Happy Birthday little Blog!!! Last week my blog turned a year and I did not have the chance to celebrate it. I did change the layout of the blog and made categories, so that it is easier to find the recipes. It took me quite a while to make all these amendments, but I am very happy with it and I hope you like it too 🙂 That was my little way of celebrating 😉 It is funny, ’cause that day I realized I started my blog on my niece’s birthday. I guess it simply is a very special day for me 🙂
What can I say? This year just flew by.. I cannot believe that this is really supposed to be 365 days! I am a year older, wiser.. or not wiser ;). The seasons changed four times. Each month, week and day brought its very own special way of life.. a new adventure, a new place, a new friend… We live so fast that sometimes we don’t even know what we did last week, not even talking about what happened last month. We just live, rush and hurry. Then, all of a sudden, there is a birthday, a wedding, a christening or even a funeral and we stop in this very moment and look closely and start to ask: where did the days go? Am I really a year older? Did these two people, who are happily dancing and celebrating with their guests, really meet three years ago? Wasn’t this little human being just his mom’s round belly a day ago? Why did I not spent more time with the person that is gone now?
Those moments are precious and, I think, necessary. We need to slow down from time to time, inhale what we have, listen to our family and friends, see what is there, make memories, save every moment of our lives in our hearts. When we grow old and we won’t be able to rush from one place to the other and we won’t have the strength to make important plans that fill the whole day, we will need these moments in our hearts. We will sit in our chairs, close our eyes and remember who we were. We will remember our friends, our family, our youth, our mistakes, our journeys, and our loves. The journeys that we will make will take place in our memories, in our heads. Lucky are those who have made enough room in their lives to create these memories. Lucky are those, who will be able to close their eyes and see. Lucky are those, who will be able to choose from a treasure chest full of moments, that will last a life time until our eyes don’t open anymore.
My last year was filled with applications, interviews and .. baking 🙂 I am frustrated at times. It is hard to find a job and I am constantly busy, sitting at my computer, filling out application forms and updating my CV, then sitting in my car or on the train for hours to get to an interview. I really would like this to end. At the same time, I know that giving up is not an option. On the bright side, I am open to see how great my hobbies are. Baking is one of them and I improved my skills during the last year. I was able to spend a lot of time with my family and my friends, which I appreciate a lot. I read great books, that made me think and that enriched my life in many ways. I am happy. I don’t have everything I need to survive in the long run, but I will and in 50 years I will sit down and think about this year and recall how I baked all these cakes for my friends and how we sat down and laughed and enjoyed the sweet taste of the pastry. I will remember how I made little treats for two of my friends and how we met, a little far away from our homes, just to have some lunch and coffee and how nice it was to see their happy faces when they could have a little “petit fours” as desert :).
Petit Fours
(http://www.chefkoch.de/rezepte/423091133090789/Petits-Fours.html)
for the cake:
80 g marzipan
5 Tbsp warm water
100 g sugar
5 egg yolks
some salt
1 lemon zest
3 egg whites
100 g flour
60 g cornstarch
1 tsp baking powder
for the filling:
100 g raspberry jam
100 g red currant jam
100 g apricot jam
for the topping:
200 g marzipan
50 g powdered sugar
50 g apricot jam
500g white chocolate or candy melts
optional 3 Tbsp rum
for the cake:
1. preheat oven to 210ºC / 410ºF and prepare a big square pan with parchment paper
2. dissolve the marzipan in water
3. mix 3/4 of the sugar, egg yolks, salt and lemon zest and add to the marzipan
4. in another bowl whisk egg whites with the remaining sugar until stiff
5. fold egg whites into the marzipan mixture
6. in another bowl mix flour, cornstarch and baking powder. Mix with the marzipan mixture
7. bake approximately 10 minutes. Let cool and remove the parchment paper
for the filling:
8. cut the cake into three equal stripes
9. brush each stripe with one of the three jams
10. stack the stripes – start with any of them and put the others on top, so you will get a three layered cake
for the topping:
11. knead the powdered sugar into the marzipan and roll it out; the same size the upper layer of the cake has
12. place marzipan on top of the cake
13. wrap the cake into foil and place it in between two boards. Put some weight on top and let sit for 24 hours
14. stir the apricot jam until smooth (you might need to heat it up a little) and brush it on top of the cake (of course, after unwrapping it 😉 )
15. let the jam dry for a while
16. cut the cake into little cubes
17. melt chocolate or candy melts (if you use the rum, let the chocolate cool down a little and reheat it, adding the rum)
18. cover the cubes with the chocolate (using a fork to dip them)
19. decorate them
20. adore them
Whatever you do right now and whatever your plans are for tomorrow.. make sure to leave some space for a smile – or even better: several smiles. Close your eyes and store them in your treasure chest.
