No Bake Chocolate Cake with Raspberries

This is one of those cakes to cool you down since there is no baking required and it needs a couple of hours in the fridge to settle. Oh, and there is chocolate in it, which means it is heavenly. 

You'll need (23x23cm pan):

• 32 Oreo cookies
• 100g melted butter

•  200ml heavy cream
• 300g chocolate
• 500g raspberries 
• a handful of chopped pistachios

1) Start with lining your pan with either baking paper or kitchen foil.

2) Crush all the cookies (even the white filling!) with the butter in a blender till fine and wet. Pour it then onto your pan and press on the bottom and also to the sides. 

3) Bring the cream to a boil and pour over your chocolate pieces. I chose three different cocoa content chocolate bars (50%, 75% and 70%). Stir till smooth. Then pour onto your crust.

4) Decorate with pistachios and raspberries. Put into your fridge for at least two hours.

Note: If you use high cocoa content chocolate like I do, it's better to take the cake 1 hour before serving out of the fridge, otherwise it will start cracking as you chop it -I have dull knives- and it will be difficult to eat. You need to "melt" it at room temperature. 

Laurann Dohner: Drantos

So after a couple of years of e-book reader ownership I decided to use it. Nothing compares to real books but I felt bad for not using the device. So when some of the authors I follow on social media announce that their book will only be available in the electronic format why not use it. 

I had to go to hell and back to get this book - I only found it in two online shops and both of them discriminated me - I live in the wrong region. I had to actually call my friend who lives in the approved region if I could include his address in my account so that the shitty site would sell it to me. Sheesh, I'm trying to spend money here and they won't let me! What kind of crooked capitalism is that?! And on the top of it all, it wouldn't agree with my e-book reader and I had to read it in my computer. 'tis the season to be angry, la la la la la la la la...

But to the book. We are here for the content, not for the shitty discriminating pricks who think they can make more money by limiting their sales to only a couple of countries, right? How looogical... 

So, the rumour had it that the new series by Dohner would have vampire/gargoyle mix in them. Well, the first story was mainly about vampire/lycan clan which stresses the lycan part. So classical vampire lovers will be disappointed. Because really there are some vampire traits but you will have a blast if you fancy werewolves.

The rest is typical Dohner - a lot of heat (literally since we talk about "dogs") and some action. I really didn't like how the central couple was making remarks such as: "She always makes me...." WTF? Always as in after ONE day?! If I weren't angry after hours spent figuring out how to buy the book I would have let it be and would have just enjoyed learning about a new universe full of interesting mixed-breeds because the potential is there. But no, all I see is the cheesy remarks.

GENRE: I think we can't call it a romance once they start humping every few pages, can we?

FANGS OUT: new setting, new mixes, new possibilities
FANGS RETRACTING: overuse of the word ALWAYS
TOTAL SCORE:

Chocolate-Covered Nuts

So, if you happen to buy a super awesome cookie jar and it happens to be around Christmas which means that all you do NOT need is to bake more cookies but you want to put something in it, you can try this easy recipe. It's bitter chocolate for crying out loud - no one should oppose to that. Nuts and bitter chocolate should cheer you up in this sugary season.

Ingredients:

• 100g dark chocolate (don't be afraid, use that 85% monster)
• 100g sliced almonds
• 50g shredded coconut
• 1 table spoon coconut oil

1) Melt the chocolate with the coconut oil.

2) Roast the almonds on a dry frying pan (no oil needed) and when they start to get brown, add the coconut because that one can get burned easily. 

3) Pour the nuts into the melted chocolate (not the other way around because you could burn the chocolate on the still hot frying pan) and stir so that everything is covered in chocolate.

4) Take a spoon and scoop the mixture onto a tray which is lined with aluminium foil or baking paper. Let the heaps cool down and enjoy! 

Flourless Zucchini Cake

This one really got me. It is so soft, yet moist. Everyone thought me crazy when I said I would make a zucchini cake without flour but it disappeared within one afternoon. 

Because it was scorching hot outside and a moist refrigerated cake suddenly appealed to everyone. Yup, it is, indeed, perfect for the hot weather we are having right now. 

I think this post will appear in December so it will be a little bit odd but as always, I'm writing this during the courgette season, not in December. And Europe is being swept by yet another heat wave, so... 

You'll need:

• 1 1/2 cups almond meal
• 1/4 cup corn starch
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 tea spoon salt
• 2 cups finely grated zucchini
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 5 table spoons melted butter

• 200g cream cheese
• 2 tea spoons vanilla extract
• some sugar 
• some fruit to decorate it with

1) Combine the eggs and sugar. Whisk them in a bowl above simmering water till luke-warm. Then remove from the boiling water and keep beating till it doubles in volume and creates soft peaks. 

2) Mix all the other batter ingredients and then, slowly, fold in the eggs.

3) Bake for about 40 minutes at 180°C. Use the good ol' toothpick as a guide. 

4) Blend the cheese, sugar and vanilla well. Spread it on the cooled cake and decorate with some fruit. I had black cherries so that's what I decorated it with, but you can use any type of fruit you like.

Dark Chocolate Blueberry Cheesecake

In case you are not a fan of white chocolate - because let's face it, it isn't chocolate if there's no cocoa powder in it - and you didn't really fancy my last week's cheesecake, I have a solution. Just swap the chocolates. 

See, I still had a lot of blueberries at hand 'cause it was the right season and felt like I needed something more bitter and sour. So I didn't add any sugar and poured in 70% cocoa chocolate. The result? Phenomenal... 

Ingredients:

• 130g cocoa biscuits
• 5 table spoons melted coconut oil

• 250g cream cheese
• 200g mascarpone
• 200g dark chocolate
• 2 table spoons coconut oil
• as many blueberries as you can handle

1) Make crumbs from the biscuits, wet them with the coconut oil, press them to the bottom of your cake pan and bake it for 10 minutes at 180°C. Let cool down.

2) Melt the chocolate with the oil above boiling water and set aside to cool down a bit. 

3) Blend the cheeses together with the chocolate. If you find it not sweet enough, you can add sugar, but trust me, you can do without it. Add the blueberries last and spread onto the baked crust.

4) Refrigerate for at least two hours before serving.

Blueberry Cheesecake

Let's face it, cheesecakes are the best. And what is also the best? Blueberries, of course! And it's full season (I'm writing this in the summer) - my Canadian Blueberry Bush is finally getting the blue color on its berries and it would be easy to go in the garden and pick those humongous berries and be done with it but the taste and color of the real forest blueberries is much stronger. So I decided to go in the forest and pick some. I vaguely remember picking them as a child and then my parents always bought them.
As I was crawling through the thick tick-infested forest floor to pick those tiny little fuckers I suddenly recalled why. It's not worth it. You spend two hours bending your back in awkward positions (exactly those your fitness videos instructors warn you about) and all you get is a half a frickin' cup. At least my dogs had a blast chasing hares and fooling around.
So, of course, I bought the berries from people who know how to pick them and even though the berries are super expensive, I don't mind. A person who can pick kilos of that blue stuff can price it as high as possible and I will buy it nevertheless out of respect.

Ingredients: 

• 200g butter biscuits
• 80g melted butter

• 250g curd cheese
• 200g fresh cream cheese
• 200g white chocolate
• 2 table spoons coconut oil
• some sugar if that chocolate isn't enough for you 
• 250g blueberries 

1) Crush the biscuits, pour the butter onto them, mix it well, press it on the bottom of your cake pan and bake for about 10 minutes at 200°C.
2) Melt the chocolate with coconut oil over boiling water and set aside once it is all melted.
3) Mix the cheeses with chocolate and if you find it lacking in sweetness, add sugar. Mix in the blueberries last. You can be as gentle as you want, they will leak the blue stuff anyway, so the whole mixture will get bluish tint. Pour the mixture over the cooled crust and refrigerate for a couple of hours.

Peter Haining: A Dictionary of Vampires

Since I gave you a holy grail of vampire encyclopedias last week, I can't help but show you another example. This, as you could've read, is a dictionary. Which basically works using the same principle as the previous encyclopedia - the alphabetical order. 

Sure, if you take a look at how this one look, you can see it pales in comparison. I mean, it's only got 288 pages as opposed to Melton's humble 850. But it doesn't neccesarily mean this book is not worth opening. Not all the keywords are the same which makes this book as important of a source as the Melton's monster of a book.

Which brings us to the bright point of the day - you can take this one on a trip with you and not bother with its weight. The employees at the airport won't even accuse you of having bricks in your cabin luggage. Ha, you didn't see that coming, did you?!

I will not bother you with talking about how important books like these are when you are starting your research and have no idea which end to grasp first. There are so many keywords and ideas which will help you. Yup, it may be a little oudated but who cares? Vampires have been here for some time and some things never change so you won't even notice which year it was published in.

And having a few dictionaries or encyclopedias like these will never hurt - you can always have fun comparing data - I managed to get frustrated when getting years of some publications for my diploma thesis because the authors sometimes vary in them. Who the heck am I supposed to believe?! I know it's mostly just a year difference but I wanted to get things right... Oh, the decisions...

 

St. Nicolas Day Costume

I found a great deal on fake horns in one shop which was being closed and since my Halloween costume had already been in motion, I thought it would take more than a year to come with an excuse to wear them. Well, that was before I realised there were days in December. Like St. Nicolas Day. The day all the kids are scared because St. Nick, an angel and some devils will come to read them their sins. And if they've been naughty they get coal as a warning or get taken into the devil's bag and dragged to Hell if they've been extra bad. The good kids get candy and fruit. So, naturally I chose the dark side because they have better cookies. The horns became a part of me and were it not for the slant attic walls of my classroom I wouldn't even know about them. That's why I was so confused when I gave one lady in a shop almost a heart attack.

Anyway, this costume was also a test of a new purchase - Makeup Revolution's Salvation Velvet Lacquer in Black Heart. I bought this color because the official website promised dark purple (which is wearable on daily basis) but the name should have warned me, I guess. Unfortunately it turned out to look very black (which is fine with me but not with the rest of normal population) so I can only wear it on special occasions or in super bright light (yup, camera flash gets the purple out, but who would go into such trouble as being in the spotlight for so long). So, how did it go? Well, I couldn't eat because the inner part of my lacquer would just poof! But drinking was OK, no real damage there. Speaking - well, even though I don't ever lick my lips while speaking a little brushed off and winded up on my teeth. But it was specks not the typical lipstick smear so that could be dealt with much easily. But what was worth the trouble of not eating (if I don't eat I get extra bitchy) was the feeling it gave my lips. I couldn't help but to press my lips together all the time because they felt alien but in a good fuzzy way :-) Not really velvet-y but close enough. 

Savory Cheesecake

I went a little bit crazy and decided to make a savory cheesecake. Because sweet cheesecakes are so mainstream, right? :-)= I was inspired by our favorite party food - the guacamole. It was difficult to pick the right cheese for this because I was afraid nothing would survive slicing.
The cheese held it all together well but what I had a problem with, however, was the crust. I applied a similar technique I use with normal cheesecakes but this time I didn't bake it because it seemed a little bit too much. Needless to say I should have baked it. I'm not saying it all crumbled but some parts did and it wasn't as fancy as I wanted it to be.

Ingredients:

• 200g your favorite tortilla chips (I'm a sucker for the cheese ones - I bet that is the most toxic flavor but I can't help it)
• 50g butter 

• 300g gervais 
• 3 ripe avocados
• 1 small onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• about 1 table spoon lemon juice
• salt, pepper

•  the top is up to you - just put on whatever you miss inside (cilantro, tomato, chilli pepper or you can even smear it with your favorite dip - either home made or store bought, who cares?!)

1) Line your cake pan with something (baking paper, aluminum foil etc.) so that it's easier to take it out later. 

2) Crush the chips and combine them with melted butter. Press to the bottom of the pan.

3) Using a blender, combine everything in the cheesecake part till smooth. You can add something else inside, if you wish, just don't make it more runny (so avoid tomatoes at this point) because I fear it would not harden enough.

4) Pour over the chips layer and smooth the surface. Wrap the whole thing in a foil so that it doesn't oxygenate much (the top would be too brown if you didn't cover it) and leave in a fridge for at least five hours. 

5) Prepare whatever you miss in it and decorate the cake with it.

J. Gordon Melton: The Vampire Book, The Encyclopedia of the Undead

Wow, it's been a while since I presented some kind of non-fiction about vampires. Not that non-fiction about fictional characters makes much sense, but you know what I mean. I hope. 

This time I'm bringing a load of knowledge. Duh, that's what encyclopedias are for after all. It's over 850 pages long. I won't tell you how much it weighs because that would make some people cringe. But let's say if you have a question about something on the topic of vampirism you have your chance to actually learn about it while consulting this monster of a book. 

The format is typical - you look for keywords which are in alphabetical order. Now and then there is either a photo or illustration (a photo of a vampire?! no, you fool! but the author mentions some actors or writers, so...). 

What I find helpful (or maybe not, my version of this book is from 1994 so the info can be a bit outdated) are the apendices at the end of the book. It goes from the typical lists of publications and resources to various fanclubs (you could have joined Loyalists of the Vampire Realm if you wanted back in the day) and to quite long filmography, drama and novels lists.

Just like any ecyclopedia, this is a good starting point for your own research. This is a must-have for all you loyalists or whatever name you go under. ;-)= 

Sweet Potato Muffins

These are one of my leftover ingredients muffins since I had a half sweet potato, some strawberries, some cherries etc. and needed to bake some dessert. So, I came up with this.

You'll need (15 muffins):

• 1 1/2 cups shredded sweet potato
• 2 cups whole grain flour
• 2 tea spoons baking powder
• 1 tea spoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 1 table spoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 tea spoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup sea buckthorn juice
• 12 strawberries 

• a handful of cherries, some lemon juice and sugar for decoration

1) Mix it all together (without the strawberries) till well combined and put one table spoon of the batter into each muffin cup. Put a strawberry in, too. Pour in more batter so that the strawberry is covered and the cup is 3/4 full. 

2) Bake for about 30 minutes at 180°C.

3) Since I had a lot of cherries as well, I took a handful of them, pitted them, put them in a pot with a table spoon of lemon juice and a little bit of brown sugar and brought it to a boil. Then I lowered the temperature and cooked for about fifteen minutes.

Buckthorn Cheesecake

And the saga continues... this time we try to make it unusual by adding sea buckthorn juice with pulp - which will make it nicely bitter but swapping sugar for honey will make it smooth and heavenly (well, not for everyone since not everybody likes the taste of honey).

Ingredients:

• 200g butter biscuits
• 80g butter
• 500g mascarpone
• 200g ricotta
• 200g white tofu
• 100ml sea buckthorn juice
• 100ml honey
• 2 eggs

1) Break the biscuits to small pieces, pour melted butter over it, combine and press to the bottom of your baking pan (have it lined with baking paper) and bake at 180°C for 10 minutes. Set aside to cool down and then you can pour the following onto it.

2) Combine the rest of the ingredients in a blender till smooth (the tofu needs some time in the blender to achieve such consistency) adding the eggs last because the amount of honey is up to you - so keep adding till you are satisfied and then crack in the eggs. Bake for about 50 minutes at 180°C.

3) To add the strange bitterness to it even more, smear the buckthorn juice over the top before serving.

Maggie Shayne: Prince of Twilight

See, I have this totally Love/Hate relationship with the series Shayne writes. I remember finding the first book in the series and liking it. Then buying a couple more and not liking it much. Now that I have run out of my usual go-to-books when I need something sweet in my life, I reached for Wings in the Night again and...

So, this is probably the most confusing of them all. I don't follow the logic in which the series were put together so suddenly going from one book and then jumping sixteen years to the future as if nothing happened somehow doesn't answer all my questions. It only creates more. Aaaand there is this whole thing about Dracula. Yup, this is his story, so naturally there are the great expectations. 

Boy, isn't this one the sappiest in the series I've read so far. It's somehow very wrong. In the previous book you get this strong woman who can stand her ground and makes decisions and suddenly (well, not so suddenly, there's this 16-year fast forward after all) she becomes this crying clingy type you must hate. I mean you can't like her. Ever. And to say nothing of the Prince of Darkness. You want the epic story, you want the evil vampire he has become and instead you just get a love-sick puppy who can still pose as intimidating as you want him to be but it's all just an act which will dissapear way too soon. 

I don't really know what to think because this is, unfortunately, not the last book I bought during my optimistic shopping spree so I will inform you how the series goes in the future. I mean, it can't be worse than this, right? 

GENRE: sappy, I repeat, sappy romance

FANGS OUT: it has got vampires, duh!
FANGS RETRACTING: I just hate all the central characters in this novel
TOTAL SCORE:

Not So Perfect Macarons

My very first macarons were done during winter when they just wouldn't get non-sticky before getting into the oven which made them full of holes from bubbles and not glossy. I had to wait till summer with its lower humidity and better temperatures to give it a second try. They came out better this time. They are glossy and the texture is right this time but I didn't beat the egg whites long enough and they spread to the sides so that the foot isn't that high but rather around the macarons. But otherwise they taste perfect and if you bite into them, they are chewy inside and hard outside. So, I believe next time they will be perfect. I'll update this post in the future to show you when I make them again if it really was the eggs or something else.

You'll need (30 macarons):

macarons: 

• 100g almond flour
• 170g icing sugar
• 15g cocoa powder

• 100g "old" egg whites (leave them in a fridge for at least a day before baking but make sure they are room temperature when you use them)
• 1/4 tea spoon cream of tartar
• 35g icing sugar 

 ganache:

• 200g dark chocolate
• 200g heavy cream
• 2 table spoons coconut oil (not neccessary)

1)  Take the almond flour, cocoa powder and sugar. Sift it at least two times so that it is super fine.

2) Beat the egg whites with cream of tartar and sugar. It is advised to beat it till it falls back in ribbon like pattern (it's soft, not hard-peaks as we are used to) but in my case it was too runny and the foot of the macarons spread to the sides, not upward so maybe let's do something in between ribbon and hard peaks next time.

3) Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients (about 20 times should do the trick).

4) Put the batter in a piping bag and make circles of your chosen size. 

5) Let the macarons sit for some time (till you can touch them without sticking to it), then tap the baking sheet you have them on and put in the oven for 14 minutes (rotate the trays halfway through).

6) The ganache is easy: bring the heavy crem to a boil, pour over the chocolate, add the oil if you want and stir till combined. Then set aside to cool.

Whipped Mascarpone

Unexpected visitors, almost nothing in the fridge, weather too hot to even think of baking something without unwanted combustion - that's what I have to deal with sometimes. 

What the heck am I supposed to make in almost no time? Well, now my always present mascarpone doesn't seem as a bad idea, does it? This will take less than ten minutes so no need to worry. Improvisation is sometimes the best thing to do. Why make some elaborate stuff when a simple thing can be equally satisfying?

You'll need (4 servings):

• 500g mascarpone
• 8 table spoons rice syrup
• 15 mashed strawberries plus some for decoration
• 4 small biscuits or one big or something like that
• some fresh basil

1) Using a hand mixer whip the mascarpone with syrup (you can add more if you like sweeter stuff but I avoided it since it was too hot for anything like that).

2) Mash your strawberries or cut them into small pieces. Also cut a couple of basil leaves and mix it all in the mascarpone. I somehow like strawberry/basil combo lately.

3) Now - the layering.  Break the biscuit(s) into pieces and put it at the bottom of a glass. Add a strawberry if you want. Top it with the mascarpone mix. Decorate with more strawberries and basil leaves.

Quoth the Raven "Nevermore" Halloween Costume

I've been dying to dress up as this for years. But I couldn't find a big black bird. Until one unproductive day in Spring this year. I was browsing the shelves of one supermarket when suddenly something caught my eye in one of those seasonal aisles.
Yup, things for gardening. It was sitting there as if it belonged there all along and as if I was supposed to be aware of its presence. The black bird. As it turns out people who (unlike me) can keep green things growing need a scarecrow to defend their produce.Which means cheap plastic crows and ravens are somewhere out there in big numbers.

And so it was settled. My costume would become reality. You must understand. I was planning this for years and even though my skills with make-up are doubtful, I still believe this is the best costume ever because a) it depicts my favourite poem, hence it's clever b) I came up with it - I didn't see it on the Internet or anywhere else, it's just my imagination in it  c) it turned out to be pretty bad ass. Even I was afraid of the raven. I had it in my bedroom and since I applied shiny red nail foil to its eyes, the little sucker would glow in the most unexpected moments and spook the heck out of me.

But back to how to do the costume. It's quite simple, actually. If you try it at least once in advance. This was the first time I used contact lenses (White Screen) so I had to try it beforehand. As it turned out, they were quite comfortable but applying make-up through a layer of mist sucks. See, most people get tunnel vision with colored eye lenses but the ones I bought cover the whole eye, especially the pupil. Trying before doing it for real helps because all the colors become hazy and you'll find out you applied too much contour once you remove them. So bear that in mind and have light hand when applying anything since it looks harsher for the real world.

You need a lot of white make-up. As a base I used the cheapest white cream make-up I found in a costume store. Forget all the spong-y applicators and dense brushes, the fastest way is to smear it with your hands (sure it doesn't look the best but we are trying to be efficient since we have to go to work in one hour). Once that was on my face and limbs I used Catrice's 660 Ice White Open to set it. Once that was done I contoured my face (temples, cheeks, sides of my nose and above the lids) and my neck and collar bones with the light grey/brown in NYX's I dream of St. John. I originally used the silver color in it but the result wasn't as natural as the brownish color. Then I lined my water lines with a white eye pencil to get rid of as much redness as possible (the white really drew it out and I looked like a rabid statue). The following step was to use a white lipstick and a black lipstick (the black went only to the inner rim of my lips to create depth). 

I styled my hair into two buns at the back of my head and sprayed all over with a white hair spray. Since there was a lot of it in the bottle I tried to spray it over my face and arms to settle the white make-up even more and it really held! Even my oily eyelids didn't crease! Yay! More than twelve hours in the costume and it held!

All that was left was to put everything together. I put on a gold leafy head band, wrapped myself in my bed sheet toga-style (which came convenient for trapping the raven on my shoulder since its legs were made of one single piece so I could get the end of the sheet through it to keep it in place) and secured it with a gold belt. I had white stockings on and a lot of invisible layers under the toga because ... well, October!

The reactions to my costume were priceless. Most of my colleagues couldn't recognise me and then they couldn't look me in the eye. The kids were afraid of me and some still couldn't believe it really was their teacher underneath (time to time I'd just stand somewhere not moving and they'd be so afraid!). One kid told me after the class that she was not afraid of me anymore but that The Raven was staring at her and she was afraid of it still. I spooked the hell out of pretty much everyone this year, so the mission was accomplished! :-)=
Spooky Halloween to you all!

Carrot Roll with Cream Cheese Frosting

This should fit into your "5 a day" plan because it has got carrots in it. So basically it's healthy, right? And also tasty :-) There is really no magic to it and I bet you have all the ingredients at home. Simple tastes are the most effective as you will find out.

You'll need:

batter

• 150g shredded carrots
• 100g flour
• 130g sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tea spoon vanilla extract
• 2 tea spoons cinnamon powder
• 1/2 tea spoon ground nutmeg
• 2 table spoons sunflower oil
• 1 tea spoon baking powder
• 1/2 tea spoon salt

filling

• 200g cream cheese
• 200ml heavy cream
• 60g sugar
• 1 tea spoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 tea spoon cinnamon

1) Beat the eggs with sugar, salt and vanilla till light and fluffy. 

2) Stir in the carrots and start adding the dry ingredients. Once it's incorporated well, you may put it in the oven at 180°C for about 10 minutes.

3) Have a tea towel ready - when you take it out, put it on the towel, get rid of your baking paper (if you used any) and roll it in the towel. Let cool down.

4) In separate bowls, beat the heavy cream and cream cheese with the rest of the ingredients. Stir the beaten heavy cream into the cream cheese mixture slowly. 

5) Unroll the roll and spread the cream inside and roll back. If any cracks appear, just cover the top with either a little bit of the cream or icing sugar.

Christopher Moore: Bloodsucking Fiends

Oh boy, I don't even know where to start. See, I always have difficulties coming up with reviews of books I enjoyed. This book has been sitting on my shelf so long I almost forgot I had it. And what a waste it would have been had I not came across it one morning. Honestly, where would my life be? This books is exactly what a sarcastic person like me needs.

Plotwise it's your typical scenario - an abandoned newly turned vampire is coming to terms with her new position in the world order. Or in the food chain, whatever you prefer. She needs a Renfield of sorts to help her during the hours she is dead to the world and she also needs to find out who is after her since bloodless people are being found way too close to her lair. 

But the way it is written... sarcasm, absurdism and humour drips from every effing page. The dialogues between the unlikely couple (a young aspiring writer who works night shifts in a store with god-knows-whom and a boring plain woman who is suddenly turned into a predator) are so frickin' absurd you feel like you've come to the Twilight Zone. Or to a 50-year-long marriage where no one listens to anyone while still talking. But you don't read poetry to your loved one while hanging from the ceiling upside down, do you? You don't give TURTLES to people as your love token, do you? As a man you don't get flowers from five illegal Chinese immigrants in hope of your hand in marriage, do you?

I just loved the book. I've googled there are some more. I'm coming for them! 

GENRE: fun, sarcastic fun

FANGS OUT: I'm still on the floor laughing
FANGS RETRACTING: keep them out, yo!
TOTAL SCORE:

Small Cherry Pies

You can use your muffin pan for something different than muffins, check this out:

Ingredients (12  cups):

• 2,5 cups flour 
• 1 tea spoon salt
• 4 tea spoons sugar
• 1 tea spoon lime juice
• 1 cup cold butter

• 1kg cherries
• 1/2 cup sugar
• rest of the lime juice
• 1 table spoon corn starch in 1 table spoon water

1) Put all the dough ingredients in a food processor (cut the butter in smaller pieces to speed the process) and pulse it till the butter creates small lumps. Combine the dough with your hands and wrap it in a foil and leave it in a fridge for an hour.

2) Meanwhile, get rid of the stems and pits in your cherries and put the cherries in a pot. Put the sugar in, pour in the lime juice and cook for ten minutes. Then bring to a boil and add in the starch mixed with water. Stir it in and remove from heat. Let it cool a little.

3) Cut circles in your dough and line the muffin tin with them - the circle should be big enough so that it reaches the top of each muffin cup. No baking paper or buttering needed, this dough doesn't stick. 

4) Pour in your cherry jam. Cover with another layer of dough.

5) Bake at 180°C till golden (about 20 minutes).

Caramel Cheesecake

This was the first one I've ever tried so I feel a little nostalgic about it. Plus no matter how many other variations of cheesecake I make, this one is the cheesecake of choice when I ask my family what they want me to bake. It's all the calories... they make people happy... 

You'll need:

• 80g butter
• 280g butter biscuits

• 250g quark (curd cheese)
• 200g cream cheese
• 350g sweet condensed milk (they even sell caramelized one)
• 2 eggs

• 50g butter
• 100g chocolate

1) Line your cake pan with paper or butter it. Take the biscuits and break them to pieces of your favorite size. Mix them with melted butter so that they are moist. Press them to the bottom of your pan (you can press them up to the sides) and bake at 180°C for 10 minutes.

2) If you can't buy caramelized condensed milk, then take the regular one in a can, make a small hole in the lid, submerge it in a pot of water so that the water is half a centimeter under the lid and boil for 90 minutes. Keep adding water, 'cause there will be steam escaping.

3) Then just mix everything together (make sure all the ingredients are the same temperature) and pour it onto the baked and slightly cooled crust. Bake for about 50 minutes. 

5) You can melt some chocolate with butter to top it all before serving.

Lara Adrian: Bound to Darkness

I found out that following the authors of the series I read on Facebook is quite good. They share when a new book comes out which means I can pre-order it and sometimes they even provide international pre-sale of their signed books. And since I am usually from the far-far-away land and cannot go to the book-signing events (how I envy you, you bookworms from pretty much anywhere in the US, because I see your online boastful posts from such events), this really helps. 

Before this I only had one signed book - that is J. R. Ward's latest one and you can read about that experience in one of my previous posts. Really, go there so that you know how low my expectations actually were when I was purchasing this book.

I was gladly surprised when this signed book arrived because even though it wasn't as fancily wrapped as Ward's, it included book swag (tattoos, bookmarks, some sticky notes and a screen wipe) and it actually was personalized! Wooohooo! Given the fact the author's mom had an accident and died at the time the books were supposed to be shipped, I expected some delay not this awesome stuff. Somehow Adrian managed to go through that difficult time in her life and stay functional which makes me admire her even more.

Anyway, to the story. This is a typical romance with a lot of action in it. I discovered the series when I was looking for something similar to Black Dagger Brotherhood and I obviously found it :-)=. The storyline isn't as elaborate as in Ward's universe though. The romance part still wins over the action so if you like your books to be only a little adventurous and more focused on the couple, this is it. Personally I would appreciate more details about the troubles plaguing the vampire race in here, but overall it's a pleasant read. 

The vampire race here is alien and has some super cool skin markings which glow in the dark! LOL no, they change color according to their mood (I used to have chameleons so this is a nice detail for me) and since they came out of the closet a short while ago, they still have some human trouble as well as even more problems with some long-forgotten foes.

GENRE: romance with some danger in it

FANGS OUT: well-balanced mix
FANGS RETRACTING: I want more detail
TOTAL SCORE: 

Brownies with a Sticky Core

These take some time to prepare and cut, but they are sooooo sweet and sticky you will love them. Really, your inner child is gonna have a blast.

Ingredients (23x23cm pan):

• 2x 100g 60% cocoa chocolate
• 100g of the darkest chocolate you can get
• 170g butter
• 3 eggs
• 270g sugar
• 70g flour
• 1/4 tea spoon salt
• 200g sweet condensed milk

1) Line your pan with aluminum foil and butter it.

2) Put the butter and 100g normal chocolate with 100g dark chocolate and either melt it together in a microwave or over simmering water. Put aside to cool.

3) Beat the eggs with sugar.

3) Pour the cooled chocolate in the eggs and stir. Then add flour and salt. 

4) Pout 1/2 of this batter in your pan and bake it for 10 minutes at 180°C.

5) After you take it out, sprinkle it with the remaining 100g of chocolate (either chips or chopped), pour the condensed milk over it and top it all with the remaining batter.

6) Bake for about 30 minutes.

The Long-Awaited Trip to Spain

Well, if you read my blog (yeah, there is the one regular reader on my blog according to the statistics in the main panel) you know that about a year ago I got some money after finishing the university to fulfill one of my dreams. So it was settled that right the next summer my friends and I would go. And so we went!

Day 1

We arrived in the afternoon and missed our hostel twice. Really, we walked past twice before I took out the good old navigation in my phone and was led there. There was a tiny logo of our hostel on the wall with the doorbells but  none above the door (it's not like we expected a neon sign blinking at us but something slightly bigger would sure help). Anyway, we got there and a very helpful guy started telling us all about Barcelona since we confessed it was our first time there. That's where we got lost. His English was fine but the speed! Oh my.. So we were nodding and nodding and finally got a map and the keys to our room. It was small and cozy. But accommodation hardly matters when you are somewhere for sightseeing so we decided to kill the afternoon by walking down Passeig de Gracia and La Rambla to put our map to perspective. 

Now I must stop here and tell you a little story. Before going to Barcelona I told everyone and all the people who had been there told me about how they got mugged or almost mugged. There were stories about opened bags, torn purses, muggers in parks and on the trains and even one about a dodgy-street Asian restaurant and tourists in the freezers for organ harvest.

Now, we can continue. So we are going down the most famous street and I'm clutching my money and camera and purse and I definitely look like a tourist. I pay for souvenirs, keep any eye on the zipper of my purse, pull my camera out, put back in... and when I emerge from the thick crowd and want to take a picture of Christopher Columbus, I reach for my purse and find the zipper open. And for a little while I'm screaming in my head that I'm an idiot and should have listened to all those stories and so on. But you know what? Everything was in place. I just forgot to close the purse when I was putting my camera there.

So we walked around the harbor and winded up back on La Rambla for dinner. Oh yesssss, paella and sangría. There is nothing funnier than getting half a liter of it at the end of a tiring day - I haven't been intoxicated by just one glass in a long time. One funny thing we noticed there was that the waiters ignore you. I have no idea what signal you are supposed to do to catch their eye but sitting there with an empty glass would make any waiter back home come to you and ask you about the next drink. In Spain you are just sitting there with an empty plate and an empty glass and no one cares. You try futilely to make eye contact, resort to not so subtle waving and still it doesn't give them any clue. Or it does but they are in no hurry to come. And that pisses me off because the tip is included on your bill. I wouldn't give anyone such a big tip for such a terrible service! But here you have no choice...

When we finally got to our hostel on our happy feet we realized the downside of having our room with a view to the street which crosses Passeig de Gracia and which has a pub right underneath. Oh, those noisy Spaniards! They come out at night and keep finding the most noisy objects on the street onto which they repeatedly throw other noisy objects while talking loudly.

Day 2

The Rain in Spain... That was unexpected. It rained good half a day and the only shoes for rain I had were flats. Have you ever tried to walk 17 km in flats? I tried and it burned the soles of my feet which made my trip very painful for the rest of the week since a new blister appeared each day on those burned areas. 

But back to the beginning of our rainy day. We took our map and set off for Sagrada Família, then we wanted to go to take a look at Torre Agbar, walk past the Triumph Arch to the Picasso Museum and get lost in the streets of Gothic quarter. Well, we somehow missed our turn in the rain and found ourselves way too north of Sagrada in a surreal part of the town where there are things made of cardboard as a decoration. But after some time and after some members of our group finally found a shop with umbrellas (it was too late anyway, they would get runny nose) we got to Sagrada. And there were tourists everywhere. And the lady from the ticket office told us the tickets would get us there in the afternoon. So we just stared at it from the outside and walked toward our next goals. Needles to say that we arrived at the Picasso Museum and the little street in front of it was one giant queue so we didn't get in that afternoon either. But we walked the street of the old town and found a nice exhibition about Gaudís life (Walking with Gaudí) which was very helpful because later when we visited his buildings, we saw them through totally different eyes. By the way, there is Catedral Basílica right next to it where the queue is shorter and you can get up to the roof. And there are geese in there, too. Or ducks I can't tell the difference. But they are real ;-)= 

We decided to go to a tourist office to buy tickets to Sagrada, Parc Guell and Picasso Museum in advance since we knew the queues were not for us. These tickets for three adults were obviously too much for the dude in the office because he accused me of hating him (yeah, too much work on the computer clicking) and when some of us wanted to pay for the tickets by card and some of us had cash, I thought he would commit harakiri on the spot. 

We proceeded to the St. Josep market to buy dinner. We came across Organic is Orgasmic veggie burrito stand and bought two burritos. And by burritos we thought we would get two burritos. Instead we got burritos with a lot of things on the side. Like chickpeas, lentils or neon green and pink pasta. And as we had to get through the crowds on La Rambla, everyone was staring hungrily at our loads.

Day 3

At first we had to go and buy tickets at the train station for our Friday trip to Figueres since our attempts to buy it on the internet failed. Right down the Sants station there is Industrial Park (smaaaaaal) and Joan Miró park. Our map with touristic highlights showed a sculpture by Miró so we assumed there would be more than what we dubbed A COW. It's a woman with a bird, by the way. And the park is full of palm and no statues.

This day was about Sagrada Familia anyway, so we hopped into subway and disembarked on station called Sagrera. It's 2,5 painful kilometers away from Sagrada. Remember the blisters? Oh yeah, they were getting bigger and bigger. But Sagrada was worth the pain. My jaw literally fell to the floor when we came in. Words can't describe the beauty of it. See, I always thought Gaudí was using too much color, too much ornaments but seeing it in real light and with my own eyes it all looked very natural. So we spent more than hour just drinking the main chapel in when we spotted a queue. A queue in Barcelona always leads to something good. So we waited and then we got to the employee who told us to get SPECIAL tickets for the tower lift. Annnnd of course they were all sold out. The frickin' tourist office hater didn't tell us about another tickets for the towers. Seriously, what's wrong with him?

Anyway, our day ended by walking west of La Rambla to find a spot with something I thought was a cat, my friends thought it was either a bear or just a made-up animal. The picture in our map was too small for identification but we found it. And it was a cat.

That day we put our postcards into one box and all the recipients go their letter in the span of TWO weeks! I mean how is that even possible?
But back to the main thing - we were hungry for some food and spotted a sushi restaurant where the sushi master was preparing it right in front of us. That was cool. Our friend who eats neither chicken nor fish didn't have such a blast over his boring bowl of noodles but hey...the majority wins. 

Day 4

We started at 10 am in the zoo. We only had 2 hours to go through it before we had to be at a different entrance which led to the metro so that we could go to park Guell where we had to be at certain hour, of course. What's the main attraction of the zoo? A white Gorilla. When do most exhibits with such rarities and funky animals open? Later than the zoo opens, actually, at the time when we had to be on the other side of the zoo. And let's not talk about the enclosures which were closed for construction. Like, most of them. And whenever no one knew what animals to put in an empty space, they put flamingos in. A total waste of 20 Euros, trust me. 

But getting in park Guell (into the paid zone) was great. Again, there were those queues and it was hot and there were these people walking around with plastic bags shouting they had cold water. Funny. Oh, and the park is so huge! We even got up to one hill with a spectacular view of the city and there was a crazy man in leopard leggings playing his guitar and singing a song in his own language. This is actually very nice in Barcelona. The musicians. Especially in the subway. There are long corridors leading to the trains and the air is dense and doesn't move. See, in Prague we go to the metro to cool down because the air is cold and moves. In Barcelona you will be in your personal hell. And these musicians are willing to withstand it. Amazing.

When we were leaving park Guell we came across Gaudí 4D experience. Neither of has had ever been to such a thing so we waited (only an hour) for the 15 minutes of unknown. Really, they spray you with water and shake you and make you think birds are brushing your legs. That was fun.

Day 5

Dalí, I'm coming for you! We got to Figueres by a super fast train AVE and had to get our bags go through a security check just like at the airport. And when we got out of the station in Figueres something started to feel odd. It smelled bad there and suddenly we had the urge to slap ourselves. Because some insect started to eat us. So we hurried toward the town center to find something I had dreamt of for so long I never thought I'd see. But here I was, in front of the museum Dalí himself envisioned and saw open. Again, awesome things are hard to describe so let's just say I had my fan girl moments there. And didn't want to go home. But I had to. 

Otherwise, Figueres isn't really a town for the whole day trip. There is nothing (if you don't count those archeology and yoghurt museums and a tiny park and some touristy stuff which lives off Dalí - like Dalícatessen LOL). 

On our return we felt a little bit thirsty and found a cocktail bar. It was funny when the bartender brought our cocktails and then a tray with gummy sweets. We all felt like laughing at them and thought we wouldn't eat them but somehow they disappeared because they went disturbingly well with our cocktails. Oh, and we each had only two because after the two we again started to feel a little bit tipsy and hurried home.

Day 6

Since there was a guy in our group we had to cut him some slack. Art isn't his thing and we decided to go to see the Olympic park area. During the breakfast we noticed black clouds and he assured us there was no rain coming because that's what his phone told him. So, what beautiful pictures we took when we were going up the hill in the Montjuïc furnicular! It was raining cats and dogs! And we had no umbrellas. When he wasn't looking, we made a pact that if he took out his raincoat (of which we were sure he had with him) we'd kill him. And bury him in the park. Fortunately for him he didn't take the coat out and we are not wanted criminals.

As devious as we are, we let him think this was his day, but there is Miró museum right next to the park so we accidentally found it and had to see it. Then we went to see the Magic Fountain in the daylight (only to return at night to see it perform) and took a detour to some Spanish village where they wanted us to pay entrance fee so we walked away disgusted. I also walked away limping but that's my blister martyrdom. The last stop of that day was the Stadium, you know, football. So we saw that. Not that the female part of our group was happy to walk so long from the subway to see it. But then we went on an open bus excursion to see all the sights we visited during the previous days. Some were nicely light up (Torre Agbar) and some we couldn't almost see in the dark (most of the cathedrals).

Day 7

We were totally destroyed from walking so we decided to spend a couple of hours on the beach (again, walking some kilometers there and back) to get red and then fly home. And our flight got delayed and we had to amuse ourselves on the airport during the night (hint - no shops are open, just that creepy vending machine with soup is demanding your attention). But despite the pain in our legs we had great time and fell in love with Barcelona.
Meanwhile at the airport: We were waiting for the check-in desk to open and the only three vacated seats were next to a very intoxicated group of Swiss guys. They were fooling around... whatever. With small or no bags they obviously just had one day to spend in Barcelona on the beach (they were as red as lobsters) so the sun and alcohol did its deed. We tried to not to look at them since the drunk usually get weird ideas but then... then one of them approached another one from behind and tugged his shorts down. Apart from being flashed by the stuff not even the sun gets to see, and unbelievable amount of pebbles and sand spilled out of the guys' shorts. Everyone just stared at the heap. How?! And why? And how come he hadn't noticed? It must have been so uncomfortable :-D This was definitely the most amusing thing at the airport ever.

Rhubarb Mascarpone Bites and Leftover Muffins

Once upon a time, I had a lot of rhubarb and surprisingly even mascarpone - yeah, yeah, I should switch to a different type of cheese and I really do use other types as well but mascarpone makes everything fancier. So feel free to substitute all the mascarpone in my recipes for a different cheese because I've certainly tried and the results were satisfactory. 

You'll need:

dough

•  3 3/4 cups flour
• 1 1/2 table spoon sugar
• 1 1/2 table spoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups cold butter
• 1 cup buttermilk

cheese filling

• 1 cup mascarpone
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 yolk
• 1 tea spoons lemon juice
• zest from 1 lemon

rhubarb filling

•  2 big rhubarb stalks (about 400g)
• 1/3 cup sugar

assembling 

• 1 egg
• 1 table spoon water
• sugar

1) Spill all the dry batter ingredients into a food processor bowl and pulse to mix them. Cut the butter into smaller pieces and pulse again in the processor till it is very small but still visible. Add the buttermilk last and pulse again till it is combined. Remove from the bowl and knead. Wrap it in foil and refrigerate for a couple of hours or overnight.

2) Peel the rhubarb, chop it to pieces, put it in a pot with the sugar and cook for about 15 minutes on medium heat. Then turn the heat up and keep stirring till its very thick. That should take another 10 minutes or so. Let it cool down.

3) Combine all the cheese ingredients.

4) Remove the dough from the fridge and work with it on a floured surface. Cut it into desired shapes - for one piece you need two same shapes but there should be a hole in one of them. Take one, put it on a baking tray, smear it with beaten egg to which water was added, add a tea spoon of cheese and a teaspoon of rhubarb, cover it with the piece with the hole in it, gently press the sides. Smear it with the egg and sprinkle some granulated sugar on top.

5) Bake for about 20 minutes at 200°C.

And since I had a 1/2 cup of mascarpone mix and a 1/2 cup of rhubarb mix left, I decided to put it into muffins to make them moist. They turned out very yummy with the subtle sour note.

You'll need (18 muffins):

• 1/2 cup mascarpone mix from above
• 1/2 cup rhubarb from above
• 400g flour
• 12g baking powder
• 200g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 120ml sunflower oil
• 200ml milk
• as many chocolate chips as you want

 1) Just combine everything (adding the chocolate last) and bake at 180°C for about 25 minutes.

Tina Folsom: Samson's Lovely Mortal

Phew, I'm totally destroyed. Not only is it like gazillion degrees outside but I've just finished reading something I didn't know would turn out to be on the porn side. I never read what's on the cover I just buy stuff with vampires in it - that's all I need to know. Based on the cover I knew it would be a romance but I expected more action from it. Not just the sizzling heat. See, I expected a beach read not this.

It is a typical romance where the predator has to fight a little bit to get his girl but on the other hand, she isn't making it difficult for him. I'd appreciate more obstacles because those create action which is always nice since it gives you a break from the lust-filled lines you read. This is entirely up to you, if you want a fast hot read, the book is for you. If you need more build-up before the couple actually hits it off, you won't like it.

This is definitely something you want to read during the cold winter time because your body temperature will rise. Read at your own risk.

GENRE: romance

FANGS OUT: hooooot
FANGS RETRACTING: predictable with a few twists
TOTAL SCORE:

Black and White Cake with Coconut Balls

This one seems difficult because of the layers but trust me you won't regret making it. The batter is on the dry side but then you bite into the coconut part which is not and together with the runny topping it somehow creates such harmony you won't want to eat anything else for some time. 

You'll need:

batter

• 200g butter
• 150g sugar
• 3 eggs, 1 egg white (you'll need just the yolk in the next step so in order not to waste anything, I add the white here)
• 300g flour
• 250g sour cream
• 3 table spoons milk
• 15g baking powder
• 2 table spoons cocoa powder

balls

•  200g curd cheese
• 3 table spoons sugar
• 1 yolk
• 7 table spoons shredded coconut

topping

• 200ml milk
• 1 egg
• 150g sugar
• 5 table spoons tapioca powder

1) Let's make the balls first. Combine everything and make balls from it. Put them on a tray and put the tray in your freezer for a couple of hours.

2) Combine everything from the batter part with the exception of the cocoa. Start with beating the sugar with butter first and then just keep adding the stuff as you want. Divide the batter into two bowls and add the cocoa in one bowl. 

3) Put the white layer in your baking tray first. Smear the brown layer on the top of the white layer. Try not to mix them. Take the frozen balls and push them in the batter. 

4) Bake for 45 minutes at 180°C.

5) Combine everything from the topping section and bring to a boil. Cook for about two minutes and remove it from the heat. Set aside to cool. 

6) When the cake has cooled down too, smear the topping on it and put into the fridge where the topping will thicken even more. Serve after a couple of hours.