April summary

Beet cookies

Robot (kid craft)

Easter baking

Flowers

Crocheted cotton summer tunic for my daughter

March summary

Celebrating Pust (carnival)

Mother Earth

Spring fairy

Spring fairy again

Summer fairy

Experimenting with curly hair

Knit beanies

Patching jeans

Pin cushion

One more spring fairy

Learning embroidery

Celebrating Gregorjevo

Mother's Day

Pillow with embroidered pillow-case

February summary

Celebrating Imbolc

Not sure what this animal is :)

The older kid learned felting balls

Root kids and Mother Earth

And the twins birthday

January summary

Zefir! Finally I did it as it has to be.

I drew this pea plant long ago (on a grocery bag) and this month I've coloured it.

A warm home dress for myself

Painting on the doors!

Our winter recipes

We have loooong holidays in the kindergarten and at school, so we spend a lot of time together *sigh* The girl hates walking, so we are mostly at home. And not to get crazy I decided to bake every day. So here are some of the good recipes we tried. 

Carrot fruit cake

I bake this cake very often. Originally it was a recipe of carrot cake with cream cheese and the first variant (with ground almond and without dried fruit) looked like this:

 

Then I used walnut flour (not ground nut) instead of almonds, reduced sugar and oil and added dried fruit. And I got a fantastic fruit cake! It's moist and has a rich flavor.



🥕150 ml oil
🥕150 gr sugar
Beat well with a mixer. Then add
🥕2 eggs
And continue beating. Mix in
🥕250 gr finely grated carrot
🥕1/2 cup (or more) of chopped dried fruit

In a separate bowl mix (all sifted):
🥕70 gr nut flour (I prefer walnut)
🥕1 cup of flour
🥕1 tsp of baking powder
🥕2/3 tsp of baking soda (it'll soften the carrots)
🥕3/4 tsp of cinnamon or mix of spice (cinnamon, cloves, ginger etc.)
Mix everything together with a spatula. Pour the batch into a baking form and bake at 160° C (320° F) for ~30 min (depends on the thickness of your cakes).
Leave it in a rack to cool. Cover with icing and decorate to taste.

Gingerbread cookies

We bake cookies every days. In most cases the kids eat them immediately :-) It's convenient to make dough, store it in the fridge and bake small batches every day.

Mix in a pot:

🍪100 gr honey

🍪50 gr sugar

🍪90 gr butter

And heat until it's all melted. Leave to cool. Then mix in

🍪2 eggs

And beat the mixture well. Mix in sifted mixture of

🍪375 gr flour

🍪15 gr cocoa (I used carob)

🍪1 tsp of gingerbread spice mix

🍪3/4 tsp of baking soda

Knead the dough until smooth. Wrap and leave it in fridge for 5+ hrs (you can leave it for days - it'll become even better).

I roll the dough 6 mm (1/4 inch) thick, cut the cookies and bake for 7-8 mins at 180° C (350° F). Take care to take them out when still soft. They'll harden as they cool.

Honey cookies

In fact, it's a recipe of honey layered cake my mom bakes all my life. I don't bake layered cakes but I do like the taste, so I decided to try it as a cookie dough. 

Put in a heatproof bowl:

🍯3 tbsp of honey
🍯150 gr sugar

🍯5 tbsp of milk 

🍯100 gr butter

🍯1 tsp of baking soda

🍯2 eggs

Mix well with a whisk and put the bowl over a pot with boiling water (the water mustn't touch the bowl). Heat the mixture, constantly mixing it, until it starts to thicken (10-15 min). Leave to cool, then add gradually

🍯2 1/2 cups of sifted flour

The dough must be still a bit sticky. Wrap it and leave in a fridge for 2+ hours.

Bake the cookies about 7 mins at 180° C (350° F).

Wholewheat Snickerdoodles

These cookies are quick and easy to make - no cutting, you put the dough with a spoon.

Mix the dough in a bowl:

🌲1 3/4 cup of wholewheat flower

🌲1 1/2 tsp of baking powder (sift them)

🌲1 cup of sugar

🌲60 gr butter (or 45 gr oil - I tried both variants)

You'll get a sticky dough. Then take a spoon of the dough, form a ball and roll it in sugar mix:

🌲2 tbsp of sugar

🌲1/2 tsp of cinnamon

Bake them at 190 C° (375° F) and take care to leave lots of space between the balls on the baking sheet.

Sugar cookies

Simple sugar cookies but they are tasty and very good for cutting cookies. Sorry, it's the only photo I have.

Beat well
🥨1 cup of butter
🥨1 cup of sugar
Until it's white and fluffy. Add
🥨1 egg

And beat again. Then add sifted
🥨2 tsp of baking powder
🥨3 cups of flour
And knead the dough. No need to chill it, you can bake immediately.

I'll add the recipes as we try more cookies :-)

Christmas peg dolls

In fact, they are not Christmas, but we (all parents in the kindergarten) had to make 3 peg dolls for our kid for Christmas. I have twins in the kindergarten, so I had to make 2 sets. The kids got them 'from Santa', so they don't know I'm the Santa :-)

Strawberry and raspberry

Flower gnomes (the sunflower was from a store)

Rainbow gnomes (the kids are rainbow fans)

And the cases