Sweet Saturday

Apple's with Bailyes cream liqueur in a filo wrapping

I made this after reading another recipe with apples and Baileys. But I did want something wrapped in dough, which was not the case in the other recipe, as I wanted to hand these out as treats. I did not take measurements of the ingredients so these are guesses.

• 5 small apples
• 50 gr of dark brown sugar
• 50 gr of butter
• dash of baileys
• 50 ml cream
• ground cinnamon to taste
• ground ginger to taste
• ready bought filo dough

As I'm writing these down I can imagine raisins soaked in the Baileys first would go well with it too.

Take a baking tray for scones or muffins, fill each cup with 4 layers of filo dough, I just tore these into roughly the shape I wanted. I did not butter the tray.

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Cut the apples and fry them in the butter in a pan, I added them apple by apple, so you have very soft pieces of apple and some with a bit of crunch in the end. Add the sugar, spices, cream and Bailyes too.

Once this is ready add a spoon full to each filo filled cup in the tray. And put in the oven for about 12 minutes.

Enjoy!!

PS Best served warm.

PS If you don't want to bother with the filo, I'm sure this apple-baileys mix will go real nice with some ice-cream.

Golden Gull - the award

Today was the big day, the award: the winner of the golden gull would be announced on the largest book-fair of Flanders in Antwerp. It was really busy and we spend ages looking for parking, but arrived at the award ceremony just in time.

The jury members Heidi Lenaerts and Rudi Vanschoonbeeck read some abstracts form the books which had entered the competion for best book published under own management and organised by "Creatief Schrijven" (creative writing). Karolien van Ransbeeck completed the presentation with some beautiful unplugged songs.

It was publisher Rudi Vanschoonbeeck who announced the winner: Bart Vermeer with his poetry album Medea-Brutus.

Here Bart Vermeer just received the award and shows it to the public:

And here a picture of Bart with the award (safely in it's box) and myself with the award winning book:

Bart was so good to let me keep that copy of the book :-) 

I hope he is really happy with this very special story bowl I made.

Many thanks to Bart for the book and 

many thanks to the organisation Creatief Schrijven to commision me to make the award!

If you want to read about the making of the golden gull, go here.

Golden Gull - the making

A few weeks ago I got a phone-call from an organisation "Creatief Schrijven" (creative writing). They had seen my work and they liked it; would I want to make an award called "De Gouden Meeuw", de golden seagull, for the best book published in private management. Of course I would; I was honoured to be asked!

I hinted here and there I was working on this, but did not want to reveal anything until the price was awarded to the winner today on the bookfair in Antwerp.

As they had seen my work and my story-bowls, they had for this occasion to make a bowl with a little seagull standing in it. But my mind started to work and I got a flying gull in my head, so I proposed this design instead:

They liked it too, so I went to work, I made the bowl in porcelain and made a second bowl in clay so it could support the porcelain bowl during firing. I had first in mind to string the gull on 1 wire, but quickly realised that this would be too wobble and changed the design to have a wire running under each wing. So I made several seagulls, which was ok, than I had spares and I would have some to test the gold finishes. In the end I also made another bowl as the first one did warp too much.

Turned out that the real gold leaf (head) gave the nicest finish, I had looked at fake gold leaf and gold paint (wing). So I tested the paint and real gold leaf. I got some special glue for the last and it worked fine, nothing as difficult as I had expected. Maybe it's because I work very fine that I did not have the troubles that some others had, as I read on comments on the internet. Just touch it with your hand as little as possible and use a soft brush the press it to the object.

I hung the gull on a very fine steel-wire. The end I closed with a silver bead and I hung a porcelain label with my logo and initials on it too. Found a nice box and ready it was to go to the winner.

 Read part 2 to know who the winner is.

Sweet Saturday

Yesterday was my birthday and I baked myself this nice cake in a special cake-tin which I had given to myself a few weeks ago. With it came this lovely recipe for a chocolate and raspberry cake.

Chocolate & Raspberry Cake

• 250 gr of dark chocolate
• 250 gr of butter 
• 4 large eggs
• 1 sachet of vanilla sugar 
• 350 gr of white sugar
• 350 gr of flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 100 gr of ground almonds
• 150 gr of raspberries fresh or frozen

Melt the butter and the chocolate in a pot, once melted leave to cool. 

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 180°C. 

Mix the eggs, sugar, vanilla sugar and a pinch of salt (unless the butter is salted than leave salt out).

Mix the flour, baking powder and the ground almonds and add this to the egg mix.

Spoon the now lukewarm chocolate/butter mix through it carefully, followed by the raspberries.

Spoon into the baking tin (buttered!) and bake for about 45 minutes.

Leave to cool in the tin and than transfer to a plate.

I will decorate it later with icing sugar, raspberries and cream, just before serving it.

Monday Mood

It's been a while since I made a Monday Moodboard. It's just been so busy and I just did not feel like it. Blogging should be fun and not compulsory! But here I am with lots of gold-leaf. I'm not a gold person at all, but I was asked to make an award and there is gold in there. Today I hope to be able to pick up some gold leaf scraps from a  friend to test with it, before I buy a whole booklet to find it does work with porcelain. So gold-leaf on my mind:

Goldleaf and Hydrangea Soap by Amelias

Goldleaf Earrings by Lizzy B Designs

Green Gold Bead by Bead Impressions

Gold Point Vessel by Up in the Air Somewhere