Gluten free KinderCake

KinderCake is relatively easy to bake.  You don't need oven for it, just a fridge. It is easy to make gluten free. And at Kinder's web site you can get familiar with the products you can use to decorate the cake. Notice, that you can use any other chocolate sweets to decorate the cake. Kinder is not MUST thing to do this.

This is my gluten free version of the famous cake. This cake is not the cheapest one but very cost effective. It is quite sweet so you don't need to cut big slices of it. It is far enough at least for 16 persons. Make rather low & wide (26cm) than high cake; it is easier to cut and share.


BASE

Crush extremely well
300g gluten free chocolate chip or chocolate cookies (I used Schär's Biscotti con Cioccolato)
(Schär's Biscotti con Cioccolato reminds me a lot about Fazer's Suklaalehti biscuits which I am not allowed o eat anymore because they include wheat.)

Melt and mix with biscuit crumbs
100g butter

Pour & spread into 26 cm diameter round cake baking tray. (Set a baking paper under it to avoid mess and make it easier to handle.)


CHOCOLATE-CHEESE FILLING

Mix well and add in the following order and at the end halve it into two bowls
5dl cream (whipped)
500g mascarpone cheese
1dl sugar

Melt and add into different bowls to make white chocolate cheese dough and milk chocolate cheese dough
145g white chocolate (gluten free)
145g milk chocolate (gluten free)

Set 6 gelatin leaves into cold water and let them soften

Warm up ½ dl water in a micro wave oven. Squeeze the water out of 3 soft gelatin leaves at one time and melt them into the water; remember to mix it well. Pour it all carefully and little by little into white-chocolate cheese dough and mix well all the time. Pour & spread the cheese dough over the bottom of the cake (into the baking tray, over the biscuit crumb base). Repeat to make milk chocolate-cheese dough and pour it over the white chocolate-cheese dough.

Let the cake congeal at least for 4 hours in fridge.


DECORATION

Melt and mix well
145g dark chocolate (gluten free)
0,75dl cream
1 table spoon butter
(if you want to add some adult taste, include a table spoon of cognac)

Pour over the cake and spread around

Use chocolate sweets to decorate. I used 3 Kinder surprise chocolate eggs. 6 Kinder maxi and handful of Kinder Schoko Bons. You can also try out almonds etc.

LittleSheeps on PaddedPenCase

It has pretty recycled zipper.

It has fresh orange lining.

It has fluffy sheeps on a summer field and it's all my own design.

The pen case is padded and there is free chart for LittleSheeps.

Hop

MayDay is soon here. That's why I have set up TheSima getting ready for the fest.

What is "sima"? It is mead. The origin of the word itself means a drink made of honey. Already vikings made it and drank as a wine or beer like people drink today. They believed it rose up the fighting spirit! No doubt about it that they were right indeed!

In Finland they have been making mead from 1700's in the way we still do it. Some housewives may have their very own secret recipe for it. But it used to be only rich people's privilege because sugar and honey were extremely expensive which ordinary people usually could not afford. Starting from 1800's sugar started to be more common and the meaning of honey decreased an sugar started to be more popular in making the mead. And when ordinary people could afford the mead making it started to be connected to the working class celebration at May Day. It hardly contains alcohol so even toddlers can drink it.

Hop plant (Humulus lupulus) is used when making traditional mead. By The Middle Ages workers' daily wage included 3 liters of beer. Finland had no such production of hop plants so they needed to import it which was expensive. At 1347 they wrote the law where they ordered the hop plants had to be planted and if not the fines had to be paid and still plant it. They had to plant every year 40 roots so that at the end each house had 200 hop plants; even more if possible.

I have 4 hop masts in MyGarden. Approximately 12 hop plants form out them. But I don't need to pay fines because the law was taken down on 1915! The cultivation of hop started to go down by 1850 when breweries changed their methods when the hop import ban was taken down. I found MyHops from this bewildered and rank garden when we bought this old house built at 1947 after TheWars. Traditionally hop was still planted for houses' own use. Even sprites were believed to live in hop gardens.

So I harvest again MyHops last summer for this moment. I need of course something more for the mead.

I make it always for 8 liters. IKEAs 10 liters kettle is perfect for it. Usually Finns make it in a Plastic Bucket. We are called a BucketNation and people make jokes about buckets and us. They even have bucket discounts of free bucket for first 100 clients! But hey! This is the reason, didn't you know that. We always need clean buckets! We don't want to spoil out mead!

Well, I use IKEAs 10 liters kettle. It was cheap enough when I bought it. Not too high for me to use. And so I don't need to buy new bucket every year. Yes, you can wash up buckets too but mine always end up into the garden so this is more practical in MyHouse and eco-friendly too.

You need to keep it in room temperature for about 24 hours and then sift it.

Then you bottle it all up and store in cool place for a week. You put raisins on the bottom of each bottle. When raisins pop up to float on the surface the mead is ready.

So, now we just wait!

CardForMay

Many people has a birthday in May. I know few. One of them will have this card with a gift. I love poppies and rabbits... among all the other things I love!

For this card  I used a picture from Bernadette's book "Räsypekka" (original Hudelpeter, German, published by Nord-Süd Verlag 1989) which has been abandoned by local library and ended up to me. I love to go through these abandoned and forgotten children's books which none has read for ages and pick up exact page for card making and giving one more pleasure by the book!

Alpine Strawberry

This time I stitched Penelope's counted cross stitch kit Alpine Strawberry. It reminds me of summer and garden. It is a gift from a friend.

I love all the shades of it!

Suddenly I noticed there was a mistake!!!!

Can you see it?

I had mixed the shades Golden Green and Moss Green!!! Look at the leaves! But I think that was just ok so I did nothing to it. 😊

It is beautiful anyway and a small messing up can not be seen when the package is not around. At the end I think it just doesn't seem to matter in which way those two shades are.

HappyEaster!

EasterTime has included chilly mornings. The warmth of the day turns the thermometer upside down so the sun can melt the snow. One of my flowerbeds can be seen already. It doesn't snow so much anymore so we can easily see who was there and walked through my garden!

TheSpring is here. Despite the snow still covers my garden the bare ground can be seen on few places, like under my oldest & biggest currant bush.

I really wish you all had wonderful EasterTime with a lot of sweets & chocolate! This is MrW's bag. He is visiting us over Easter so I made him a small back to be taken home.

As you may already know in Finland rooster lays eggs made of chocolate. The best place for the rooster is a warm hat that reminds him about a nest. He comes during the night between Easter Saturday and Sunday when everyone are sleeping. If he was there you can find chocolate eggs on the Easter Sunday morning from the nest you made for him.

AtFront

This is how my own design cardigan looks AtFront. I am already knitting the collar but that I won't show you yet. 😊

SnowMan

Oh, I stitched this cute little SnowMan by Mouseloft. It is a gift from a friend and very nice one day project.

It was easy cute little cross stitch project with back stitches. It's been far too many months since I stitched for the last time!

Ta-dah!

ElectionDay

TerraceSeason has been opened! Well, I sat there in my ArcticWinterOverall with hot mug of black tea and a book. It was sunny and warm enough to enjoy about fresh air and freedom. It is ElectionDay in Finland. Far too often people don't vote. I think we all should who are allowed because far too many people are not allowed to vote around the world and all the elections are not free as we understand it here in WesternWorld.

My father-in-law gave me four pictures to be published here to show you. The sea is still frozen but it doesn't stop ships to sail; thanks to our IceBreakers.

What a bright day it was!

A hare in its WinterFur! It comes to dine by His bird feeder!

The swans knew the flow will melt the ice right now! How on earth they can know it so exactly well! How come they can know that if they arrive on Thursday on Friday there will be enough open water by the frozen sea?!

BraveBirds

Today our walk lead us to the sea shore. Nuka smelled abandoned & delicious dead fish through the snow. She dig it out by her very own paws but was not allowed to eat it, have it or even carry it to home. Bad bad mom, she seemed to think.

It all is getting opened for the spring and summer.

The snow and ice are still there but the world is changing.

The beach is still there and slowly the snow lets it come out.

We noticed something else too!

2 swans and 8 Canada geese are here! The Gulf of Bothnia is still frozen up all the way to its northernmost shores but these brave creatures are here now and they prove some day the sea will be open again.

ForHerEar

The set of MySilverCones include EarRings. Here's better pic of them. Pretty indeed, if you ask me, despite it is my own design for YoungLady.

MySilverCones

LastSummer I spent time with handsome MrN. We cycled around the woods and He kindly seek me tiny cones. They are actually inflorescences of alders.

We picked up several... actually plenty enough. I dried them with patience. Few got broken but still there was enough left for my Silver Work Course.

I used art clay silver; paste type. I painted the cones by it like if I had used paint.

After applying the 1st layer I had to dry it all very well.

Then I painted each one again...

...and dried up again. I actually applied three proper layers of art clay silver over them. For these 6 cones I used 20g of art clay silver.

I polished them and then they were ready to get small & practical silver loops & chains etc.

After that they got more polishing and rinsing and then they were finally ready. Art clay silver truly is my material. I like to work a lot with it.

Do you remember I started art clay silver project last year? MySilverAviary was the 1st item of it. ThisSpring I made the cones for the necklace. The teacher introduced the idea to use all natural materials for art clay silver last year and here it is now as I see it. YoungLady can already use Her necklace and during the years She will get more pendants for it. Next year I plan to create a bird and a squirrel for it.

I must confess He is much more clever than I am at silver work so He kindly (and fast) made the chain of 925 Sterling Silver Wire for this project. (Last year He made me RomanovChainNecklace.)