Pumpkin Spice Bundt Cake

I absolutely love marble cake. Maybe it’s a remnant of my childhood, maybe I’m just intrigued by a cake that has two colours because I’m easily amused. Either way, on my noble quest for more pumpkin recipes I decided to tweak my Grandmother’s marble cake recipe to be a dash more autumnal.

Scroll down for a more spring-y version that I made in this video!

I also decided to use pumpkin guts here – an often overlooked and thrown-away part of the pumpkin that is actually just as edible as the rest, and I don’t like to waste food.
I bake my marble cake in a traditional bundt cake tin but any other cake tin with a volume of about two litres. But off to the recipe!

You’ll need:

• 4 eggs
• 120g soft butter
• a dash of salt
• 175g sugar
• 300g flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 100g pumpkin guts sans seeds or pureed pumpkin
• 2 tbsp cocoa
• 20g dark chocolate, grated
• 150g yoghurt
• 3 tbsp milk
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp nutmeg
• 2 tsp or 1 sachet of vanilla sugar
• 1 dash black pepper, cloves and ginger each, all ground

Cream the soft butter with sugar, salt and vanilla sugar until it is evenly mixed, then beat the eggs in. Mix flour and baking powder and sieve it onto the batter, add yoghurt and mix until smooth. Take about three scoops of batter into a different bowl.

Chop up the pumpkin guts so the strings won’t just cluster in one place and mix them with the bigger part of the batter. Add the spices, stir and fill into the tin.

Mix the set-aside batter with cocoa, chocolate and milk and add it on top of the spiced part. Marble and mix the batters with a fork.

Bake at 175°C for an hour – you might want to do a knife test after 45 minutes depending on your tin.

Let cool and dust with powdered sugar if desired (if not you might as well eat it while it’s hot, it’s delicious with the rest of that yoghurt).

My Grandmother uses crème fraîche instead of yoghurt but I found out that this works just as well and might leave the cake a bit lighter. But it’s still an option, just replace it 1:1.

If you don’t happen to have pumpkin guts around (like me when I baked this cake a second time two days after the first) pureed pumpkin does the job just as well. Chop it up into cubes, add some water – half of it should be covered – and let it boil for a few minutes. I just let it simmer while I prepare the rest of the cake which works quite well, but you might still have an eye on it, just in case. When it’s cooked just mash it up or use a blender and you’re all set.

For a fruity raspberry variation, leave out the spices and cocoa (plus milk). Puree and strain (to get rid of the seeds) 150g of frozen or fresh raspberries and add them to the larger part of the batter, using plain vanilla for the marble effect instead.

I made another of those recipe cards for this cake! I really like them, they are endearingly old-fashioned in a non-threatening way. Feel free to print or pin it (there might be more at some point)!

Let me know if you try this recipe (I’m sure my Grandma would love to hear that people liked what’s essentially her recipe but pumpkin-spiced) and have a wonderful weekend! ♥

(Life) Style Tips in October

Apple season has finally fully arrived, and if you’re lucky enough to know an orchard nearby, go apple picking! Dry the peels for tea, and use them for divination, too, by peeling the apple in one long strip and throwing the skin over your shoulder – the letter it forms is the first letter to your answer.

Woman is at once apple and serpent.
– Heinrich Heine

Add a pinch of Folk Horror to your outfits by wearing chunky pentacles, old-fashioned black cat motives and ominous black hats. I personally like small bits of bone in my jewellery and silver hoop earrings. Hang a shawl next time you burn incense to take the mysterious scent with you.

Celebrate the Harvest with friends. Get together for a meal or two – it doesn’t necessarily have to be dinner, a brunch with a pumpkin pie, apple butter and self-made jam on pancakes is just as fine – and work in as much seasonal produce as you possibly can. Say your thanks to the deity of your choice or just each other and don’t forget about the immaterial harvest of the year, all that you have learned and achieved so far.

I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.
― L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Wear chunky cardigans, thrifted or self-made. Get a plain one and alter it to suit your aesthetic needs for the season – needle-felt swirling pumpkin vines or cross-stitch folk patterns onto it or add leather elbow patches. If you can’t find the right cardigan at the second-hand store, raid it (or the closets around you) for oversized sweaters to cut open, hem with ribbon and stitch big buttons onto.

Make potpourri with the roses you dried in July, or with cloves, apple peel (see above) and cinnamon sticks. Or you could make your whole closet smell like Autumn by sewing little sachets to fill with your potpourris and tossing them in your drawers.

“But when […] strong Orion begin to set [i.e. at the end of October], then remember to plough in season. But if desire for uncomfortable sea-faring seize you; when the Pleiades plunge into the misty sea [i.e. again towards the end of October] to escape Orion’s rude strength, then truly gales of all kinds rage.”
– Hesiod, Works and Days

Go watch the Orionids! The meteor shower peaks on the 21st, but they are active almost all month long. Combine with the harvest feast above and have a star theme for your food (pretty pie crusts spring to mind), go to a secluded spot with little light pollution around and lay down on thick blankets to watch the shooting stars with your loved ones.

Lamb’s Lettuce & Pumpkin Salad

It’s Autumn at last, and Autumn means pumpkin time! So when my lovely Verdin suggested posting a pumpkin recipe each week of October I happily obliged, and here we are. It’s a nice warm salad that actually works as a main course when done with the amounts listed below, or as an entrée or side salad if you just make less.

Feeds 2:

• ½ medium Hokkaido pumpkin
• 1 apple, more sour than sweet (I’d recommend Gravensteiner or Finkenwerder Herbstprinz)
• 2 hands of lamb’s lettuce
• 1 hand of Welsh onion greens
• 1 hand of rocket
• sunflower seeds
• optional: 1 block of feta
• sunflower oil
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp ground black pepper
• apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp honey
• dash of nutmeg, paprika, ginger each
• small shallot
• small clove of garlic

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Dice the pumpkin, add some sunflower oil and sprinkle with a dash of nutmeg, salt and cinnamon each. Bake for 30 minutes.

Wash the lamb’s lettuce – it’s notoriously hard to clean, and the easiest way is chopping off the part where the leaves grow apart and then just dump everything into a bowl of water to get the soil off – and rocket thoroughly and set aside. Chop the onion greens and, if necessary, the salads, and finely dice the apple.

In a small bowl, mix 50-70 ml (depends on your taste, and you can always add more) sunflower oil and two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar with cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg, paprika, ginger and honey. I find it easiest to mix in the honey last, but do whatever works for you.

Roast the sunflower seeds in a small frying pan without oil. When the seeds start turning brown add finely chopped garlic and shallots. Fry until the garlic starts turning light brown.

Do not, under no circumstances, combine the salad with still-warm pumpkin unless you want to eat right away. The salad will go limp and mushy, and you don’t want that. Add the pumpkin to the greens when you’re ready to eat, put on dressing and sprinkle with seeds, garlic and shallots. Add feta if you like.

I even made one of these neat little recipe cards for easier pinning (or printing, if you so desire). Let me know if you liked it in case you try this recipe, and keep looking out for more pumpkin recipes this month! ♥

(Life) Style Tips in September

Go foraging! Blackberries are still partially in season, as are elderberries (even though they aren’t exactly the yummiest thing to eat straight from the tree), and the first rose hips might be coming, as well. Nuts might still take a while, but a lot of edible greenery is still around. Find out what’s in season in the wild in your area and go out to gather the fruits of the land in your apron or pockets, or a pretty basket, if you want to. Just make sure not to trespass, disturb the local fauna or pick anything protected. Bonus points for taking a trash bag to collect litter you might encounter!

We know that in September, we will wander through the warm winds of summer’s wreckage. We will welcome summer’s ghost.
– Henry Rollins

Slowly transition to indoor exercise for the colder months. If you’ve been swimming a lot this might be the time to get a monthly pass for the indoor pool or even a gym subscription. If you’re not big on the idea of leaving the house for sports look into new yoga videos or just resort to dancing vigorously to your favourite obnoxious pop songs for ten minutes a day.

Get the pencil case you always wanted as a child or a teen that your parents wouldn’t let you have. Kitschy baby kittens? Edgy and covered in quotes from your favourite band? Classy leather to ripen with age? Fill it with the pens you wanted, too, gel, fancy fountain pens, glitter, crayons or markers. I could spend hours in front of stationery and office supply shelves, and I bet I’m not the only one.

Get into the whole “Back to School” vibe, even if you’ve been out of it for ages (like me). Plaid will never go out of style, as will burgundy, oxblood, navy and ivy green. Wear obscure enamel pins, Potter paraphernalia or glittery brooches as crests for imaginary boarding schools and channel your private-school-student-sona with polished leather shoes and a crisp white collar. Do yourself a favour and search for “Dark Academia” on the platform or engine of your choice for inspiration!

We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.
– John Keating in Dead Poets Society

Autumn cleaning. Much like Spring, it’s a good time to get rid of old things, to scrub everything clean and air out everything that needs it before rain and cold set in again. It’s all for the cosiest place during the cold months, and curling up in a clean burrow is so much nicer than in a messy one.

Annual Autumn Tag 2018

I’m still trying to get my lighting situation under control, but until I do I might as well look like I’m an 80s photograph come to life.

10 Things I ♥ in October

Rosa de Jong’s chocolate design, the Gentleman felter’s hares, Karolina Żebrowska
& The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell on Netflix

1. Remember Rosa de Jong from my August favourites? I’m so smitten with her design for the B&B Chocolate Bars. If you know me you know I have a minor obsession with retro-ish hipster food packaging, and this totally falls into that category (I need to look out for those when I’m in Amsterdam next time).
2. 竹田の子守唄 (Takeda no komoriuta – Takeda Lullaby) is so heartwrenchingly beautiful, especially in the Akai Tori recording from the late 60s. It’s strange how much it reminds me of Suo Gan, another lullably from a completely different place (Wales) in its overall vibe. Maybe I’m just easily moved by melancholic lullabies. That it’s a song with a history of protest and liberation and that it was banned on national broadcast makes it even more intriguing.
3. I started – late to the party, but the hardware wouldn’t allow it earlier – to play Witcher III – The Wild Hunt, and I love it. While I’ not a huge fan of Medieval Fantasy Batman Geralt of Rivia himself I’m absolutely smitten by the scenery, the music and the fact that you get unlimited space for crafting material.
4. The Gentleman Felter does such adorable, lovely and incredibly skilled work. It doesn’t help that one of his more frequent motifs is hares, and there’s this mouse (which isn’t even the main attraction of this piece) and this badger… it’s a wooly, cozy version of Wind in the Willows, Redwall and Brambly Hedge. So, right up my alley. Give him a follow on Instagram!
5. The Dresden Files audio books. While I’m already at Proven Guilty (thats book, uhm… 8?) at the moment I’ve started listening to Storm Front, the first volume of the series about the only wizard in the Chicago phone book. This version had me the second I heard who was reading it – James Marsters, famous for playing Spike the vampire in Buffy. Not only is his voice fantastic for the material (and makes the first book far more bearable than my head-voices), it’s also hilarious because of Harry Dresden’s personal relationship with vampires over the course of the series. So, highly recommended.
6. Karolina Żebrowska makes Vintage fashion videos on YouTube. She’s also pretty snarky doing it from time to time so of course I love her.
7. Trollhunters. Ugh, I love it so much. Especially Toby, but as this is “knight-errant-in-training and lovely somewhat-folkloric creatures go on adventures” with the visuals of Hellboy (thanks to Guillermo del Toro being one of the main makers of this thing) it’s pretty much a given that I’m smitten. We’ve binged our way through the first season first half of the first season that has just as many episodes as the following full seasons and has a season-ish break to its second half and even though I wasn’t 100% happy with the transition to season 1.2, I can’t wait to watch more of this âventiure.
8. How fantastic is this Quidditch Cat Tree from Epbot?
9. Just in time for Spooky Season Netflix released The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell. Although not really a cooking show the short series – only six episodes – makes fun of the format while allowing the viewer glimpses of the life of a burlesque goth Disney princess, her decadent creations and her enchanted undead critters. Here’s more of my opinion about the show!
10. Autumn is finally here in all her I-can-see-my-breath-cold, rust-coloured, rainy, last-bits-of-October-sun glory. I can finally wear layers again. There are pumpkins. Oh, Autumn always makes me so happy.