Beginning of this year, when I was at a bakery, I saw these small little balls and decided to buy some to try them out. To my surprise, they were delicious. They tasted like doughnut. So, I have been buying them since. The kids love it. I like it too. So, I looked it up and found some recipes. They all rather similar. Only last weekend, I decided to make it, to bring some to Malaika’s piano recital. As usual, I need some guinea pigs. These small little balls were well received. The only problem is that the balls got pretty hard the next day. May be the balls that are sold in the bakery are with some bread softener. I will try new recipe. For the mean time, I am satisfied with my experiment. Original recipe is from here.
Ingredients (To make 50-60 small balls)
3 eggs
5 tbsps sugar
5 tbsps unsalted Butter, melted
1 package vanilla sugar
250g quark or yogurt
2 1/4 – 2 1/2 cups flour
2 tsps baking powder
Oil for deep frying
Powdered or granulated sugar
Methods:
1. Combine the dough ingredients.
2. It gets pretty sticky. So more flour was used to form dough into balls.
3. Heat the oil in a large pot or deep frier. Fry each Quarkbällchen for 8-10 minutes, turning to make sure all sides brown nicely. Place fried Quarkbällchen on clean paper towels to absorb excess oil. Allow to cool.
4. Dust the finished Quarkbällchen with powdered sugar or roll them in granulated sugar.
Recently, Kelsey really wants to be grown up. He gets really upset if we say he is small. He would raise his feet and put up his arms high to show that he is big. Now that his hair is pretty long, he even pulls his hair up to increase his height! We just like to tease him.
This morning, the girl woke up at 6am!! The moment she woke up, she was looking for her little book. She hasn’t finished writing her story. I thought she woke up just a bit earlier, before my alarm went off. I looked at the clock, it was only 6am! I hurried her to bed again and asked her to sleep for a while. Of course she could not sleep. She was all hyped up to write her story. I just let her be and I continued sleeping.
book title – Me in Fairyland (yellow vertical lines are fairy powder!)
lots of fairies flying around
magic wand
said the spell, Abracadabra
The story is so girlish. It is about magic necklace, magic wand and magic key!
Malaika is now more aware of festive celebration and so on. So, she was all excited about Mother’s Day. She made some Mother’s day cards in school and wanted to surprise me on that day. Normally I will check her school bag for messages and reading material from the school. So, I asked her to hide the cards in her room and gave them to me on that day. She sure could keep a secret, she didn’t show me at all. Just told me, it was very pretty. And of course she showed them to papa.
On Mother’s day, she woke up and handed me 2 cards, one in English and another with German wordings. She was very proud of her work. It was the first time I felt that I was celebrating Mother’s day because previous years, she was still too young. MIL suggested that next year, I shall have breakfast in bed, cooked by Malaika. Because SIL was having her annual breakfast in bed.
2 hand made cards from school
Then, the girl announced that that got to be a cake for Mother’s day. I baked a cake just the day before, so I thought we would just have that cake for dessert after dinner with MIL. I invited MIL to come over for dinner. Well, seeing her excited look, I agreed to bake a cake for this special occasion.
A couple of nights ago, lying on bed, getting ready to sleep, Malaika announced to me that she could not sleep. She said she had lots of ideas on writing her little books. Her mind was full of book titles! So, more books to come.
Book title: The Three Mermaids
She has yet to draw on her book. I am glad that there are improvements to writing, first, there are conversations, that was the first, and her spelling was getting better.
Last Friday, Malaika attended a friend’s birthday party in a theme park, Fairyland Park (Märchenwald). So happened that the school had an early release, which was at noon. We went to the school to pick her up and then sent her to the park. Papa likes to chauffeur the kids around if possible. He doesn’t trust other drivers. That’s the reason we entered the park too, of course bringing the boy along.
It was a great decision. First, the weather was warm and sunny. Then, there were not many people in the park, because it was a working day. It means virtually no queue at almost every rides. Also, papa got to spend the time with Kelsey, almost 100%. Normally, Malaika would want papa’s attention too. This time, she was with her friends. She would rather go on the rides with her friends.
buying the entrance tickets
100% papa and mama’s attention
Malaika can do it!
Kelsey can do it too !
This boy is dare devil. He wanted to go on the steepest slide. So, papa did it as per request. Kelsey loved it. He kept on saying he is big, and grown up. He was not scared at all.
some turning wheel ride
look at his excited look !
There was a children friendly roller coaster. Fast but not scary type. It was stated there from 4 years old onward. Well, we just ignored the sign and took Kelsey in it. Ha.. after the ride, he claimed that he wanted to do it again and again. And he was not afraid.
first time on roller coaster
We were there from 2 till 5pm. Phew! It was a great day. Both kids had so much fun.
This boy of mine, he is getting more manipulative by the days. For example, referring to the picture above, I scolded him for sticking stickers on the table. He argued that Papa said he could do it. Every time one of us doesn’t allow him doing something, he said the other party allows him to do so, very convincingly. He has been doing this trick for the past 2-3 weeks.
I asked my good friend, Yvonne to buy some books during the cheap book sales last year. Only when we went back to KL, I collected from her. She managed to buy a few books from the Little Miss series. Then, recently, I introduced it to the children. It was an instant hit. I also found out that Malaika has been exposed to Mr. Men series in school too. She had been asking me to buy the rest of the Little Miss series. Since it is an English series, I could hardly find it in here, even on ebay. It was super expensive to buy the complete series via German based ebay and amazon. So, I resorted to UK based ebay. After a few weeks of looking around for bargain, I managed to get the complete (almost, 1 book is missing) used series for a fraction of the price. When the books finally arrived, I showed them to the girl, she was delighted!
delighted look
Kelsey likes to the series too. He doesn’t understand English. So I would read in English and explain in Mandarin. Well, Malaika doesn’t understand every thing too. I need to explain to her too. Now, I am looking to buy Mr Men series. I don’t mind buying these books because they are classic. I shall keep and hopefully pass the collection to my grandchildren, one day.
Note: I have never read any of the Mr Men and Little Miss books and other famous children books because I am a pure blood Chinese ed girl. My command of the English language was not that great, and until now, is still bad. So, it is the first time I am reading the series too.
To save time, I would cook more for dinner and let the girl brings the leftover dinner for her lunch the next day. I was mad when I found out that she hardly ate her lunch. So, I asked her the reason. She told me she doesn’t like her lunch to be dinner the day before. So, now, I try to pack sandwich for her lunch on Tuesday and Thursday, rather than hot meal using the thermos. Below are some of the food I prepared for my girl.
Austria pancake with apple sauce and fresh fruits (papaya, mango and blueberries)
raspberries cheesecake and fresh fruits (grapes and strawberry)
ham and egg sandwich with yogurt drink
CNY cookies with fresh fruits
chocolate Swiss roll with fresh fruits
profiteroles and fresh fruits
cranberries raisins scone with jam and fresh fruits
At the beginning of spring and autumn, there would be lots of flea markets, selling kids stuff, because kids outgrow their clothes so fast and so do their toys. I like to go to flea markets to look for bargain. As usual, I always find things to buy. I saw a box of construction blocks, with nuts and bolts and etc. And it cost only €1.50. Of course I snapped it. Buying it new would probably around €10. I am glad that I did, because Kelsey is having fun playing with it. And he is pretty good in it. I am surprised. He assembled the pieces by screwing them together. Good fine motor skills.
Quarkbällchen
The only problem is that the balls got pretty hard the next day. May be the balls that are sold in the bakery are with some bread softener. I will try new recipe. For the mean time, I am satisfied with my experiment. Original recipe is from here.
1 Comment
cooking · dim sum-n-snacks · Europe · German · Germany · recipes
