Introducing the Rainbow Semla!

Just as I was getting to know Max early last year, I saw that one of my favourite bloggers, Bri Emery of Designlovefest, had recently gone to Stockholm and documented her journey on her blog and on her Instagram account. I fell in love with the architecture and colourful captures of her hotel stay and stops at all of the iconic artsy subway stations on her feed, but what caught my eye the most was a photo she took of a pastry shop window. In the photo was a table filled with Semlor (plural for Semla), a traditional Swedish pastry made up of a cardamom flavoured wheat bun filled with almond paste and cream. As soon as I saw that photo, I thought to myself, "I NEED TO TRY THESE!!" not even quite knowing what they were, and of course, did my best to find them when I finally got to visit Sweden in May of last year. But sadly I quickly learned that these delicious treats were only sold between February and March for a holiday known as "Fat Tuesday" (which just so happens to fall on February 13th, a day before Valentine's Day this year). I'm a pretty hopeful person, so every time I visited throughout the rest of the year, I continued to search for them. And then finally, when I came over for Christmas, I got to see them in person! They were being sold even earlier than I had thought they would be at the local most traditional bakery in town, and I got to taste one when I came back to move here in January. And yes, they were as delicious as I had hoped they would be.

I've always been one for testing the limits on traditional recipes, and I knew I would HAVE to put a spin on these guys considering they basically have little to no colouring on them. So, I decided to make rainbow coloured Semla, because, why not? I'm not going to lie, I know NOTHING about the metric system, and I'm also kind of afraid of baking bread (I once tried to make cinnamon rolls and had to re-make the recipe four times because I kept screwing up the dry yeast portion of the recipe), so I asked Max's sister to help make these happen, and they turned out great (albeit a little small as I'm not sure I had the dry yeast portions totally correct; I eyeballed it).

I first found THIS recipe which seemed fool-proof, but quickly realised that we would need to go with a Swedish recipe since we didn't have any US measuring cups to use, so we found THIS and used elements from both recipes. For the whipped cream, we just took a container of heavy cream and mixed it with a little sugar, whipping until it formed a nice semi soft peak, and added in different food colourings to create all the fun colours. I piped them into a piping bag and voila! The first step once they were ready to be filled was cutting the top off to create a little "hat", then added in the almond paste (we just took a couple pats of it and mixed it with a little milk so that it would be softer and less strong), and then piped on the cream. The finishing touch after putting the "hat" back on was a generous dusting of powdered sugar and they were good to go.

This would be a super fun project to do for Valentine's Day as well! You can make them the more traditional way by omitting food colouring and just throwing in some pink & red sprinkles into the cream.

If you decide to try your hand at these (which, duh, you totally should!), I would definitely stick with the US recipe if you are unfamiliar with the Metric system. It's so confusing to me that it makes me want to cry. But I know at some point I will understand it and that will be a great feeling!

Also, the recipe says to bake for up to 10 minutes. In retrospect, I wish I had taken them out after 8 minutes, but they were still really good - just a little extra crunchy (they're traditionally softer).

Getting ready to let these guys rise before putting them into the oven

If you make these, please tag me! I'd love to see your creations and I'll be posting some of my favourites on my instagram stories! Tag: #circusofcakestreats

Animal Cookie Poptarts

The other day, I came across a recipe for homemade poptarts, one of my favorite breakfast treats from childhood, and since focusing my blog on more of a cake-centric theme, I thought why not add cream cheese frosting to the mix? I took a basic dough recipe from this blog (here), and instead of the usual jam, I made cream cheese frosting (recipe here), and added ANIMAL COOKIES to it! *An easy way of doing so is by crushing up a couple generous handfuls of animal cookies and then adding them to the batter, stirring until incorporated.

Ahh, so fun, right? And as crazy as it all sounds - they are pretty delicious. If I make these again (which I'm sure I will), I'll be rolling the dough a lot thinner. The pop tarts are pretty thick, but I'm not complaining. Now excuse me while I sneak off another bite!

Cinnamon Roll Birthday Cake

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with Cinnabon. I loved going to the mall where I could find this delicious smelling shop and staring at the people behind the glass making the dough, rolling it out, sprinkling cinnamon all over it, spreading it with butter, and cutting it up and putting it in the oven. There was something so comforting to me about watching the process, and I also loved to snack on them when I was allowed, as well. I always got the mini version so I wouldn't feel as bad about how many calories were in one, cause there were were a lot.

Recently I thought about making my own, so I went out and bought all of the ingredients, and thought it might be cool to add birthday cake crumbles into the dough, much like this recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction (HERE) It's mostly the same recipe, though I prepared the dough differently by making the yeast mixture separately before adding it into the mixing bowl. I'll be honest, though. The thought of making dough had always terrified me. I never thought I'd be able to do it, and I have to admit, I almost gave up on my first try. I must have tried to activate the dry yeast at least five times, and I was getting really frustrated. But finally, after taking a few days off, I came back to it and I figured it out, and was quickly on my way to being a bread maker!

I think because of the temperature of the kitchen and my poor timing skills, I let the dough sit for too long before I started to top it with the filling, so by the time I was ready to roll it all up, it became one giant pillowy log. I cut each piece into about 1.5 inch sizes just like the recipe called for, and placed them in my baking dish (sans parchment paper, as I didn't have any on me - I used tin foil which I sprayed with baking spray instead), and hoped for the best. When they came out of the oven, they were a bit hard to distinguish as individual slices. They must have all puffed up in the oven enough to become one giant cinnamon roll, but hey, there's nothing wrong with that.. so I am donning this a cinnamon roll cake! And it tastes delicious! Next time I would go even crazier with brown sugar and cinnamon because it's a little light on that flavor, and I would try to make the icing with cream cheese (this one didn't have any in the recipe, still good though!), but other than that I'm pretty darn happy with it! Again, the original recipe that I used came from this blog: Sally's Baking Addiction. I cut a slice and put in pink glitter candle in it for effect, but you can see that it would make a really fun alternative for a birthday cake!

The Perfect Pancrepes

While visiting family and friends in Sonoma a few weekends ago, Chris' cousin's wife cooked up a batch of the most delectable yet simple crepes. I like to call them pancrepes, because they are as thin as a crepe, yet still have the same taste as a pancake. She made the most perfect crepe bar to go along with them, including fresh fruit, nutella, whipped cream, butter, maple syrup and assorted jams and jellies. As soon as I got home from our trip, I knew I had to try to make them myself, and boy, they are still just as tasty! She used regular flour for hers, but I used gluten-free to please everyone in my house that can't eat gluten.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup gluten-free all purpose baking flour
2 eggs
1 cup milk (I used vanilla rice milk because I like the flavor)
Two tablespoons melted butter

Step one:

1) Mix the flour
2) Add the eggs one at a time until incorporated
3) Add the milk, whisk to combine
4) Melt the butter in a pan, and then add to batter mix, stir to incorporate
5) Put the heat on medium high
6) Spray your pan with oil (I like to use the kind that contains butter)
7) Scoop up the batter with 1/3 cup, then drop the batter onto the middle of the pan (I like to move it around in a circle motion so that the batter collects around the whole pan)
8) Wait a minute or so, then flip
9) Take out the crepe, put it on a plate, then spray oil on the pan again to start your next crepe
10) Repeat steps 7-9!

Pancrepes will be done when both sides are evenly lightly browned. Each pancrepe takes about 2 minutes to cook.

You can tweak the ingredients and amounts to your liking. I personally like my crepes on the thinner side, so if yours are thicker that's ok! Enjoy!

 

 

Funfetti Cake

Nothing makes me happier than a cake with sprinkles baked into it. SusieCakes makes a pretty spectacular one, so I thought I'd try to make one, too (with ooey gooey frosting that looks like melted ice cream). I found this recipe and added green food coloring to make my frosting more of a mint color (like Susiecakes). If I did it all over again, I would have taken the cake out from the oven five minutes sooner, and I would have added less almond extract (I happen to not like the flavor so much). But all in all, it was yummy and the best part about it was all made from scratch. :)

 

De-constructed chicken pot pie

One of my all-time favorite types of food has always been comfort food. There's something amazing about the fact that a warm dish can make you feel so satisfied. I recently came across a recipe (here) for chicken pot pie that does not include the typical puff pastry crust around the top. Instead, you layer buttered egg/country white bread in a single layer, and bake until you get a perfect golden crust. It's less bread (you can pick and choose as much or as little as you want to have), and to me, it's more delicious. Don't mind the fact that I had already eaten a big bowlful before taking this picture. It is really that good, and so easy to prepare! I highly recommend this for a quiet, cold night in, or to bring to a pot luck dinner with friends.