Month: April 2015

Sweet or savory?

Sweet or savory, which one do you prefer?  Or do you prefer both? Every now and then (or all the time) 🙂  we like to munch on a sweet or savory snack. When this happens to me I prefer to make my own snack. Yes it takes time to make your own snack but  in my opinion the result is much more better and much more yummy.

Trifle with easy sponge cake

Whenever I crave for something sweet,  I make a simple sponge cake with just four ingredient, eggs, flour, sugar and vanilla extract . Sometimes I add pieces of apple which I lightly coat with some flour before adding it to the batter. Coating the apple with flour prevents that the apple sinks to the bottom.

This is a low fat cake since no fat is added but it does contain sugar. It only takes 5 minutes to make the batter and 30 minutes to bake at 180 degrees.  You get the best result if all the ingredients are at room temperature. Easy sponge cake recipe:

  1. Preheat the oven to 180 C or 350 F
  2. Line an brownie pan with baking paper
  3. For an brownie pan you will need 8 medium eggs
  4. Weigh equal amounts of eggs, flour and sugar, start with weighing the eggs first
  5. Cream the egg, sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract for 5 minutes with your hand or stand-alone mixer
  6. The mixture is done when the mixture changes to light yellow
  7. Now spoon the flour through the batter but not overbeat. You want to keep the batter light and fluffy.
  8. Pour the batter into the brownie pan and bake for 30 minutes.
  9. Since all ovens are different, do keep an eye on the cake
  10. You can check if the cake is done by inserting an toothpick or fork. If it comes out wet bake it for another 5 minutes
  11. The cake is done when the toothpick or fork is dry
  12. Let it cool ad enjoy

When I make this cake I decrease the amount of sugar by 25 to 50 grams.  If you want to make an apple cake, add the apples after step 6 to the cake.

This cake is so yummy try it with homemade custard, blueberries, raspberries and whipped cream, see picture above. Yummy yummy, can you feel it into your tummy?

Next week I will post a yummy savory snack.

Happy baking.

Do you get value for your money?

pansy-224913_640Is it value for your money when you go grocery shopping, for instance.  Or do you just go grocery shopping, buy what you need and head home? It depends on what kind of product it is right? Is it a necessity product like rice or oil or is it a luxury good. Some necessity products are getting more expensive lately, like rice. We still buy it because we need it. We actually don’t think about the value of our money. Or we might, buying a cheaper brand of rice, because the brand you use to buy had a raise in price and we are not willing or cannot afford to pay for it anymore.

The other day I went grocery shopping. When I walked towards my car I saw trays of beautiful pansies in a pot for € 9.99, € 9.99 is about $ 9.25. There were about 4 pots of pansies in the pot. In my eyes this  was just ridiculous! Too expensive! For that amount of money I could buy  a tray (12 pots) of pansies and 2 or 3 pots of my own choice at the dollar store and even some soil! That is what I call value for my money.

You are right, that is value for my money through my eyes. I did not take into account how much  time it would take to buy all the products, my labor cost if I would make the pots of pansies myself. But still I didn’t buy it, for that amount of money I could have 2 or 3 pots of pansies of my own choice. What more fun is there to create something yourself?

The lesson learned is that value for money is in the eyes of the beholder.

Am I a cheapskate?

Well, I don’t think so, I want maximum value for my hard earned money. I want 2 or 3 pots!