Swedish grandma's sugar treat

Axel loves this cake. We made it for him yesterday along with chicken pot pie which he had asked for.


The cake is with a topping of meringue and is so delicious I just have to post the recipe.

Cake:
3 dl sugar
75 g butter
5 egg yokes
6 dl flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 ½ tbs vanilla sugar
2 ¼ dl cold milk
3 tbs boiling water
2 tbs bread crumbs

Wip sugar and butter. Add yokes. Mix the dry ingredients. Then add flour and liquids to the egg mixture.

Butter cake pan and sprinkle with bread crumps then add dough.

Bake low in the oven at 200 degrees C for 15 min.

While baking make topping:
5 egg whites
5 dl sugar
1 1/2 tbs vanilla sugar
5 dl red currants.

Whip the whites. When stiff gradually add sugar. When fulled mixed fold in the currants.
Spread on the baked cake. Return to oven and increase the temperature to 250 C. Bake another 5 min.

I'm sorry about using metrics but it's a bit late and I'm tired.

Axel's back home

16 days spent in the US. What a treat. Axel was bursting with stories of all his experiences. Riding the bike in the forrest with Uncle Paul and Isaac. Eating Aunt Maria's pork and apples. Cayaking at Grandma and Gary's - and eating Chicago style pizza. Dino show with Uncle Rick - it must have been spectacular and then something about drinking out of Sam's cup of water and it tasting nasty? And many many more stories.

Thanks everybody for giving him such a wonderful time.

Jazz Festival

We all 3 went down town for the Copenhagen Jazzfestival. We got to see some very different bands - both traditional jazz and t new wave. Erik's favorite I believe was Angel (sounds a bit like punk was his opinion). Ellen seemed to like River Jazz and I can't decide between Murder or Mokuto but at least both starts with "M".

These were the bands:

Bang Bang
Angel
River jazz & blues Band
Mokuto feat Herb Robertson
Murder

19th Anniversary

What a treat. Erik really wanted to cook something special for our aniversary. He spent most of the day preparing a 4 course meal. This was the menu:

Grilled scallops with marinated artichokes on a layer of rucolla. Served with home made Italian bread and tapenade.

Grilled small lobsters with a garlic parsley marinade

Grilled lampchops, butterbaked new potatoes and tzatziki

Vanilla steamed pears with creme, raspberry

Good wine was included.

It was treat which we thoroughly enjoyed. I believe we will keep the cook to ourselves :-)

Summerschool

Last week Rita went to summeschool in English with one of her friends Silke. The programme was English speaking in the morning and cheerleading practice in the afternoon. All was conducted in English and the teacher in fact didn't speak Danish at all. Rita loved it so may be we will do the same next year.

4th of July

I'm running a little behind with the photo documentation here.

Well, the photos of our 4th of July celebration with Baba, Farmor and Merete's girls didn't turn out that good. But we had a traditional cook out with burgers and barbecued chicken. No fireworks though.

One evening last week we went for a swim and as must be pretty obvious Erik and Rita had a blast.

Perspective

For some reason Erik is really fond of this picture. I just think it's the perspective fooling you. He can't be taller than me. Not yet at least.

While the cat is out

Rita has been enjoying being a single child for the last couple of days. Today we had a great day at the beach and we finished it off picking lots and lots of strawberries.

Sending off Axel

We spent a good part of the morning in the airport sending off Axel. Check-in took 2 hours and then the plane was delayed for another 2 hours. Axel had been excited all morning and took it in good stride. But he did get a bit anxious when the steward/chaperone came to pick him up. However, he was not the only one travelling alone on the flight to Atlanta. He was part of a group of 4 12-14 year olds. And he gave us a big big smile when he was escorted through security - ready for adventure!

Summer vacation I

Seeing Alex and Erik off at the station. They will be gone for 5 days biking and camping. It was pure excitement. Besides their clothes they had stuffed those bags with dvds. I wonder if they'll be able to watch them at all. In just a few hours we will see Axel off at the airport and then we will be single child parents for a while.

Final exam

Ellen had her final exam today. Erik got so excited when he heard the result that he went straight out and bought some flowers for her. It was a bunch of red roses and then one blue! He had thought a lot about it.

SRK

Rita joined the rollerskaterclub a month ago. She's been at practice 3 times. Last night was the end of season contest. Rita gave all what she head - jumping, one leg etc. and she made 4th place. She was so delighted.

Rita the folk dancer

Yesterday, we went to a folk music festival with Rita's music class. It was a lot of fun. As part of the opening act Rita's group marched on to the stage and played with all the other musicians - there must have been about 60 all together. I didn't know they had practiced dancing as well. Here is an example with both music and dance.

Premature birthday

Today we celebrated Axel's birthday. I know it's a wee premature but this was the only date we could find which worked with Axel's friend Rasmus with whom we had the party. We had rented a shed in the forrest and two weeks ago we were certain to have fine og warm weather. Well, without exaggeration I can tell the promised showers were a bit heavy. But we had fun nonetheless.

We had planned an untraditional treasure hunt where we went geocaching. Axel enjoyed searching for treasures with the GPS.

I know, I should have posted a photo of Axel with his cake, but I really liked this picture of the kids on the treasure hunt in the rain.

Farmers market

Yesterday, we spent the whole day in Roskilde at the annual farmers market. We had a lot of fun seeing and touching all the animals. Rita naturally was most excited about the horses - she is crazy about those. The Hereford Bulls were amazing. Pure muscle. The largest weighed more than a ton. Well, we also got to visit a stand where we could shoot with bow and arrow. It was a lot of fun. Axel took the price for most hits ( 3 out of 6) and got a medal.

FCK are the national champions

Both Rita and her friend Cecilie have fathers who are avid supporters of FCK. FCK won the national championship the other day and what better - and dare I say femine - way to celebrate than to decorate the bike with blue and white flowers.

Quality time

I've spent some quality time alone with Rita, Axel and Erik the last couple of weeks. Today Axel and I went up to Elsinore to fish for garfish. Well, it was too windy so we switched to hooks and worms. And it didn't take long for Axel to land a plaice. And then he landed another one. I had no such luck. We cleaned them and had them for supper. Wonderful.

Erik's confirmation

Erik's confirmation went really well. It was a fine ceremony in church and the party afterwards was fun. I believe Erik really enjoyed himself. He'd a agreed to wear tie, shirt and black shoes. Although it should be "modern" style with a loose fit and nothing too tight. He looked really good.

1st Communion

Yesterday we celebrated Rita's first holy communion. It was a great day. The weather was fine. The company was great. And Rita enjoyed it.

Erik's Easter job

Erik asked what happened to his Easter project. Wasn't it to be documented? Well, definitely. Erik did a tremendous job clearing bushes and shrubbery in front of the house. It had become a jungle. But Erik took good care of it. It took 2 days to clear it all out and many many trips to the recycling plant.

Cirkus Arli

It's an Easter tradition to go see Cirkus Arli which is a small mom and pop cirkus. We went there today and the clown chose Axel to help him with the show. It was fun. Axel got on this jacket and the clown put his arms through the sleeves and played a tiny accordion. It looked like it was Axel playing.

Easter project II

E

Step by step it is coming along. I wonder what the final result will look like.

The angler

Rita and I had some totally quality time yesterday. We went fishing in Balsmosen. And guess what? Rita caught her first fish. I had helped her throw out the line. But she hooked and landed it by herself. We've been down there so many times and as far as I can remember no one has got anything but Erik. So it was really really big. Great job, Rita!

Easter project I

We have decided to build an open shed behind the house so we have a place where we can hang up the laundry to dry. So some how I have to find the carpenter in me :-) We started yesterday. Rita was a great help holding the timber and adding water to the concrete. Now we have to wait a couple of days for the concrete to dry then we have to add the remainder of construction, paint and in the end add the roof. I have until Monday - and it has to look nice by Rita's 1. C ommunion - or so I'm told :-)

Fifteen

Yep, today he turned 15 - our little boy. We celebrated his birthday at O's breakfast & dinner where we had a tremendous and plentiful traditional American breakfast with heaps of bacon, sausage, hashbrowns, pancakes, omelets etc. Erik even had a chocolate milkshake. He's always had a sweet tooth.