Banana Cupcakes

250 gr self-raising flour 
250 gr melted butter 
250 gr sugar 
4 eggs 
3 tablespoons of milk 
2 bananas 
2 sachets of vanilla sugar 
12 teaspoons of Nutella 
1 lemon 

Preheat the oven at 180 C. Mash on of the bananas and mix with the milk. Put all ingredients together and mix well. Get a cupcake tray ready and line with paper cupcake cases or grease well. Fill the cases up to 2/3 with the batter. Bake the cupcakes in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes until they are nice and golden.

When baked let the cupcakes cool before moving on to the next step.

With a teaspoon make a small round hole in the top of the cupcake and hollow out a little. Finely chop up the other banana, then sprinkle and toss with a little lemon juice. Put one teaspoon of Nutella and one teaspoon of chopped up banana in each of the cavities in the cupcakes.

Then whip up the cream cheese topping, following the recipe below.

Cream cheese topping

200 gr butter 
200 gr icing sugar 
200 gr cream cheese 
1 sachet of vanilla sugar 

In a bowl, add the icing sugar and vanilla to the softened butter and whip for 10 minutes, until nicely white and fluffy. Loosen up the cream cheese and then gently fold it in to the butter mixture with a spatula. Make sure it stays airy, but mix well. Pipe the mixture onto the cupcakes and decorate with chocolate sprinkles.

Ginger and White Chocolate Chip Cookies

125 gr of butter, softened
90 gr of sugar
1 egg
90 gr of flour
15 gr of oats
½ teaspoon of baking powder
¼ teaspoon of salt
1 piece of ginger the size of your thumb
100 gr of white chocolate (chips)

Mix the butter and sugar together until creamy. Then add the egg and whisk until smooth. In a different bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. Peel and grate the ginger and chop the white chocolate in big chunks. Add the chocolate and the ginger to the butter mixture and stir in. Then add the dry ingredients and mix well. The dough should form a ball in the bowl. Make a role of the dough of about 5 cm in diameter, wrap in clean film and put in the fridge for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven at 180 C.
After 30 minutes, take the cookie dough out of the fridge and cut it into 1 cm slices. I was impatient and took the dough out a little early, so it was still very sticky. Therefore, I decided to roll little balls of the dough and squash those with the palm of my hand on the tray lined with baking paper, which worked fine as well. Bake the cookies for 10 minutes, take them out of the oven and cool on a wire rack. Enjoy!

Half Frozen

It's been 12 years, 12 long years and now half of our country has been taken over by this strange, collective madness, called skating. For the first time in years, it has been cold enough that ponds, lakes, canals and small rivers are now frozen over and the ice is strong enough to go skating on. Many people braved the cold and the dangers last week and especially this weekend and put on their skates. Not me though, I was tired of the cold, having made my way to work this week by bike, left me weary of being half frozen, so instead of being out on the ice this weekend with my boy friend and mother-in-law, I stayed in my warm and cozy kitchen and decided it was time for ingredients to be half frozen and not me.

Cranberry Semifreddo

400 gr cranberries, fresh or frozen
125 gr confectioners sugar
200 ml Marsala wine
1 tsp cinnamon
150 gr meringues, home-made or store-bought, crumbled
300 ml cream, whipped

You can prepare this dessert several days in advance, but you have to start at least 6 and a half hours before you want to serve it.
Slowly heat the cranberries, the sugar, the cinnamon and the marsala untill it boils softly. Let the cranberries simmer for about 7 minutes or untill the cranberries are just cooked. Take 250 gr of cranberries and 2 tbsp of sauce and blend untill smooth in a blender. Let the rest of the sauce and the cranberries cool and save in the fridge till serving.
Quickly, but gently mix the crumbled meringues and the cranberry mixture through the whipped cream. You don't have to mix it perfectly, it is even prettier when there are pink stripes through the white cream. Transfer the mixture into small ramekins, which are oiled and lined with clean film. Cover the semifreddo and put in the fridge. Before serving take the semifreddo from the fridge and let it defrost a little, semifreddo means half frozen.
Empty the ramekins on a plate and serve the semifreddo with the cranberries and wine sauce. Enjoy!