Halloween Party

 Happy Halloween everybody

well almost today its the 12th of November and Halloween is a while gone but since I threw a party and no one needed ideas for that on the day after Halloween I thought it doesn't matter how long after it is. And also we all know someone who is already counting down the days until next years Halloween.

If I am honest I´ve never been a big fan of Halloween, because at this time of the year I normally am in complete Christmas mode.

But I thought this year I would make an exeption and invited some friends over and made a little Halloween Dinner/ Party.

At first I am going to show you some recipes that I made for the night

Up First Movie Night Caramel Corn

2 bags popped popcorn
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup light Karo Syrup
1/2 cup butter
1/2 teaspoon of salt 
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup white chocolate
1 tablespoon coconut oil or crisco sprinkles

1. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Generously spray a large shallow pan with nonstick cooking spray
2. in a large saucepan, combine brown sugar, karl syrup, butter and salt on medium heat.
3. Continue stirring until mixture begins to boil
4. Once boiling, stop stirring and cook for an additional 5 minutes
5. Pour popped popcorn into shallow pan

6. Remove pan from heat and add vanilla and baking soda while stirring
7. Carefully pour caramel over popcorn and stir to coat all popcorn
8. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour, but stirring the popcorn every 15 minutes
9. Allow to cool ( popcorn will harden once cooled ) then break apart
10. Melt white chocolate and crisco or coconut oil in the microwave for 1 minute

11. Remove from microwave and stir. If it is not smooth, reheat in intervals of 15 seconds, stirring in between each interval 
12. Pour melted chocolate into a sandwich bag and snip the corner. Drizzle chocolate over popcorn then sprinkle with sprinkles
13. Store in an air tight container for up to 1 week 

(I had way to much popcorn in the end because I had so much other stuff to eat, but If its the only thing you make it will probably be enough ) 

                                  Movie Night Caramel Corn - The Seaside Baker

Devish Devil Cupcakes

Ingredients for cupcakes 
1 cup boiling water
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter (room temperature)
1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs ( Room temperature )


For Frosting
4 cups confectioners sugar 
10 tablespoon unsalted butter ( room temperature )
4 tablespoons of whole milk
1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract (to taste)
reg food coloring 
black fondant 

To make the cupcakes, begin by preheating the oven to 350 degrees F and position a rack in the middle of the oven. Line cupcake tins with paper liners.

In a bowl, whisk together the boiling water and cocoa powder until smooth. 

Whisk in the milk and vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. In the bowl of a standard electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy. 

Beat in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Begin to add in the flour mixture and the cocoa mixture to the creamed butter, alternating between the dry and wet ingredients and making sure begin and end with the flour mixture. The batter may look slightly curdled, but don't worry, this is what you want! Mix together only until just combined.

Divide the cake batter evenly among the cupcake tins.  Bake the cupcakes in the oven until  a tooth pick inserted into the center of the cupcakes comes out clean, about 20-25 minutes.  Set the cupcake tins on wire racks, and allow the cupcakes to cool in the tins for about five minutes, before removing them and allowing them to cool completely on the racks. 

While the cupcakes are cooling, prepare the frosting.  In the bowl of a standard electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the confectioner's sugar and butter until the mixture begins to come together. Lower the mixer speed, and add in the milk and vanilla extract.  Increase the mixer speed to high, and beat the frosting until it is light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.  

Add enough food coloring to turn the frosting a bright shade of red. Once the cupcakes have cooled completely, frost the cupcakes with a large round tip .  Take the black fondant, and begin to shape small bits of it into curved devil horns, and then place the horns on top of the cupcakes.

                                                                                                                 

        

: Devilish Devil's Food Cupcakes

Triple Dipped S´mores Apples

Ingredients 

6 Granny Smith apples; 2 tbsp. unsalted butter; 1 bag large marshmallows; 10 oz. milk chocolate chips; 2 c. crushed graham crackers

1.Remove stems and skewer apples

2. In a saucepan over low heat, melt butter. Add marshmallows and stir until melted 

3. Dip apples one at a time then transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Refrigerated until set about 15 minutes

4. Then in a double boiler over low heat, melt chocolate chips, stirring continuously. Dip an apple into the chocolate, stopping two-thirds of the way up. Immediately dip the lower third of the apple into a bowl of crushed graham crackers, rotating to coat evenly.

5. Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet. repeat for all apples and refrigerate until set, about 15 minutes

Tripple Dipped Apples

And now of to the decoration 

I hope you liked this excerpt out of my halloween party we had a wonderful time and I hope that you will next year and maybe you will try out some of this recipes.  

One Week of smoothies 

(and 1 milkshake)

For a lot of people summer or at least summer vacation is over but it doesn't mean that we can't enjoy what summer offers, in this case fruits. Whilst on a short vacation I felt like doing myself a smoothie or natural juice everyday like my sister and I always did on vacation. Which eventually always turned out to be a big mess but we loved every second of it.

In all these Recipies is coconut water just because I've never tried it but I didn't taste the difference.

Monday

nectarine; honey melone; pineapple; orange juice

It had quite a thick consistence but you can change that of course by putting more juice in. I never really measure my smoothie but it was about 1/8 of a half watermelon, 1/4 of a half pineapple and a whole nectarine. Thats enough for a bigger glass than this one in the picture.

Tuesday

Kiwi; honey melone; Apple juice

This one was extremely delicious and so refreshing. You need 1 Kiwi about 1/4 of a whole melon and then fill it up with the apple juice. Its enough for a glass as big as this one.

Wednesday

Honey melon; strawberries; Apple juice

You can see the amount that I put in in the picture its about a handful of Strawberries and 1/4 of honey melon. Its enough for two normal sized glasses.

Thursday

(Milkshake); banana; blueberries; vanilla Chocolate ice

My favorite type of "milkshake" is just a simple one which consists of one banana and milk. For this one I amped it up with some blueberries and because it is so hot I added one Mini Magnum its nothing for people who don't like chocolate in their milkshakes but without it and without blueberries its still delicious. 

Friday

Blueberries ; Strawberries

This Smoothie which looks like red wine is mostly blueberries and some strawberries plus some of the Coconut Water as you can see in the picture below.

This one felt like the most freshest one of them all and with tuesday and wednesday this ones my fave.

I hope you enjoyed this blog you're invited to come back anytime :)

Dinner Party 2.0

Finally after weeks of bad weather storms and rain I felt, when the sun came out, it was time for a little party outside. I invited three of my friends and we had a pool and then small dinner party.

I thought that it looked really nice so I wanted to share it and the recipes I used with you. Take a look I hope you like it. This shows step by step what i did.

STEP 1 : CHOOSE YOUR COLOURS

I went for an over all white and blue themed design with gold/silver  and wooden Accessoires. The Plates are mixed some are from Fürstenberg by Sieger & Sieger called " Wunderkammer" and the others are from Driade kosmos

Step 2 Start decorating

 In my garden are a lot of roses that flourish in this moment so there probably not gonna miss. 

I put them in espresso mugs from the Fürstenberg design.













Under the espresso mugs I´ve put serviettes that I have found in Zara home. I´ve folded them a bit smaller then there actually are.










And also some self picked flowers in the middle of the table in a little antic silver vase.

Step 3 Refreshments




Since we went swimming first and it was quite hot I made two fruity drinks as a refreshment when they came.








The first one is just a simple Watermelon juice , which in the beginning has a kinda slushy consistence. The second one is a peach lemonade who got a lot of fans that day.

The Recipe for the Watermelon juice is pretty simple since there is actually none. It depends on your wish how you you want your taste and consistence to be like. I normally go for 2/3 Watermelon and 1/3 crushed ice in an normal mixer.

The recipe for the peach lemonade is bit longer

940 ml water, 1 cup lemonade (4-6 Lemons), 170 g sugar, 450 g peaches + 1 peach for decorating and mint

1. at medium heat water/ peaches/ sugar in a pot. when it starts to bubble take down the heat and let it sit for 3 min

2.put it in a mixer and mix until its soft. when I tried it it was way to much so I did in two parts.

3.then you put in a big bowl and let it sit in the fridge for 3 hours

4.put the mixture through a sieve and then fill in your self made lemonade into the mixture.

5.if you put in a glass then it is half ice cubs half lemonade / then garnish it with a sliced peach and mint

I hope you try it out my friends really liked it

Step 4 The food

We had a cold meal which means a lot of salads and typical german bread, bread, bread with a cheese platter and some salami.

we had a tomato and mozzarella salad and 

a melon with Serrano ham one

the third on was a greek inspired salad for which you need

1 Avocado, 1 1/2 cups of cherry tomatoes, 1 cucumber, 2 tbsp of red onion , 8 twist of pepper, 2tbsp of olive oil, 1 tbsp of red wine vinegar and 4 oz of feta cheese.

The fourth salad

( Avocado Strawberry Spinach Salad with poppyseed dressing)

6 cups of fresh baby spinach (900 g) which is a lot i used less

1 pint of strawberries hulled and sliced

1 Avocado diced ( you can use two i did and it was good)

4 ounces crumbled gorgonzola or blue cheese (100g)

1/4 cup sliced almonds toasted

half a small red onion thinly sliced

and for the poppyseed dressing :

1/2 cup avocado oil or any other oil i used olive oil 

3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar

2 tbsp of honey

1 tbsp of poppy seeds

salt and pepper

and optional a pinch of ground dry mustard

Step 5 The Dessert

 While it was slowly getting dark we freshly prepared our dessert.

Even when we were completely full something 
is always possible and that is pancakes.

We made two kinds normal American pancakes and chocolate ones. both were delicious.

Chocolate pancakes recipe

mix 40 g sugar + 2 egg yolk, then add 35 cl milk, after that add 2 egg whites (fluffy).
then add 45 g of melted butter and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.
In a second bowl mix 200g of flour, 30 g Cocoaopowder and 9 g of baking powder. fill the wet mixture into the dry mixture.
if you want add chocochips

                  American Pancakes

mix 220 g flour + 30 g sugar + 9 g of baking powder

mix 2 eggs + 240 ml milk and then add it to the dry mixture

add a pinch of salt and 60 g of melted butter

Mix all together and let it sit for a short while. 

To decorate our pancakes we used strawberries, blueberries, blackberries,raspberries, nutella and icing sugar but you can add what ever you like.

I hope that you have found this blogpost interesting and maybe even helpful. I will try to post more stuff like this in the future also check out my Lifestyle blog over on http://mikimsblog.blogspot.de