Nutella cupcakes

Can you think of anything better for a cold winter afternoon than a warm, hazelnut cupcake? Well OK, I can, but still, cupcakes are awesome 🙂
I took the recipe from my favorite site: Moje wypieki.

Ingredients for 12 cupcakes:

    Cupcake Ingredients:
  • 140g butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 flat tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 cup Nutella

To Make The Cupcakes:
In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add in vanilla.
In a separate bowl,
whisk together the flour and baking powder until combined.
Add dry ingredients to creamed butter mixture and stir.
Line baking pans with about 12 paper baking cups, and fill each two-thirds full with batter. At the top of each cupcake add 2 tsp. of Nutella and make 'doodles’ with a toothpick. Bake at 160 – 170ºC for 25 minutes or until a
toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

Bon appetit!

Sur Cou (1809 m)

Thanks to a recent temperature drop we decided it would be lovely to go hiking in the mountains. The trip was longly planned and awaited – our destination: Sur Cou mountain. It was our first winter hike and it surpassed all my epectations. I mean, I am very enthusiastic about mountains so it surprised me that their winter face is even more enchanting.
So, a starting couple photo and off we go…

First passage was quite easy – the path from a firm snow moved through the forest. From time to time we were passed by skiers dashing through the snow. Every now and then treetops thinned a bit showing a spectacular view of surrounding mountains. However, it took some time to see our destination – Sur Cou mountain. There are two ways to get there, we chose a steeper but shorter one. As soon as we turned left on the junction, the path became steeper and way more demanding. After a while the forest finished, leaving us on the bare slope. That was the most difficult part of the hike, since there was really a lot of light snow, not tracked by hikers or skiers. We needed to watch our feet in order not to fall down. Just one wrong step and the racquette would tilt to the side taking the rest of the body along straight into a 1-meter-snow.

The conditions changed when we approached the top. It got way windier and as a result, the snow cap was thinner, making the ascent a bit easier. Well, 'easier’ is a bit subjunctive. As I was approaching the top, I was imagining I was climbing Mount Everest 🙂 Call me crazy, but I have never gone through anything similar and although I know it wasn’t particularly difficult, for me it felt like a real duel: man vs mountain. Radek was a bit faster than me so he claimed Sur Cou first and managed to take a photo of me struggling to get to top. Looks alpine, doesn’t it?

And now… a cherry on a pie… The views… Although the photos never give justice to a real panorama, I won’t describe much. It would be difficult for me to depict with words the feeling of exhilaration I had as soon as I found myself over the clouds… I love mountains and I learned that I prefer mountains in winter than in summer.

 

Visit at ALICE, CERN

This week we’re having guests – our mums came over to meet their grandson for the first time. We used this occasion to show them around CERN. I mean, it’s like the last chance to go underground to see the experiments because soon they will be close for visitors, getting ready for operation.

The visit started with SM18 site where magnets and other devices are assembled and tested in order to be ready for operation. Radek explained all the science behind, so mums had their private guide. Then they moved to point ALICE – a heavy-ion detector exploiting 'the unique physics potential of nucleus-nucleus interactions at
LHC energies’. In principle ALICE was built to find new phase of matter: the quark-gluon plasma.

Short trip to Nyon

We had a short discussion with Radek concerning the destination of today’s trip and Radek won choosing Nyon. This lovely little place is situated on the north side of Lac Leman, just 20 minutes’ drive from our place. It has all constituents of a Lake Geneva village: nice boulevard close to the water, marina, castle and narrow streets with colourful facades. We had a nice walk around the village, covering all formerly mentioned elements in just 90 minutes.

 

There was a really nice panorama view from a castle terrace. It’s a pity that the sky wasn’t clear enough to see the other side of the shore well. Anyway, at the end of our trip the sun went below the clouds and we had a really nice yellow-orangish setting around. I mean, winter and cold is fun, but the sun is even funnier 🙂

 

Snowshoeing adventure begins: Le Turet (1375 m)

New Year – new adventures. We can now cross out „snowshoeing” from our to-do list. We had to take turns to be able to go on a trail, but it’s OK since we had different conditions and could later compare impressions and photos.

Take „Radek”:
Radek set out on his trip on Wednesday. It was way colder than the next day, so the snow was nice and neat, covering the pines and forming snow caps all over. The weather was sunny in general, however with the gaining height it got misty. Pros of mist and sun: lovely views through trees. Cons of mist and sun: no view at a viewpoint (see photo above).

Take „Ania”:
Iwent out the next day, on Thursday. Weather conditions were a bit worse, it got warmer and the snow melted and got heavy and watery. There was almost no sun and I didn’t do any photos from the trail (mainly because I was in hurry but also because Radek’s ones would be much better). However… When I reached Le Turet bench I was struck with a beautiful view of the sunset over Jura and surprisingly clear look over Geneva to the Alps. So I would say that by the powers combined in these two days we made most out of Le Turet.

Le fabuleux village d’Evian

We decided to go on a trip at the last day of 2013. Destination: the faboulous village of Flottins in Evian. This lovely city is situated right on the board of Lake Geneva. We chose it because of a festival that was going on between Christmas and New Year. I have no idea what/who Flottins are, but what I know is that the place was filled with the strangest wood sculptures one could imagine. 'Strangest’ is a gentle word to describe them, I think 'creepy’ is more accurate 🙂 Radek said that if he had found himself on a meadow with all these wooden creatures, he would have felt scared like hell. I agree. Nevertheless, spread across all over the town, they made for a very particular and absorbing view that we both really enjoyed.

 

We were both surprised by the multitude of the sculptures. Arranging them all over Evian must have already been quite an endeavor, not to mention actually crafting them!  We started our trip by walking along the lake shore, which was a good prelude to the rest of the visit, since the sculptures by the water were relatively less sumptuous than the rest. Then we headed to the old part of the city and walked through the alleys full of the weirdest installations…

We decided to leave the best part of the city – called 'le fabuleux village’ – to the end of our trip, so after a brief walk through the streets and stopping by for a cup of warm coffee, we set off to see Evian’s marina. Like every lake-side place here, Evian can pride oneself with a beautiful harbor for yachts and boats. We strolled down a calm and quiet boulevard by the water and enjoyed the sun and watching more sculptures scattered all over. 

Last but not least, we headed back to the town to see what was called „the fabulous village of Flottins” – a small passage filled with wooden goblins, gnomes, imps and who knows what else… Well there was even a huge hippo – kind of bizarre since hippos seem nice to me. But that one was huge and was opening its mouth every now and then like he wanted to devour the spectators, so in the end he suited well among other companions of this queer market.




Thun revisited

In 2010 when I was in Switzerland for one year we did the exact same trip: Bern first and then Thun – a small city located just a bit south and just a bit east to Bern – right at the foothill of the Alps. Thun is a pretty little place and we decided to treat it as a starter to even more beautiful mountain resorts that we want to see this winter. Also, since I didn’t feel that well health-wise, we decided to go to Thun which was the closest to our location.
The atmosphere of the city was way more hectic than at Bern. We first went by the city promenade – full of young people, Christmas emblems and crazy window displays. Then we headed to a boulevard stretching along the Thuner See (Thun Lake). A look on the Alps felt like a foreword to the views that we are going to see when we visit villages even more to east and south.

On our way back we went through an old city alley that was heading to the castle. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to the top. We decided to return to car because I was feeling more and more ill. Better to save my health for later – in the end, I already saw the castle in 2010 (photos from 2010 below).

And here is a view from the castle hill in 2010 (just four years ago but seems like an eternity now):

Hazy Bern

Christmas are past and Radek has still a couple of free days left so we decided to use the time wisely and do something else than my usual 'staying at home’. It’s a pity I am ill though, nevertheless I feel like getting out and so we went east – to Bern anf Thun. Bern is the capital city of Switzerland well known for its bears (emblem of the city). I have already visited it twice in the past but each time was a bit different. This year we were greeted by a thick mist which made the city look dim and mystical.
We parked our car by the bear cave which is situated just by the river with a nice view on the city. Pas de chance though – I guess the beras were sleeping so the carrots we had taken with us remained in our rucksack.

Then we went past the bridge to stroll down the main bernenian alley and admire beautiful ornaments on the tenement houses and throw ourselves into the remains of the Christmas atmosphere. I guess it was good time to visit the city – the Christmas rush was by no means over, yet there were a lot of people (mainly tourists) who made the old town vibrant.

We continued walking and passed by what seemed to be the town hall, cathedral, well known tower clock and a couple of other fancy buildings. At the end we found a Christmas market next to a coffee house we stepped in to warm up. After this short but restorative break we went back the same route. Surprisingly, I noticed a lot of different details on the way back. Perhaps a change of an angle makes the difference while observing the world surrounding us. Also, the mist became less thick so it made us see the colours a bit better. We didn’t stop any more and went straight to the car to continue on our day trip and go to Thun.

Silent night

Silent and holy night indeed… And very special to us. It’s our first Christmas ever spent far away from our family members. I felt very sorry we couldn’t come to Poland to celebrate these days, which to me are the most family-like and domestic out of all in the year. But the uniqueness of this Christmas is twofold… On the one hand we’re far away from our home, but on the other there are three of us and there are no words to describe what it really means to us. So all in all, we are very happy.

Personally, I love Christmas. Every single element of it – starting from „Last Christmas” by Wham, then all the cooking, lovely street lights, ginger candle scents, presents packing, snow and cold… They are all ingredients for the perfect time to me. I wanted to have it all this year to be sure that I did everything I could to make this time as cosy and enjoyable as every year. And so, we had a lovely Christmas tree sparkling with red and green lights, I made a home-made lampion (which is a present to our friends who will appreciate the time and sweat I put into manufacturing it), Radek did the cooking this year and so we had barszcz z uszkami (beetroot soup with mashroom dumplings), pierogi ruskie (white cheese and potato dumplings), potato pancakes with mashroom sauce and cheese cake for dessert – all of them being traditional polish Christmas dishes. I really enjoyed the time. In the end, it’s true what my beloved song says… Home is wherever I’m with you…

Frosty marvels

I posted an autumn post just in time, since just hours later winter came in full bloom. With mist and temperatures below zero, we are experiencing something that I personally think are the most beautiful landscapes throughout the year. The omnipresent frost does marvelous paintings outside. Yet again, perfect timing, since Radek’s special macro gear has just arrived. Don’t ask me about the technicalities, have a look at those shots instead.