treats for the kids.

...i used to love baking for christmas and i love the nikolaus tradition, so i thought i should try to make some santa sweets...and i had to make them gluten-free...!!!

fortunately, i was able to bake a few sweets on time, unfortunately i was neither able to properly decorate the mini santas, nor to write this post on time.

...anyhow...this is what i got.

a chocolate-hazelnut-cake, chocolate muffins, marzipan-almond-cookies, puffed-rice chocolate, crunchy almond-white chocolate.

i hope you do like some of the recipes and maybe they encourage you to bake some sweet gluten-free treats yourself, if you can‘t take gluten.

santa chocolate hazelnuts cake

this is what you need

- 400g grounded hazelnuts

- 200g sugar

- 6 eggs

- vanilla extract

- 1 teaspoon baking powder

- 200g chocolate

this is what you have to do

 

- preheat oven to 175 degrees celcius

- mix hazelnuts, eggs, vanilla extract and sugar until the sugar is completely dissovled

- mix hazelnuts and baking powder and add to the sugar mixture

- melt chocolate in a double boiler

- add to the dough

- pour the mixture into a greased santa mould

- bake for one hour 

- cover the cake with foil after 20 minutes to avoid getting too dark

- let cool down completely 

- decorate with frosting or butter cream, if you do have the time

http://www.chefkoch.de/rezepte/378991124219163/Schoko-Nuss-Kuchen-ohne-Mehl.html

santa chocolate muffins

 

this is what you need

- 100ml milk

- 100g sugar

- 100g corn flour

- 100g chocolate

- 50g butter

- 1 egg

- 1 tablespoon cacao

- 2 teaspoons gluten-free baking powder

this is what you have to do

 

- pre-heat oven to 180 degrees celsius

- pour milk and half of the sugar into a small pot and bring to boil.

- add chocolate and dissolve

- beat butter, egg and the other half of the sugar

- add corn flour, cacao and baking powder and mix well

- let the chocolate mixture cool down a little bit and add to the dough

- mix well

- pour the dough into greased small santa moulds

- bake for 20 to 25 minutes

- let cool down completely

- decorate, if you do have time to do so

http://www.glutenfreie-ernaehrung.com/rezept/schokoladen-choco-chips-muffins/

marzipan-almond-cut out-cookies

 

this is what you need

 

- 200g marzipan

- 100g sugar

- 100g icing sugar

- 1 egg white

- 200g grounded almonds

- dash of lemon juice

this is what you have to do

 

- kneat all ingredients to a ball, using your hands

- add some more almonds or icing sugar, in case the dough is too sticky

- let the dough rest in the fridge for one hour

- roll out the dough

- cut out santa cookies

- bake for 7 to 10 minutes at 160 degrees celsius

- let cool down completely 

- decorate the cookies, if you get the chance

http://bom-glutenfrei.blogspot.de/2014/04/osterplatzchen.html

puffed rice-chocolate

 

this what you need

 

- 200g chocolate

- handful puffed rice

- ginger bread spices
 

this is what you have to do

 

- melt chocolate in a double boiler

- add christmassy spices

- pour chocolate into small silicone santa moulds

- let cool down a little bit

- add puffed rice

- press the puffed rice firmly onto the still warm chocolate

- let cool down and harden in the fridge for a few hours

almond crunch white chocolate santas

 

this is what you need

 

- 200g white chocolate

- dash of vanilla powder

- dash of cinnamon powder

- handful of gluten-free almond muesli

this is what you have to do

 

- melt white chocolate in a double boiler

- add vanilla and cinnamon

- pour mixture into the santa moulds

- let cool down a little bit

- add almond muesli

- press the muesli pieces firmly into the still warm chocolate

thank you very much for stopping by...best regards...silke

sweet halloween treats

...a big thanks to everyone who created one of those beautiful sweet halloween snacks and kindly shared it with the rest of the world.

once you started searching the world wide web for halloween snacks you will find a lot amazing stuff and i am so glad for being off for a few days, so i could jump into the halloween adventure.

...i am very grateful for the great inspiration and hope i could credit the original posts...there the treats look sooo  professional, but still encouraging to trying to make them yourself.

it is absolutely worth paying those blogs a visit, so i decided to skip the part of publishing my own recipes and redirect to the respective pages instead.

...i hope you enjoy browsing through my small selection of fun halloween treats...best regards...silke 

skeleton mud cake

https://www.facebook.com/taartvanfiona

spider chocolate muffins

http://www.forkandbeans.com/2014/09/27/black-widow-spider-cupcakes/

cookie dentures

http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2011/10/draculas-dentures-for-halloween.html

jello worms

http://www.inkatrinaskitchen.com/2011/10/creepy-peepers-halloween-jell-o.html

spooky chocolate push pops

http://www.cutefoodforkids.com/2012/09/halloween-snack-idea-monster-in-my-cup.html

chocolate skulls

http://silkerudat.blogspot.de/2014/01/cookies-n-cream-white-chocolate-bars.html

homemade fruit leather roll ups

...such a beautiful and delicious way to preserve and enjoy fruit.

you can just do single-fruited leather or you can do some fruit cocktail mixes, you can add some sweetener, extracts, spices, coconut flakes, chopped nuts and so on and so on..they are all yummy.

so far i tried strawberry and vanilla, a berry mix with cinnamon, a kiwi-pineapple-grape-lemon-mix and an orange-clementine-limette-apple-mix and for sure i am going to try a lot more.

this is what you need

- 2 1/2 to 3 cups ripe and diced fruit per baking sheet

- sweetener like honey, agave syrup or sugar (optional)

- seasonings, extracts to taste (optional)

this is what you have to do

- wash or peel your fruit

- place the fruit in you food processor blend until you reach a smooth puree

- taste the puree and add sweetener or extract to your taste

- if your puree is too thick to pour, add a little liquid (juice or water)

   - it should be thin enough to pour and thick enough to stay put where you spread it

- gently spread the fruit mixture onto a baking pan, which is lined with parchment paper

    - a silicone mat or even strong and durable plastic foil are a good alternative

- smooth out any wrinkles

- keep the puree away from the edges

- place the tray in the oven and let the fruit puree dry at the lowest temperature 

- this might take 6 to 8 hours to dry

- you fruit leather is ready, whenever it is pliable 

- carefully remove the fruit leather from the parchment paper

- cut it into stripes and roll them up individually

- the fruit leather roll ups should be stored in an air-tight container

the original recipe can be found here:

http://www.ourbestbites.com/2011/09/how-to-make-homemade-fruit-roll-ups/

i hope you got a little inspired to...best regards...silke

kids advent calendar with christmas carols

...one christmas carol a day...this is such a nice idea for an advent calendar for the little ones...especially for those, who will have traditional advent calendars already.

this is perfect for the christmas spirit around the house...hopefully the kids will be really excited and sing along everyday...

...this might be quite challenging for the parents, that's why this advent calendar comes together with an advent calendar for them...including the lyrics of the christmas choral for each day.

all you need to do is to choose twenty-four popular christmas carols for children...burn each song onto a single cd,  wrap it individually and number it.

...i am so in love with this idea and hope my little nephews will do the same.

this is what you need

- twenty-four cd's

- twenty-four christmas carols for children

- twenty-four sheets or color coordinated paper in size din a4

- or gift wrapping paper to cut in size din a4

- felt

- satin ribbon

- golden kraft paper

- circle stencil

- ruler

- pen

- scissors

- double sided tape

- hot glue gun

this is what you have to do

- use a din a4 sheet of paper as a template

- try to fit as many sheets as possible onto the gift wrapping paper

- cut them out...you need twenty-four in total

- lay the paper flat on your table

- place a cd in the middle of the sheet of paper

- fold in the left long side of the paper until it touches the edge of the cd aligned to the other edge

- fold the right side of the sheet so that the edge of the cd rests within the fold

- fold the bottom to the center

- fold down the top half of the paper

 - dog- ear the top two corner of the top half of the paper

- tuck the resulting flap inside the opposite flap

- slip into the pocket

- the final model should be square

- here you can find  a great pictured tutorial 

http://www.kotzendes-einhorn.de/blog/2012-07/cd-hullen-aus-din-a4-blattern-falten/

 - you need to create twenty-four of the cd covers

- mark stripes in the width of 7,5 cm 

- and the length of 20 cm

- cut out twenty-four of those

- fold your paper 

- back and forth

- create an accordion shape

- the whole piece of paper should look like this

- don't worry if the edges are uneven

- you can easily remove the edges at this stage

- fold the paper into half

- of course you need twenty-four of those

- put some tape along the inside of the fold

- stick the sides together

- open up your rosette into a half circle

- add some more tape along the remaining edges

- glue the insides and stick the sides together

 - add even another tape in the middle of the rosette to keep in place

- open up your rosette into a circle

- and yes...twenty-four of those

- using a stencil

- draw small circles onto the piece of felt

- cut them out

- twenty-four of them

- number the felt circles

- cut your ribbon

- when it comes to  the length of the ribbon, it is totally up to you

- you do need fourty-eight of those

- position two ribbon onto the back of the paper rosette

- affix them with hot glue and let it dry

- hot glue the felt circles onto the center of the top of the rosette

- glue the numbered rosette medals onto the left corner of the top of the cd cover

- and here we go

- now you have just have to burn one christmas carol onto each of the twenty-four cd's and insert them into the beautiful covers

- as mentioned before i would like to encourage the parents to sing with the kids everyday.

- and to make their life easier i decided to create their own advent calendar by writing down the lyrics of each christmas carol, rolling them and adding ribbons and numbered gift labels.