24/01/2011

I love Hamburg


My all time favourite city: Hamburg. Why? I cannot properly define my love for this city. I love the atmosphere, and I have many good memories from the 7 years that I lived in Hamburg. Plus you can do nice shopping in Hamburg, there are nice restaurants and three times a year there is an amazing funfair! I think there are enough reasons to love Hamburg.

17/01/2011

Testweek

I'm sorry that I haven't posted anything for quite long. I can't write a long post now either, because I have testweek. Today I had a math test and a Theory of Knowledge test. I think math went quite well, I don't know about Theory of Knowledge because it was the first test we had in that subject so I don't really know what is expected from us.

Tomorrow I have Spanish and Dutch so I'm going to study for that now. I promise I will post a more interesting post soon, between now and Saturday!

08/01/2011

Amazing candle

My parents got this amazing candle from our interior stylist/architect and we burned it with Christmas. It was rectangular, and the wick ran through it in different directions, splitting (at one point there were 7 wicks burning) and taking many different paths. I took some pictures of it.




07/01/2011

Tiramisu


My mom and I made this amazing dessert for our Christmas dinner. Tiramisu is an Italian dessert with finger biscuits soaked in espresso and mascarpone. We used this recipe, it's really very simple to make! It will be enough for 8 quite large portions.

Ingredients

250 ml whipped cream (the one you still need to whip yourself)
75 g white castor sugar (basterdsuiker)
4 egg yolks
500 g mascarpone (Italian cream cheese)
5 tablespoons coffee liquor (or almond liquor)
200 ml espresso coffee
250 g finger biscuits
Cacoa powder

Materials
Square or rectangular bowl, approximately 1 1/4 liter
 
Preparation
In a bowl, whip the whipped cream with 1 teaspoon of  the sugar until it is nearly stiff. In another bowl, mix (using a mixer) the egg yolks with the rest of the sugar for 5 minutes until it is a creamy mixture. Carefully (using a spoon) mix parts of the mascarpone through the egg yolks, until you have done so with all the mascarpone. Now gently fold (spoon, mix, don't know what word to use) the whipped cream through the mascarpone mixture. Take a shallow, long bowl and in there mix the liquor through the (cooled down) espresso. Take half of the finger biscuits and dip them into the coffee mixture, then put them with the coffee side up in the bowl (the 1 1/4 l one). Once the bottom is covered with finger biscuits, spread half of the mascarpone mixture over them. Then repeat with the rest of the finger biscuits to form another one of these layers. Let the tiramisu stiffen in the refridgerator for at least an hour. Take it out shortly before serving and cover generously with cacoa powder (use a small siff).

Note
We started using a 1 1/4 liter bowl, but this wasn't big enough, so we used the one shown on the picture. So if you have on that is a bit bigger, use that one.

02/01/2011

Happy New Year!

A little late, but still: I would like to wish all of you a very happy new year! =D

What did you do on New Years eve? I celebrated it with my parents and my brother. My dad made oliebollen (typical Dutch fried doughballs with raisins, we traditionally make and eat them on the 31st of december), appelflappen (pieces of apple, raisins and cinnamon in triangles of puff pastry) and appelbollen (a whole apple, with raisins and cinnamon in the place of the core, wrapped in puff pastry). In the evening we gourmetted (don't know if that's how you say it..) and we all ate too much, haha.  At midnight my dad and brother set off beautiful fireworks. Here are some pictures I took of the fireworks (it was the first time I took pictures of fireworks, so they are not really amazing):




What are your plans for the new year? What are you looking forward to?
I will be going to Morocco in March, that means I'll be on another continent for the first time in my life this year! Also, I hope to be participating in the 5 km run of the Leiden Marathon and finish it within 30 minutes and I would love to go to Pinkpop for the first time if there are some good bands coming.