MEL'S KITCHEN * APFELKUCHEN MIT STREUSELN

It's Fall so it's the Apple season!

To start off with I already had a bunch of apples in my fridge that hadn't had much success and then last weekend I inherited at least another 6!! So I figured, may aswell bake something with them!

So I pulled out my good old "Das Große Dr. Oetker Backbuch" which my Oma once gave me a long long time ago. I do all my German Christmas baking out of this book. One of my favorite German cake recipes is a Streuselkuchen, which is kind of like a crumble with the difference that under the fruit there is layer of cake.

This kind of cake is tradiotionally made with apples or my personal favorite, cherries -
which reminds me I still have some cherries from the garden in the freezer....

So with my two little helpers who peeled the apples and rolled out the dough,
the task was even easier....

If you're interested in the recipe here you go:

Knead together the following ingredients with an electric mixer
for about 5 minutes to form a ball of dough

400g of flour
1 pack of dry yeast
50g of sugar
1 pack of vanilla sugar
A pinch of salt
1 egg
50g melted butter
2 Tablespoons of oil
125ml lukewarm milk

Let the dough rest in a warm place till it doubles in size.
Mix through once again on high speed and roll/spread out on a greased baking sheet.

Peel, quarter and slice about 1,5kg of apples (or get some helpers to do it!!) and cover the rolled out dough. Don't worry if you think that's a lot of apples, they melt down quite a bit.

In a bowl mix together
375g of flour
200g of sugar
1 pack of vanilla sugar
1 teaspoon of cinammon
and add
250g of butter cut into small pieces

This will be a crumbly kind of dough that you cover the apples with.
I really like cinammon so I usually sprinkle some extra cinammon directly over the apples.

Then let it rest again in a warm space till it once again doubles in size....

Bake for about 30mins in a preheated oven at 210°C

Guten Appetit!

DOCTOR WHO, BABY!!

An important event on our London weekend trip was the Doctor Who Experience at Olympia.

A good thing that Misha had brought along his sonic screwdriver, so he could open the doors to the Experience and help the Doctor on his mission!!

I think you'll agree that this little boy lived the experience!!!

WEEKEND IN SAINT AUBIN SUR MER

Here are some of the highlights of our traditional weekend in St Aubin sur Mer

on the coast of Normandie for André's birthday!

To start off with of course, the kids (and André - my 4th child) headed off to the beach!!
Seashells, sandcastles, seagulls - the works!

For your information the Eve & Hervé's house that we stay at is
right above Ilya's head in the group photo.

This year's masterpiece - Rapunzel's tower!

The weather was more than fantastic, so we ate outdoors in the sun!!

.
Birthday dinner menu: Fish (a pollock) with a spinach stuffing!
Delish!! and not that hard to make once you get the #*&@!! backbone out!!!
Got the recipe from my mother's Time Life cookbook: Provincial France.
.No need for cake when you can have a red berry crumble compliments of Nanou!!
Thanks to Eve & Hervé for providing the bubbly....
.Another sunny day on Sunday, so we took to the beach for our apéro!!

And to top off the weekend, Moules Frites takeway for lunch!!
.

All in all a very relaxing, refreshing, recharging getaway!

A big thank you to our hosts for having us once again....
We hope to be back next October or maybe even before??

In case you're interested in renting the house:

THEY'RE GROWING SO FAST!!!

Just took Ilya to the Doctor for a check up due to his Hand-Foot-Mouth disease, and what do you know,
our baby has reached the 1m mark at almost 30 months!!!
This is a month earlier than his sister did and his big brother had to wait
to be almost 3 1/2 years old to reach this height!

That said, Lara has grown 11cm in the last year and Misha is only 18cm shy of my own size!!!
My mom actually picked up on the fact that Misha is almost the size of Mickey Mouse (see post below)!!!

May have to cut back on the fertilizers we're giving them ;)

KOBTZEFF KIDS & MICKEY MOUSE

Their first "official" picture with our Pal, Mickey Mouse!
.

What a Magic Moment!!

OUR MOM & DAD TOOK OUR BIG BROTHER TO LONDON....

AND ALL WE GOT WAS A T-SHIRT!
.BUT THEY ARE PRETTY COOL....

PRIMA BALLERINA??

Saturday mornings Lara is now doing a dance class.

Although it's not classical dance, I could tell she really wanted a real dance outfit!

Who knows, maybe she'll follow in her Oma's footsteps....

WEDNESDAY SNACKTIME

In France kids in Kindergarten & Primary School don't have school on Wednesdays.

Lara is now taking an English class in the afternoon, but last Wednesday morning
she suggested we bake something for snacktime....

And so we did : Betty Crocker's Cocoa Brownies
.

As you can see they were finger lickin' good!

LONDON, BABY!!

Misha has been craving a trip to London or New York ("somewhere where they speak English!" he said), so when the opportunity to go to London for the weekend arose, we could not NOT seize it....

Thanks to a great Home Team (Grand Benoit, Nanou, Sofka, Boris, Mania, Sissa & Tatine - yes, it can take that many to manage two kids) who took care of Lara & Ilya, we were able to enjoy this escapade fully, and London was expecting us with the nicest weather EVER!!!

Our wonderful host Kirsty was expecting us Friday night with a lovely meal and after a good night's sleep and a delish full on English breakfast we set out to conquer the city!
.

London, Baby!! was our motto!
(we introduced Misha to the F.R.I.E.N.D.S episode Friday morning before school)

We caught the train into Victoria and first stop Westminster Abbey and...

BIG BEN!!
.We then caught a ride on the Thames Clipper from Embankment up to Tower Bridge and back taking in all the sights along the way....perfect with this great sunny 1st of October weather!
.
By then it was time to head to one of our fav restaurants - Wagamama - with the added bonus of meeting up with Jenny (after 26 years!!!) and her lovely girls Mia & Evie.
.

It is SO nice to meet up with "old" friends. You almost pick-up where you left off... Jenny just as bubbly as ever and I love how 5 minutes before we met I was telling Misha & André one of my fondest memories with Jenny the day my little brother was born (1982), and then over lunch she told the same story!!
Too bad I didn't get a pic of the girls....next time!!

We could have gone on for ever, but the London Eye was calling....
And WOW, what a view!!!
.
A quick cab ride back to Victoria station
and a sprint home once off the train in time to see.....

The Doctor
Live on BBC1!!!
.


Another lovely BBQ dinner compliments of our lovely host Kirsty and her mom,
who came to town ready to SHINE through London!!
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And so that was Day 1!

To be continued.....so stay tuned!