Happy Marathon Day in London! 😀
Tag Archives: London
Charity – baking for homeless people … Vanilla buns
Over 100 million people are homeless around the world. Things we take for granted such as having access to a toilet is something over 2.5 billion people worldwide can’t take for granted. Lots of women are scared to go out late in the evenings or in the night to perform their needs due to the high risk to become abused. In 2001, the World Toilet Organisation, declared 19 November World Toilet Day. The aim was to raise global awareness about that so many people are living without access to sanitation.
It’s difficult to calculate how many people who are homeless in the UK. One reason is that the are various forms of homelessness for instance rough sleeping, hidden homelessness, hostels and supported accommodation etc. One website I looked at stressed that there are about one million homeless people in the UK. The conclusion is that even in well-developed countries such as UK, there are still lots of people who don’t have a proper home. In Sweden, there are about 34 000 individuals who are homeless. Luckily the councils have become better at solving the issues surrounding homelessness, so less people are sleeping on the street than before.
I have never been homeless so I can never imagine how it feels to not have a proper home. I can only imagine how horrible it must be. I am spoiled with lots of warm water, a clean toilet and warm & cosy home. The winters in Sweden are sometimes very cold and often it’s not so pleasant to go out when it’s about minus 10-15 degrees Celsius and the cold icy wind is stroking your chin. Ten minutes feels like a very long time when you have to go home from the train station, but I am lucky that I have a warm home to go home to.
Think about the people who have to walk around for hours in the icy weather and probably have nowhere to sleep. I met a homeless person at the train station in Sweden before I had my exam in Law. He was asking for money and I asked him why he hadn’t tried to get any help from the council. The man replied that he was “too old, so he couldn’t get any help”. I also asked him how it feels to be homeless in the winters. He told me that it’s horrible and you have to walk around all the time in the nights when the train stations are closed just so you will not freeze to death. He had met a homeless man who just fell asleep and never woke up.
Certainly, many individuals do have a choice they can make such as the man from the train station, but he didn’t want any help from the society. Furthermore, maybe he didn’t want to stop drinking so he could change his life. Some people don’t have a choice. They might live in a society without a proper social welfare system and when you have to rely on your relatives and where money is something which lots of people are struggling with. I read articles about that the Swedish Clothing company H&M who only pay their wage earners in Cambodia 3 Swedish crowns per hour (about 0.47 USD, 0.29 GBP). Women are forced to work more hours than their health allows to them to do. Despite that they have to borrow money to buy food. When you are going to the supermarket and complaining about the food they have there just take a second to think about the people who want to buy food because they are starving, but they don’t have enough money to do it…
My Christmas charity task for this year has been to bake more than 100 vanilla buns for some of the homeless people. I gave them today to an organisation in Swindon in the UK which is called Threshold (http://www.thl.org.uk/Threshold/Home.html). 😀 Threshold’s aim is to help the homeless people by for instance supplying safe sheltering. Thankfully, they accepted my gift and were happy and grateful to deliver the buns to the people who are homeless. 😀
Here comes the Vanilla bun recipe 😀 😀
Recipe (makes 40 buns)
Dough
- 50 gr fresh yeast
- 150 gr unsalted butter
- 4 dl whole milk
- 2 eggs
- 1 dl granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 pinch of Swedish hjorthornssalt
- about 13 dl plain flour
Filling
- 3 dl vanilla custard
For brushing
- melted unsalted butter
- granulated sugar
Crumble the yeast in a bowl. Melt the butter in a pot, pour the milk into the same saucepan and heat up to 37 degrees C.
Pour the milk over the yeast and stir until melted. Add the eggs, granulated sugar, salt, hjorthornssalt and plain flour.
Work the dough until smooth and firm. Leave in bowl and let it rise under a tea towel for about 30 minutes. Kneed it a bit and shape the dough into round balls.
Flatten the balls, put a teaspoon of vanilla custard on each of them and shape them into a golf ball sized ball. Place the “ugly” side down into the papercase.
Let the buns rise on a baking sheet for about 40 minutes and then bake them in the middle of the oven at 225 degrees C for about 6-8 minutes (until golden brown).
Let them cool on a wire rack.
Brush the buns with melted butter and dip them in granulated sugar.
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Can be frozen.
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Ready to go!
Outside Culvery Court; The main hostel!
Happy Vanilla Bun Baking! 😀
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Beautiful Blogger Award
I have received the lovely Beautiful Blogger Award from the inspiring Blogger, Birigit, who runs the Blog My weight loss journey:
Birgit describes in her Blog her great and hard work with losing weight. Many people find it difficult and hard to lose weight, but Birgit shows that NOTHING is impossible as long as you have the faith, wants to work hard with it and are determined to see changes in your personal life and with your body, and yes she is doing a fantastic job! Thank you Birgit for sharing your private thoughts and experiences and also for nominating me for the Beautiful Blogger Award. I feel very honoured. 😀
Here come the rules for this award:
1. Copy the Beautiful Blogger Award logo and place it in your post
2. Thank the person who nominated you and link back to their blog
3. Tell 7 things about yourself
4. Nominate 7 other bloggers for their own Beautiful Blogger Award and comment on their blogs to let them know
7 things about myself (😛):
- I enjoy going to the gym for a run
- I love baking and it is always great fun to try new recipes.
- I just love the German Football Team.
- I like London’s Underground; especially due to that you don’t have to wait so much for the next train to arrive.
- I am definitely a so-called city person.
- I like the weather in England (apart from when it’s raining). 😛
- I like IKEA; it definitely feels like home. 😀
The nominations go to:
- Live Blissful: http://liveblissful.wordpress.com/
- Island Vignettes: http://islandscribbler.wordpress.com/
- Mummy Drinks Tea: http://mummydrinkstea.com/
- Lovinghomemade: http://lovinghomemade.com/
- Cowboys and Crossbones: http://cowboysandcrossbones.wordpress.com/
- Sweet Little Thang: http://sweetlittlethang.wordpress.com/
- Peri’s Spice Ladle: http://perisspiceladle.com/
Happy Beautiful Blogger Award & Blogging Everyone! 😀
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Animals and Health
Since I was a little girl I have always loved animals. I used to go horse back riding for seven years. All the long hours in the stable just to brush my favourite horses. One of my favourite shops by then was to buy riding clothes in is the riding department at Harrods in London. I bought for instance some of my trousers and jumpers there. Very good quality and they don’t cost more than in the ordinary shops which sell riding equipment. 😀 Just a shopping tips for you who are interested and are in need of good quality riding equipment. 😀
The first horse I rode was named Lilla Grå (Little Grey).
She was an angry little pony, but very good at dressage, but my first love was a brown pony called Tarquin.
He was a stubborn, angry little man, but I loved him a lot.
The horse who stole my heart was Stay Cool.
Not so many people liked him in the stable, due to that they found him ugly and difficult to ride, but I loved him and cried my eyes out when they sold him. 😦 I still remember him… I used to talk to him and feel his warm breath. Stay Cool was a sweet heart.
Another important horse is Quick Step. She had been abused 😦 by an evil man so she wasn’t the nicest horse, but I always felt safe when I jumped with her, because she was a natural jumper. However, it was a bit embarrassing, because she loved to compete and was very strong so when we galloped in full speed with the riding teacher. She used to take the first place. Haha. A winner I must say but the riding teacher wasn’t the happiest! 😀
My first animal was a hamster named Kotten (The Cone). She just ate and ate…it was nothing more she could do, if we don’t count in when she was running around in her hamster wheel all night long. ZzzZzzzZzz… not so much sleep there. 😀
I used to care of my mum’s friend’s labrador Sluggo. I must say that a nicer dog than him is hard to find. May him rest in peace! Sluggo was very nice and friendly to everyone; human beings, animals (especially to rabbits). He never did any harm. Although if Sluggo was a bit stubborn. He loved the snow. He was not a circus dog, but he stole people’s hearts with his warm heart!
Other important animals to mention are the rabbit Lång-Öra (Long-Ear), the guinea pig Memphis and finally the birds Elvis , Pavarotti and Sinatra.Yes, it has looked like a small zoo in my house, but like you can tell I do love animals!
My absolutely biggest love was a rabbit named Chicksan! I spoiled him a lot and he loved Swedish crisp bread and my cinnamon buns (no I didn’t give him a whole cinnamon bun, haha). Chicksan was caring in his own way and used to listen to everything I said (poor him… haha). After he died, I decided to not buy any more rabbits, because nobody could replace him. Chicksan was the most wonderful creature I ever have met.
Animals can’t speak Swedish, English, French, German and so on to converse with us human beings. What do they do to us to make us feel happy so it will affect our health in a positive way? They are always honest. If they like something, they do show it and vice versa. Animals don’t use lies to make us feel better or to protect themselves. They are just the lovely individuals which they have been born to be. A lot of kids love them, adults likewise and many old people have them in their hearts.
Animals can also make us feel more relaxed and loved (as long as we treat them in a good way). This is especially positive due to the stressful society we are living in. Who doesn’t want to feel loved? I reckon that even people which we would categorise as evil and less good-hearted human beings want to feel some sort of love deep down in their hearts, even if we can find it hard to understand it with our consciousness.
Dogs are used in therapy to make for instance old people’s lives happier and more meaningful. Just to feel the warm, hairy head on your lap when you for instance can’t move or have some sort of cognitive impairment or feel isolated from the rest of the world, can increase your well-being and health in a positive way. Surveys about dog therapy and dementia have been made in countries such as Japan and they all pointing at the same results; animals are good for individuals with a cognitive impairment of some sort.
Even horses have got a good impact on kids and adults with physical or mental impairments. In Sweden and in the UK they have special riding groups for kids with different kinds of impairments. Personally, I think it’s a lovely thing to do. The children learn more or less to take responsibility, attend in group arrangements, do something which they perhaps never would have been capable to do without support. It can perhaps increase their well-being and empower them to become more confident.
However, some individuals find it difficult to attend in big groups, but I don’t see it as an obstacle. Instead I see it from a different perspective. Isn’t it more important to see the happiness and love an animal can give that person in question than demand him/her to attend in a big group with strangers? To see a little kid with autism brushing a horse, smiling because he/she is happy to do that. The child with autism, riding the horse, and feel proud of what he/she could accomplish… Animals can really bring out great things from us which we didn’t know existed… How beautiful and fantastic isn’t that?!… 😀
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Apple, Vanilla sauce and Cinnamon muffins! Happy Birthday Blog!
The Olympic games are still going on in busy London and I am celebrating that my Blog has existed for one month, with eating some Apple, Vanilla sauce and Cinnamon muffins. 😀 I almost felt like an scientist in the kitchen because I have never baked muffins before without adding proper whole milk into the mixture. Today, I chose Vanilla sauce instead of milk! 😀
Was it a hit or miss?!! I just LOVE vanilla sauce so for me, it was definitely AMAZING! I served them with creamy vanilla sauce on the side…mmmm… Even tiny happy Crocos love them!!! 😀
For you guys who aren’t great cinnamon lovers, you can always add less cinnamon into the mixture. 😀
Recipe (makes 8 big muffins)
Mixture
- 125 gr butter
- 2 ½ dl sugar
- 2 eggs
- 4 ½ dl plain flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 ½ dl vanilla sauce
- 2 tablespoons vanilla sugar
- 2 Austrian Golden Delicious Apples
- ½ tablespoon cinnamon
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C (325 degrees F) Gas 3.
Stir the sugar and butter until fluffy in a bowl. Add the eggs and continue to whisk. Pour the vanilla sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and flour into the bowl. Add the vanilla sauce and continue mixing for a couple more minutes until the mixture is smooth.
Finally, pour the apples into the mixture and stir until everything is just incorporated.
Spoon the mixture into the paper cases until two-thirds full.
Bake in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes, or until light golden and the cake bounces back when touched. A skewer inserted in the centre should come out clean. Leave the muffins to cool slightly in the pan before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Happy Swedish Baking Everyone!!! 😀
Sugar and Spice Baking 