The lilac loveliness - what happened next...? 

Well, a few pots 'happened', and as a couple of new ivy plants mysteriously appeared in my bag home from the garden centre today (yes, I did pay for them!), I felt inspired to create a little green corner to look out on from inside. The rest of the garden is not much to look at yet, as it seems slow to wake from its winter hibernation, where the dress code invariably appears to lean towards the brown and grey. But here, here on my repeatedly blogged bench, I hear whispers of growth and green.

Sshhhhh, can you hear it too?

Thank you so much for all your kind blog birthday greetings.

Wishing you all a lovely start to the new week!

Oh, yes, I nearly forgot...:

A few words from your "Sugar Daddy"...

As promised, here are the recipes for diet disaster the chocolate pralines in an earlier blog post... Enjoy!

Milk chocolate with cinnamon

and chopped hazelnuts

Hazelnut-cinnamon pralines

You need:

Milk chocolate/cooking chocolate (I use Co-op's own brand.)

A handful of chopped hazelnuts

Ground cinnamon

Melt the chocolate in a water-bath/bain-marie. Add chopped hazelnuts and as much cinnamon as you like (keep tasting! :-). Pour into silicon moulds (very cheap at various "Pound Stretcher" shops, or perhaps you can use IKEA's ice cube moulds?) and leave to harden in the fridge. (If I am short of time, I sometimes speed up the process by putting them in the freezer briefly. Desperate cravings call for desperate measures...)

Lemon white chocolate crisp butterflies

Lemon white chocolate butterflies

You need:

White chocolate (I use Co-op's own brand white chocolate crisp)

One fresh lemon

Melt white chocolate in a water-bath/bain-marie. Mix in some finely grated lemon peel and freshly squeezed lemon to your taste. Pour in silicon moulds (see above) and leave to harden in the fridge. (I am usually quite generous with the lemon, as it gives them a very "summery", fresh and "zingy" flavour...)

Marsipan with orange peel

and dark chocolate

Marsipan with orange peel and dark chocolate

You need:

50 g butter

1 1/2 dl vatten (dl = decilitre, i e 1/10 of a litre)

1 1/2 dl flour

300 g almonds (ground)

700 g icing sugar

 (I only used half of the measurements here, and it was still enough for two long "sausages")

+  candied orange peel and dark chocolate 

(I sometimes add a little Calvados or some other liqueur, which gives it a little "oumph", but it works just as well without.)

Boil the water with the butter. Add the flour and let it all simmer until it becomes dough-like and start to come off the sides and bottom of the pan. Leave to cool a little, then mix in the ground almonds and the icing sugar. Roll into a couple of sausages, gently slit the whole length each and stuff the orange peel in the middle. Push it shut again and roll it to an even "sausage". Melt dark chocolate in a bain-marie (see above) and brush on with a baking brush.

Daim

Daim

You need:

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp light Swedish "sirap" (sorry, I do not know what "foreign" product to compare this liquid sugar to)

1 tsp of cocoa powder

1 1/2 dl sugar

50 g skinned and chopped almonds

100 g milk chocolate/cooking chocolate

Brown the sugar in a pan with thick bottom. Add the "sirap", cocoa powder and chopped almonds. Stir until quite runny, then add butter whilst still stiring.

Pour and spread the batter (is that the best word in English?) on an oven tray covered in grease-proof paper. Let set for about 30 sec and then cut lines in the still soft batter. Let cool and then break off pieces along the pre-cut lines.

Melt the chocolate in a water-bath/bain-marie, then dip the daim pieces or use baking brush to spread the chocolate evenly on one side of the daim pieces. Leave to harden and then do the other side.

(As for the source of the recipes, the first two were just my own experiment and the second two  I had on scraps of paper in my recipe pile, found probably on the internet, but I would not be able to say where - sorry. If anyone recognizes these recipes as their own, please do let me know, and I can list the source properly.)

Let the sugar rush begin!