Stay Home Card and Lemon Cupcakes

Gaby and her colleagues are missing each other  very much and came up with a cute idea - to cook together virtually. They even made an amusing video of the making of a lemon cake. And this is the card Gaby made for the initiative - the baking of the lemon cake.

My humble contribution to the card - I sewed the curtain :)

And here's the recipe for the lemon cake, which she baked into cupcakes:

• 120 g flour
• 150 g sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 100 g yogurt
• 3 tbsp sunflower oil
• zest of 1 lemon
• 2 tbsp lemon juice

Glaze:

• 150 g powdered sugar
• 5 tbsp lemon juice

Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for about 30 min. Let to cool, glaze and enjoy.

Face Masks

It seems the coronavirus crisis is going nowhere anytime soon, Sofia is under lock down, there are no masks in the pharmacies, so yesterday I sewed a bunch of reusable cotton face masks. The pattern and the instructions are here, but there are many other patterns and models out there.

My fabric is 100% cotton ranforce (densely woven cotton fabric) and one of the masks is made of 100% cotton shirting. The masks have two layers of cotton fabric, elastic, which pulls the mask behind the head (much more comfortable than behind the ears) and nose wires to fix the mask closely to the face. The removable and disposable inner filters are dried wet hankies. I went to the supermarket today and tested mine, it works as fine as could be expected, I suppose. After usage I threw away the filter, washed the mask thoroughly and I will iron it after it's dry.

The weather has been actually good to us - winter is back with a vengeance and staying at home is not so bad, when it's cold and snowy outside :)

And I made some comfort food too - it's so sweet and chocolaty, that if not from coronavirus, we risk dying from chocolate (hope not!).

I improvised the recipe and it came out quite good:

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup sugar 
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder

For the frosting:

• 1 tbsp soft butter
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tbsp milk

Mix the batter, pour into the cupcake forms and bake in a preheated oven at 180C. Leave to cool. Mix the frosting and distribute on top. Enjoy and stay safe!

Matcha Cupcakes

Husband and Gaby are big tea drinkers and connoisseurs and they are trying and testing new teas on a regular basis. (I'm a coffee person but I do like some of their teas too). The latest in our collection is matcha - sort of an instant tea, made of finely ground leaves, which I'll honestly admit I thoroughly disliked. However the curious thing about matcha is that there are many interesting recipes, using this tea as food dye and spice and today I made one of these - matcha cupcakes, based primarily on this recipe.

Ingredients for the cakes: 

• 1 egg
• 260 g flour + 2 tsp baking powder
• 150 g sugar
• 180 ml milk + 2 tsp matcha
• 60 g sunflower oil
• a pinch of salt

For the cups:

• 200 ml whipping cream
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 50 g chocolate
• strawberries

Preparation: Sift the flour and add the salt, the baking powder and the sugar. Beat the egg with the oil, mix the milk with the matcha and add the milk to the beaten egg. Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture. Distribute into cupcake forms and bake in a preheated oven at 180C. When the cakes are completely cooled, add the whipped cream, strawberries and melted chocolate on top. I'm a beginner with cream toppings and my cakes look very amateurish, but they were quite tasty. I did not add matcha to the whipping cream, but I might next time for a more pronounced matcha taste, as the taste of the tea in the cakes is barely discernible.