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The car-kittens, as I call them, are now three weeks old and absolutely adorable. Four of them are already booked to new homes, which feels wonderful, and I hope we’ll find worthy homes for the other two as well. We still have at least nine weeks to go, so it shouldn’t be a problem! Not when they’re as cute and lovable as this…

British Shorthairs are so plush and fluffy as kittens – really like tiny teddybears. Well, they stay that way, too, mostly.

Smokey Lamborghini, black smoke (for sale!)

Silver Lexus, silver classic tabby

Brown Land Rover, brown spotted tabby

Brown Lancia, brown spotted tabby (and the only girl!)

Black Lincoln, black (for sale!)

Black Lotus, black

The rest of the photos are on Flickr, here.

Watch out tomorrow – I have a really exciting giveaway for the first week of December!

This month, you’ll encounter caramel cakes all over the blogosphere. All the daring bakers are taking on a recipe from Shuna Fish Lydon, for her signature caramel cake. Hosts this month is Dolores from Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity, Alex from Blondie and Brownie, and Jenny from Foray into Food.

I opted for cupcakes, and baked half a batch since I realized a full batch would mean 24 cupcakes and what on earth would I do with those? I live with a caramel-hater, and Swedes in general are wary of overly sweet baked goods so I knew I’d have a pretty hard time getting someone to eat these. That’s why I also made a tiny amount of frosting, which was still hysterically sweet and everyone but me scraped it right off.

Baking was straightforward. I did follow the instructions for mixing etc, but really didn’t find that the dry-wet-dry method improved anything – I had to fold quite a bit at the end to get a uniform batter. The cupcakes rose nicely and turned out quite nice – but I really don’t think they tasted like much. Just regular basic cupcakes, I suppose – on the dense side. I baked them for about 18-20 minutes in total.

What I *did* like about this was the caramel syrup. I cooked it a day ahead and let it sit in the fridge to firm up to golden, thick deliciousness. It was really, really good and I look forward to making another batch of that to drizzle onto desserts, stirring into coffee, and probably many other things. That was truly lovely, and really easy to make – it took me about fifteen minutes in total. And I never, ever do the “brush with wet pastry brush to get rid of sugar crustals” – I just push the sugar crystals down toward the end, and they melt perfectly well. Daring, that’s me!

So, the caramel syrup recipe, I’ll re-post that right here, with metric measurements. I did half a batch, but will probably make the full batch next time.

Caramel syrup
500 ml sugar
125 ml water
250 ml water for stopping the syrup

Mix sugar and water in a small but heavy saucepan with fairly high sides – I used my beloved Demeyere Sauteuse. Turn the heat up to high, and cook until this bubbles into a nice, dark, caramel color. Now, stand back as well as you can and pour the 250 ml of water into the pan to stop the caramelization. This WILL sputter, and be careful not to get hit with the very, very, very hot caramel.

After it calms down, cook for a few minutes over medium heat, stirring all the time, to reduce it slightly. It should feel sticky when you touch it between two fingers – try touching the back of the spoon, carefully.

You can find the recipe here, the blogroll here, and the discussion forums – open to everyone! – here.

Wow, is that a really tiny turkey? No, it’s a simple roast chicken, of course. I decided to a tiny Thanksgiving dinner this year – not for the family for once since my parents are out of the country, but for a couple of friends instead. I made roast chicken, /2005/12/my-best-roast-potatoes.html”>roast potatoes, brussel sprouts in cream with crispy bacon (more on that another day, because YUM!), Nigellas cornbread stuffing with orange and cranberries, my /2006/12/christmas-orange-salad.html”>christmas-y orange salad, and some plain cream sauce.

Last week, I was invited to a lunch at F12, one of Stockholm’s great restaurants. Or so I’ve heard – I’d never eaten there before. The host was Danish Meat Association, and we were treated to an entire menu with pork. Lovely stuff! We are promised to get the recipes shortly, and I really look forward to that.

When I do, this is what I’ll be making first. It was a salad of celeriac and curly leaves, with a mayonnaisey dressing, marinated apples and crunchy candied walnuts. And, of course, crispy pork. Yummy!

This was nice too – slow-roasted porchetta, with fennel and apricots.

And this was neat – a tiny burger made from pig’s cheeks, with a slice of fresh fig.

In addition, there were two courses that I didn’t manage to take a photo of. First, an indiviudal bowl of cassoulet which was very yummy – the broth was really great and had sliced truffles in it. Second, thin lengths of pork tenderloin were wrapped in red chorizo, to imitate Danish “röd pölse”, a red hotdog that’s very famous. This was served with homemade ketchup and mustard.

And, though I hate to admit it, my favorite of all the dishes: dessert. This is a creme brulée with orange and cinnamon, and it was incredibly delicious.

Even the bread and butter were quite special – I loved the presentation.

Oh, I almost forgot to post about this very important day: November 14 was Swedish Cheesecake day. Ok, maybe not so important. Or not at all, really. It’s a new tradition, that started in 2004, probably as a reaction to Cinnamon Bun Day (which is October 4th)

So, what’s Swedish cheesecake? It’s very different from American cheesecakes, I’ll tell you that! It’s baked, it’s grainy and it’s almondy. And it’s a pain to make yourself, since you need rennet. I, and just about everyone else, buy it ready-made at the store and bake it in the oven until warm. It’s then eaten with jam and whipped cream. Delicious, and very, very rich.

I asked the main produced – Frödinge – if this was ever exported and sold in maybe IKEA across the world, but sadly, no. As it’s a chilled product, it’s hard to ship. But if you’re ever in Sweden – try it!

On the eve of Thanksgiving I’m pretty sure you’ve already figured out what you are cooking or eating tomorrow, if you haven’t, you could check out my post on Bay Area Bites with links to three “winning” recipes.

The reason I haven’t been posting here very frequently is that I’ve been doing a lot of recipe development, 22 new recipes to be exact and before that I completed 30 more recipes for another client. I’m terribly sorry the recipes aren’t available yet, because a number of them are really perfect for Thanksgiving and I plan on serving two of them tomorrow. I promise to share them as soon as I can.

In the meantime, here are links to two very useful “before and after” Thanksgiving links I think you’ll enjoy:

Fine Cooking to the Rescue! Emergency Fixes for the Top Ten Thanksgiving Disasters

Gourmet’s Delicious Uses for Leftover Turkey

Finally, don’t forget! Come see me at the Union Square Williams-Sonoma store in San Francisco on Saturday from noon to 2 pm. I’ll be signing my new book and sharing delicious samples.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Amy