Saturday, January 26, 2013

Decorated Cookies





I was 7 or 8, the night before it finally snowed after a few winters without it, and me and my brothers played in the snow and all of us were cold and wet. We went inside, put on our pj´s and my mom made some hot chocolate milk. While we were heating up, we were baking cookies. That´s why I love to bake cookies. It reminds me of the good old times. And it´s one of the first things I ever baked! :) Back then we had cutters of cats, people, hearts, flowers and even houses. But nowadays I keep it simple. 

The cookies:

125gr unsalted butter
75gr brown sugar (dark or light)
250gr all purpose flour
1 egg
10gr vanilla sugar 
pinch of salt

There isn´t a specific way of making this dough. Just combine all of these ingredients into a large bowl and start working the dough with your hands. Or you can mix it with a hand mixer or with a Kitchenaid (I love love love Kitchenaid, except their prices..). Once that is done you can or start working immediately or put it in you fridge for a while.

Once you start working with the completed dough you can cut out any figure you want and put them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Make sure to preheat your oven to 175C or 345F. Bake them for 10-15 minutes until they´re golden brown.

The glace:

1 eggwhite
225gr powdered sugar
1tspn lemon juice.

Start whisking the eggwhite until it´s nice smooth, white and foamy. Then slowly add the powdered sugar. Finally add the lemon juice and voilà, the glace is done. When using it for cookies or cupcakes or even normal cakes, let the glace dry about 3 hours (after applying it) before eating it.

What's your favorite recipe?

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Hometown


Holland is being terrorized by this very cold weather featuring snow, cold winds and freezing nights. For me it means that I'm wearing 2 pairs of socks, sweaters with coats, big scarves, gloves and hats (when it suits me). I try to stay in as much as I can, but I met up with a friend downtown to do some last minute shopping before she'd fly away to her adventure (read: a 4 months trip to the other side of the world, aka summer). It was a beautiful cold day, the sun was out and we had a blue sky, so I thought it would be fun to bring the big camera. So here are a few quick snapshots of my hometown.

What did you do this weekend?

Thursday, January 10, 2013

In the mail





''ACNE PAPER'' by Acne

I got something really cool in the mail yesterday! It my Acne Paper that I ordered a couple of days ago. First of all, this magazine is massive! It weighs over 1 kg and it's bigger than my biggest Harper's Bazaar.. (It even doesn't fit into my 'Billy' (bookshelf-thing from Ikea).

But I was so excited when I got it yesterday! I love photography, I even want to study it next year, and when I opened this magazine my mouth was going like: 'oooooooooh' and my heart was skipping a couple of beats. All these pictures are just amazing! I wanted to take pictures OF the pictures.. That's kind of weird, right?

I am so happy with this! Best money (on a magazine) spend ever!

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Paris part 3


 ph/ private

My favorite place of Paris would be Saint-Germain-des-Prés. I love the architecture, the ambiance, the stores (who wouldn't?) and just everything.

We walked around, me taking pictures of everything I saw (like the L.V. store), stopping by the Pierre Hermé store (a famous patissier) and soaking up Paris.


Sunday, January 6, 2013

Paris part 2

Quick snapshot while I'm eating.. Thanks bro!


ph/ private

Of course, when traveling to Paris for the first time, you can't leave out a visit to the Eiffel tower. So we didn't ;) There was a huge line in front of the elevators, so my mom & dad came up with a genius plan: just take the stairs. Uh? Ok.. Well it wasn't my first choice but after all the experience of visiting and being on the Eiffel tower was bigger with taking the stairs than an elevator. Plus, it's a good exercise ;) (I keep telling myself that with everything I do when I don't really want to do it..)

As a lover of everything that's sweet (as in food) I couldn't leave Paris without going to Ladurée! I bought the Lanvin for Ladurée macaron package (incl. 8 macarons: 3 'lanvin' macarons & 5 of your choice).
The three 'lanvin' macarons were bubblegum-ish.. Not my favorite. For the other five I choose Vanilla, Chocolate,  Caramel, Green Apple and Raspberry. My all time favorite (also bought them in Switzerland) is the caramel one. Yummy!

Also stopped by the American Apparel store and took pictures all the time.

What would be the first thing you will visit when you are in Paris?

Friday, January 4, 2013

To buy or not to buy..

Acne pistol boots via Mytheresa

These boots are simple yet they will take your outfit to an whole other level.
They are boyish but still elegant.
They are on sale. And in my price range.
The big question is:

To buy or not to buy?

What do you think?

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Video: cookies



Just made my first mini film on how to make cookies! I think it went well :) It took me all day long, but here's the result! I made one little mistake: I forgot to 'say' in the video that vanilla extract is also an ingredient.. A well, mistake are here to learn from right? ;)

I made only one batch and I 'threw' the rest into the freezer.. For me, one batch equals six cookies.



The recipe:

This dough is good for five batches of 6 cookies = 30 cookies :)

225gr butter (softened)
150gr light brown sugar
225gr regular sugar
2 large eggs
1 tbsp  vanilla extract
435gr flour
1 teas. salt
1 teas. baking soda

Preheat your oven to 175C / 350F

1. Cream the butter.
2. When the butter is creamy, add both of the sugars.
3. When that's all combined, add (one by one, in case you have a bad egg or something) the eggs to it.
4. Than add the vanilla.
5. While mixing all the ingredients above with each other, combine the dry ingredients.
6. Slowly add the dry ingredients with the 'wet' ingredients and your dough is done!

From here on you can do what ever you want with the dough, make balls, squares, anything ;)

These go into the oven for about 10 - 13 minutes

Note: these cookies will spread!

Enjoy!

What's your favorite recipe?

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Paris part 1

Our little street! Rue Victor Cousin.. You have no idea how many times I had to put that into Google Maps ;)
ph/ private

Happy new year! I hope you all had an amazing NYE! I'm starting this year with a flashback. To October 2012 to be exact. I did some super cool things back then. (Ok this sounds like I'm 50 and looking back to the good old days..). The first thing that I did was going to Paris. And the second thing was to Switzerland, but I already showed you that ;)

Paris, the city of Love.. Or according to Cory Monteith (in ''Monte Carlo'', yes I watch those kind of movies sometimes) 'the city of lights'.

Last October, my parents celebrated their 25th anniversary (of marriage) and they wanted to take us kids to Paris for a week. I've never been to Paris (not counting the almost annual drive through) so it was a new adventure for me!

We traveled by car and it was a 5h drive.. But we survived! And the worst part was Paris itself.
But after (finally) finding our apartment to drop off our luggage we started our own tour through the city. We explored the area we were in (Quartier Latin) and just walked around. We had to walk only 5 minutes to the Jardin du Luxembourg!
   Being on a citytrip with my brothers wasn't easy (but it was fun though). So that's why I have a quick snap of the Sandro store.. :(
   But as you may know, I'm an Isabel Marant freak! Everytime I see something of her collection my heartbeat goes up, I start to drool and I'm acting like someone with bieber-fever.. So you understand that I went nuts when I saw these sneakers in the window. It took me 3 days to finally make some time to really enter the store and once inside I looked my eyes out. I even tried on the leather Isabel Marant Dicker boots, but realized that it's not really a shoe for me. Or maybe only the leather version. I haven't tried on the suede ones ;)
   One thing I really wanted to do was to run through the Jardin du Luxembourg, but I really noticed that one week in Paris isn't enough..

This was day 1..

Speaking of running, that's one of my resolutions for 2013. To run more often.

What's your new year's resolution?