Стефан танцува

Leprechauns Crossing

Happy St. Patrick's to everyone who's been touched by the magic of Ireland! 

I had the chance to spend 3 and half years in this amazing country and I experienced myself how it simply grows on you and makes you hate the weather but learn to really appreciate the sun the people and the music... 

And who can forget the green color of the grass and the hills - always fresh and always young and the Irish sheep of course - always bold and never far away from the middle of the road... :)

So here it is - Sláinte for Ireland and the Irish... and for the leprechauns of course!

Crème Caramel

Finding a recipe for Crème Caramel to actually work for me took some time, but last week I finally made it. So here it is -it's delicious, smooth and yes - already gone :) Enjoy the recipe!

Ingredients (8-9 servings):

Image by craftcookie

Custard:

1 l milk

8 whole eggs

120 g sugar

vanilla

Caramel:

120 g sugar

4 tablespoons water
rum soaked raisins



Caramel: 
Combine sugar and water in a small saucepan. For additional flavor you could replace one table spoon of water with one table spoon of lemon juice. Bring to a boil and cook until the color turns to amber. Don't stir and don't let the caramel get too dark. While still hot, quickly pour into ramekins to coat bottom. Let it cool down. For additional flavor add some rum soaked raisins on top of the caramel.
If you're a particularly big caramel fan, make a larger quantity. The "sugar-to-water" proportion is 30 g of sugar to 1 tablespoon of water.  

Custard:
Heat oven to 325 degrees (160 Celsius).
In a saucepan, heat the milk and vanilla, until it starts simmering gently. Add sugar to the milk and stir until the sugar dissolves completely. Remove the milk from the heat and let it cool down a bit.

Beat the eggs, slowly stir in small amount of milk to even out the temperature of the milk and the eggs. Gradually and slowly start adding the eggs to the rest of the milk. Pour into the ramekins.

Place the ramekins into a large roasting pan and put the pan into the oven. Carefully, pour enough water to come halfway up the sides of the pan (this way you won't have to carry and balance a heavy water and custard filled pan around the kitchen).

Bake for around an hour until set (or a bit more if necessary). Knife inserted in the center of a ramekin should come out clean. Remove the ramekins from the water bath and let them cool down to room temperature. Run a knife around the edge to loosen and invert onto a plate to serving. Garnish with some cream, if you feel like it.

If not serving immediately - refrigerate.

Homemade Cherry Jam With Rum & Almonds

Cherries have always been my favorite fruit and I can eat them until I'm just about to explode. So when me and my husband went cherry picking at the Cherry Avenue Farms last Saturday I was in paradise. And here's a little piece of my cherry paradise for you - a delicious and easy recipe for homemade cherry jam with rum and almonds.

Image by craftcookie

Ingredients:
1 kg pitted sweet cherries
750 g brown sugar
2-3 tablespoons rum

80 g peeled almonds

Cooking time:
1 h 15-20 minutes

Stem, wash and pit 1.25 kg of ripe, sweet cherries. This should give you around 1 kg of pitted cherries.
Combine the cherries and the sugar and let stand in the fridge for couple of hours.

Image by craftcookie

Bring mixture to a boil over medium heat (around 4.5). Stir frequently with
a wooden spoon and skim foam off surface for the next hour/hour and
5-10 minutes.

Reduce the heat and add 2-3 tablespoons rum and 80 g of peeled almonds to the mixture. Keep stirring for another 10 minutes to allow flavors to mix.

Ladle jam into preheated jars, leaving some head space. Seal jars, turn them upside down and leave them to cool down.

Makes about 4 250 ml (1/2 pint) jars. Enjoy!

New Stitches in the 'Knit & Purl' Section

Couple of days ago we added a couple of new stitches in the 'Knit & Purl' section of craftcookie.com. The first  stitch we'd like to introduce is the Stockinette Bobbles stitch.

Stockinette Bobbles            Side View
Images by craftcookie

This is the first bobble stitch we added to our library as a way to introduce one of the many techniques to make a bobble. All of them begin with making an odd number of stitches (usually 5 or 7) into one and the same stitch on a wrong side row of your work. Then, in the more traditional techniques you need to turn your work, work the newly increased stitches, turn again and decrease the stitches back to one, before continuing with the rest of the right side row. In the technique we used to create the Stockinette Bobbles the increased stitches aren't worked separately and there is no turning of the work for the specific purpose of finishing a bobble. Easy and simple.

The other stitches we included recently are created with nothing more than simple knit and purl stitches. They are also the first stitches with shiny new written instructions!

And here they are:

Stockinette Mosaic                            Garter Stitch Stripes                       4x2 Basket Weave
Images by craftcookie