Thursday, June 25, 2015

DESSERT HEAVEN

GLUTEN AND DAIRY FREE CRÈME BRÛLÉE AND MERINGUE  

dairy free crème brûlée photo by Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com
Desserts are always the issue when you have certain food diet. Expecially gluten and dairy free makes it a bit more difficult and if you don't eat chocolate. Like me. I tell you about two desserts I truly can eat. A lot. These two are good choises if you want to have some delicious sweet after a good dinner if you need to have gluten and dairy free desserts. Actually you can resolve two days dessert with these recipes. The best thing is that you can use the whole egg - egg yolk to crème brûlée and egg white to meringue. Because we all know how easily one of those stays in fridge and only way they can go after some time is compost. 

I found great recipe for coconut crème brûlée from Fvonf blog and the recipe is by Sabine Hueck. I changed the recipe a bit with changing the normal cream to oat cream and voila, there you go - dairy free dessert. You can find the Sabine's recipe here. I made my version just changing the cream to oat cream. It's not so difficult as I remebered. Not at all. You can also make them day before and then just make the final preparation before serving. A good party tip.

meringue with berries photo by Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com
What about meringue? I love Pavlova cake. I guess it is quite popular during the summer because then we have so many great fresh berries and fruits and Pavlova is just the right place for those beauties. Some lemon balm is always a good idea too or mint. In my dairy free version I don't have cream. But if I would - I would have coconut cream.

For this size cake you see in pic you need

1,5-2dl sugar
3 egg whites
1 tsp potato flour
1 tsp vinegar 
a bit rose water
some bourbon vanilla powder 
fresh berries like cherry and strawberry

How-to-bake

Beat room temp egg whites and sugar until they are firm foam. If you turn your bowl upside down it should stay there - not on the floor. Add other ingredients. Spread to baking paper in shapes you like. Bake in oven in temperature 100-120 C 1,5-2 hours. The time depends on how soft you want the inside to be.

In between two meringue you can put fresh berries like on top of it. My absolute favorite is cherry and then starwberries, blueberries, rasberries...the list is endless ;)

Delicious.

xoxo
Kreetta

Sunday, June 14, 2015

FLOWER CHANDELIER DIY

MAKE A BEAUTIFUL PARTY DECORATION

flower chandelier DIY of lilacs photo by Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com
New summer is here. There are flowers everywhere. I truly have waited for this. Let's make something very beautiful! But before that I tell you a bit how I got this DIY idea. For sometime now I've been following in instagram one talented lady Juliane who makes #onebouquetperday - Fröken Skicklig. 

flower chandelier DIY photo by Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com

Once again she makes her sweet and delicate bouquets. Everyday there is a new one and so many different kind of flowers. She made a challenge in IG to join her and I decided to take the challenge and begun my #oneflowerchandelierperday for one week. But I thought I want to make also a blog post for you to enjoy. So here comes my flower chandelier DIY.

flower chandelier DIY photo by Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com




You need:

unadorned lampshade, size is up to you like amount of them
flowers
string/thread/thin iron wire
scissors
clear floral plastic water tubes for flowers/floral foam if you choose to use them

Thursday, June 4, 2015

WHEN I PAINT - I'M FREE

COLOR IS MY POWER

Neiti Hattara painting by Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com
neiti Hattara 2015 (acrylic/145cm x 110cm)
Welcome to exhibition! These are my paintings from autumn 2014 to spring 2015. We made a group exhibition called VÄRIVOIMAA! with our painting class and the exhibition just ended in Herttoniemi sairaala. I decided to show you some of my work because I've been talking about it here in my blog quite a lot. So here we go! The first one is called neiti Hattara (ms Cotton candy, 2015) 

Korento painting by Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com
Korento 2015 (acrylic/mixed media/65cm x 63cm)
I have found painting very relaxing and powerful source of strong positive impact. I started about three years ago and before that I thought I couldn't do it. I'm not talented enough. Well some might still think so but I don't. I can and I've noticed that my life is more fullfilled now than before painting.

Hanami painting by Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com
Hanami 2015 (acrylic/87cm x 68cm)

Hanami is my favorite and it will be on our living room's wall. It took 2 years before it was  ready. It is the longest time I've painted one work. There are many different kind of layers. 

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