Everybody needs a hobby

Hi Folks!

Long time no see, I know. It's been crazy busy, but I promised myself, that I have to continue writing here. No idea who is reading it, but well, I hope you like it!

Today was one of those rare days, when I had off and nothing was up! Haven't had a day like this in months and that's why I just wanted to relax and what relaxe better then baking some yummy stuff?

I found two recipes the other day, which sounded very nice and worth trying. But I decided to combine both, because to me it just sounded delicious together. The one I saw on the TV Show "Enie bäckt" and the other I found in the www.
Anyways it's a very quick and easy recipe, that everybody should try. And here it is, the recipe for my "newly" created (or mixed up) Cherry- Cinnamon- Mascarpone-Cupacke:

Ingrediens:

For the Muffins:

4 Egg Whites

140 g Butter

100 g Powdered Sugar

50 g Flour

60 g Grounded Almonds

100 g Cherries

For the Icing:

300 g Mascarpone

250 g whipped creme 

40 g Powdered Sugar

Cinnamon

a bit Cherry Juice

Preheat the oven to 180° Celsius and melt the butter and let it cool down to room temperature.
Whisk the egg whites till they have a stiff texture. Gently fold in the flour and almonds. Add the melted butter and cherries and fold it in as well, but be gentle so the texture is still kind of "fluffy".
Fill the dough into a muffin form and bake it for about 10-20min (depends on the side of your muffin form).

Whisk together all the ingredients for the Icing and put it into your refrigerator.

Let the Muffins cool down and just start icing the muffins when they are really cooled down all the way, otherwise the icing will melt. Decorate it as you love too and then enjoy!


While I made the cupcakes I had an idea, because I had some Mascarpone left. I made a really good second dessert, which turned out really jummy and you can use the leftovers from the recipe above if you want too.

Ingredients:

Some traditional spicy Christmas Cookies (Spekulatius)

100g Raspberries 

50 g Sugar

about 100 ml Cherry Juice 

cinnamon

Mascarpone Icing from above

Put the raspberries, sugar, Cherry Juice and cinnamon in a pot a let it cook for a while, till it gets a thick texture, then let it cool down.

Take dessert glasses (or what ever you feel like. You can also use little nice drinking glasses) and crush the cookies and put in the bottom of the glass, follow with the raspberries and the icing. Just continue layering the ingredients as you wish. 

I hope you like my recipes and I would love it if you try and let me know how you'd liked it!
Keep on baking and enjoying life!

Take care!

Minion Muffins

Hi Folks!

Last week I started a little project with the kids I love to spend time with. I was an Au Pair for 2 years in New York and at the moment I have the great opportunity to stay here for a visit for a while.

So, after the girls discovered all the baking youtube videos, especially from NERDY NUMMIES, we try now to bake something every week.
So we started with MINIONS CUPCAKES and I tell you, the result was very cute AND yummy (but sweet).

For this we had our helper Nana, so we had an extra pair of hands to handle the fun baking mess. I have to say, the whole recipe is based on MARTHA STEWARD banana muffins with some MINIONS decoration on top. And the recipe is very easy! My girls are just 3 1/2 years old and they are able to measure by themselves with a little help and are able to put almost everything in the bowl.
They had a blast with baking, but of course the most fun part was liking the bowl, which they always looking forward too.
But also the decorating was fun, they didn't want to stop anymore and went on and on and on.
Basically what you do, is decorate TWINKIES with the Minions faces and put them on top of the banana muffin. So not a big of a deal.

Just as a little tip from my side, if you are able to handle a little mess and are fine with cleaning up after the kids go to bed, just go ahead and try it even with Toddlers. As I said my girls are 3 and a half and they sure make a mess but to see the happy faces and the passion they already have for baking is worth every cleaning afterwards.
Don't be afraid to do stuff like this with your kids. Not even that they develop their motor skills, they also learn to share and take turns (if you have more than one) and best, how to make delicious desserts.

Here the Link from the original video and let me know if you also tried it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAQjn6_JaJ0


Take care everybody

Kids - Our Future

Hi Folks out there!

Since months I'm thinking of starting a blog again, but never really had the time to do so. But now, I wanna share my thoughts and adventures about life and all it's wonderful and not so wonderful sides. I hope you enjoy reading it and I would be happy if you leave a comment or send an email with you opinion.

I don't want to say too much about me, just not yet. Over the upcoming posts you will get to know me a little bit more and more.

My life had many, many ups and downs and that all leads me to who I am today.

I want to dedicate my first post to a huge part of my life: KIDS

No, I'm not a Mom.. yet. BUT I'm working with kids of all ages since years now. It all began with simple Babysitting of course, which always lead me to the idea of become an Au Pair (more to that in a later post). And working in a Kids Holiday Camp and all the other jobs gave me the idea to make one of my passion to my profession.
I hope to get accepted for a Social Work School, get my degree and be able to help kids, to have some happiness in their lives.

Most people think kids are just work and annoying. True, children or teens can be more than exhausting, BUT never ever forget how much fun they can be. And they ARE our future, one day they will be responsible for the standard of technology, knowledge of newest inventions, they will go in politics and decide about peace or war, they will be in charge for everything concerning the planet we live on. My thoughts are always going towards the consideration if they have a great childhood, if we help them to find the right path, they will make good decisions. Not just for us, more important for themselves.
That's why I wanna help to give Kids, who come from a bad background a better childhood, or at least some fun moments to remember. To remember them, that not everything in this world is bad.

In my childhood I experienced a lot of negative and not child friendly things. I don't want to bore you with that, but I think it's a bit important to make clear, I know what I am talking about.
My biological mother (yes, she is still around) had issues with mentally illness. This issues were bad, so bad that I pushed away a lot of events that hit me unexpected in grown up age. To say it short, there was a lot of fighting (verbal and physical) and I didn't had a lot to be happy about. Not just because I was often locked in my room, I was told my dad didn't want to see me, which was not true at all and I had to manage a household by my self with just 12 years of age. However, I found strength in my friends and my brother and got out of there. It took long time and hard work to start over and trust people. Now, I look back and think it would have been better to get help, help from people they know what they are doing.

It is not a bad thing to ask for help, it doesn't matter how old you are. And just because you are a kid and ask for help, doesn't mean you have to leave your family. 
There are so many programs that  can help you at home or you can go too. 

In Austria there is a program, where families can ask for help and a social worker is coming 3-5 days a week just to help. Help with the housework, play with the kids or help them with homework. 

Very bad situated kids can go to an institution called "SOS Kinderdorf". Children all ages live there. It's an area with a lot of houses where foster families live. So they take care of the kids and live all together in kind of a small village. Or you can step in for these foster families (if they need to go somewhere or can't take care at this time) and just be there for a few days or hours. 

There are so many programs in that world, which everybody should support in any possible way. 

My heart is on these programs and on these kids because I experienced some sad stories last summer when I was working in a holiday camp for kids. It wasn't my first time, but it opened my eyes. 
There were kids from all around the world and mostly they were happy kids. BUT some just touched my heart. 
One boy, he was a big piece of work. He didn't listen, he was mean to others and so on, but when I found out how his life at home looks like, I couldn't get mad at him anymore. He was supposed to stay just a week (the program always goes from Sunday to Saturday), but every friday night his dad called and said the boy should stay one more week. Even the father was just a 30 minutes drive away on vacation (!). In the end the boy stayed five weeks with us. He got pushed away from his dad and I found out, that he is going from one holiday camp to the next during all school holidays and never gets to stay with his dad. How can you be mad at this kids behavior when you find that out? And I tell you what, after I knew what's going on, I handled him a bit different, I hugged him and told him what a cool kid he is, if he is nice and in the end, he had a friend and sometimes he even smiled and had fun. 
Then there was a teenage girl. She had to take meds for her mental condition (with just 13 years!!!), however one night her mom called and told her she had an abortion. She realized that she will not have the little sibling she was looking forward too already. And I had to deal with a historical crying teenager a whole night. She couldn't understand why and how, her world just collapsed. That night I found out that she was also an "accident" and her mom was a teenager when she was born. Can you imagine that that lovely girl was never really loved? And she knew that, that's why she sticked to everybody who gave her a smile and a hug. 
There were so many more stories, but in the end I tried to give the kids a good time while they were there. And it is a fun camp, don't get me wrong and most kids just love to go there!!! But sadly for some parents it is a way to not deal with there kids for weeks. 
However, we tried to make them laugh and there was one little boy, he was just funny as hell. He mad a perfect Michael Jackson impression with his 12 years and everybody loved it. He was always smiling and tried to make fun so the others were laughing. He was my little sunshine that summer.

Anyway, that are little stories why I think it is important to help kids and make there live a little better and bring them joy. 
I hope if I'll be able to get my degree in Social Work, I'm planing to go to India next summer to step in as an english teacher or help out in an orphanage. But that's something for my next post, because that's another big chapter to explore. 

I hope you liked my post and feel free give me your opinion. 

Take care everybody!