THE ROLL Juniors

Ingredients

100 g dried cherries

100 g chocolate marzipan candies (Kalev)

100 g Hershey's Cookies'n'Creme chocolate

4 sheets of ready-rolled puffed pastry

1 egg, lighty beaten

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius.

Line baking sheet with foil. Cut the candies and chocolate into small cubes. Line the pastry sheets with cherries, candies and chocolate and roll them! Use knife to cut slits along the tops of the rolls and brush with egg mixture. Bake for 15 minutes. Easy, breezy, well... not so beautiful, but a really quick and tasty snack. Oh! We also made one with only Hershey's chocolate and dried cherries and Panda

loved it so much he didn't left Bear any, so give it a try!

In other news

On Thursday, my birthday morning, Panda surprised me with 22 pink roses and a "Bear and Panda's Adventure Jar", filled with activities to do in case we ever get bored. I took it to Panda's place, because I was afraid that if I keep it around the house I'd look all of them at once. Great gift idea for you couples out there! So on Friday we got together at Solaris, where we got our Boost smoothies and went to sit on the stairs of Freedom Square. Took a bunch of selfies and watched the preps for Tallinn Old Town Days. Later on we fortunately, after a little waiting, found a place to sit down in Popular with Panda's friends. That leaves Saturday and Sunday, visiting Sushi Plaza, Popular (was it once or twice again?) and also a little relaxing time at Kadriorg park... yes, again. Now that you all know where we hang out the most to stalk us the following weekends, I will get back to writing my little secret book.

A kiss to all of you who have decided to stick around and support us and cheers to all the haters, there is so much more to come...

Yours truly,

Bear & Panda

A matcha made in heaven (pancakes inside yo!)

Ingredients

3 eggs

1/2 cup of milk

1/2 cup of coconut milk

4 tablespoons coconut oil

4 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups flour

2 tablespoon matcha powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

A pinch of Bear...errr...salt!

And get some fruity thingies to top off your pancakes!

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, coconut milk, coconut oil, sugar and vanilla extract. Add the flour, matcha powder, baking powder, and salt, and whisk a few times, just until the batter comes together.

2. Brush the pan with coconut oil and heat over medium heat. For each pancake, spoon 2 to 3 tablespoons of batter onto pan, using the back of the spoon to spread batter into a round. Wait until bubbles appear and pop on the surface, then flip the pancakes and cook for another minute or so. Do let the pan warm up tho, otherwise you will end up with one cranky bear and some messed up pancakes. 

In other news

If a hipster goes to the woods and there is no one who saw him, is he still a hipster in the woods? This was the weekend where everyone and their grandmas visited this little nice open air get-together called Kalamaja päevad. So did we. After a small alien with a painted face whom I presume was a child offered Panda some cake (who can say no to cake) that was made of pure SUGAR, we headed to Kadrioru park to lie on the grass and do absolutely nothing. Best time ever. Even tho I bitched to Bear 9741 times does she still want to go and why oh god why must we go. Thank god she dragged my ass there, where I could safely nap off my sugar rush. We are indeed a matcha made in heaven. 

Pandaste! 

Mood BOOSTer

Ingredients

1/4 of watermelon

1 kg strawberries

Juice of two limes

350 g greek yogurt

1 cup of mint leaves

1 teaspoon of honey

6-8 ice cubes

Serves for 4-6 people

Instructions

1. Remove the seeds of the watermelon.

2. Place all ingredients in the blender and purée until smooth.

3. Enjoy!

In other news

But first, let me take a selfie.

No pictures of us this time, but we promise we'll make a cute, probably a really awkward video of us for the next post.
About the weekend... our relationship reached its half a year anniversary this Saturday. Still happy, still as crazy about Panda as I were the first day. This love has been everything, all at once. The kind you never fall back from, never try to, never want to. A love so big, so strong, it never dies, never fades, never loses it's electricity. The kind of love you fight for, the kind of boy you fight for. I really hope each and every one of you gets to experience something like this, because for me it has been one hell of a ride. Not even sorry to post it. I know you will appreciate this, Panda.

Yours always,

Bear

Ultimate Chocolate Beet Cakeness

Supermoist chocolate beet cake

Serves 4-6 cake fans

You are gonna need:

300g boiled beets

250g of fine dark chocolate (70%)

1/4 cup hot espresso

150g of butter

1 cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

3 tablespoons good quality cocoa powder

5 eggs

Seeds of one vanilla bean

1 cup of superfine sugar

Heavy cream and some grated chocolate to serve

Drop them beets yo!

Lightly butter an 8-inch cake pan and line the base with a round of baking parchment. 

Heat the oven to 195 degrees C. 

Process the pre boiled beets in a blender or food processor until a coarse purée. 

Melt the chocolate, broken into small pieces, in a small bowl set over a pot of simmering water. Don’t stir. When the chocolate looks almost melted, pour the hot espresso over it and stir once. 

Melt the stick of butter in a small pot and add to the melted chocolate. Sift together the flour, baking powder and cocoa. Separate the eggs, putting the whites in a large mixing bowl. Stir the yolks together. Now remove the bowl of chocolate from the heat and stir until the butter has melted into the chocolate. Let sit for a few minutes, then stir in the egg yolks. Do this quickly, mixing firmly and evenly so the eggs blend into the mixture. Add in the beets. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then fold in the sugar. Fold the beaten egg whites and sugar into the chocolate mixture. Finally, fold in the flour and cocoa. Transfer quickly to the prepared cake pan and put in the oven, decreasing the heat immediately to 180 C. Bake for 40 minutes. Set aside to cool for a hour or two. Serve in thick slices, with crème fraîche grated chocolate on top.

In other news Pluto is still not a planet, we had a super nice laid back weekend (slept for most of the saturday). Panda got to bake another cake (even tho Bear made her best "ewwwww!" face when she found out that there will be veggies in that cake) and we tried to go to the cinema which ended up both of us standing in front of the screens trying to decide what to watch. Since Rio was sold out we bailed. Here's a pic of us that I'm quite sure won't make it into the post because Bear is gonna remove it while she checks my text for typos. :D

Peace on the outside, beets in the inside. 

BBQ Party

Quick and delicious Summer Salad

Ingredients

1 small red onion
1 avocado
1 cup feta cheese
1/4 watermelon
8 strawberries
10 cherry tomatoes
1/2 cucumber
Handful of lettuce
Handful of basil
2 teaspoons lime juice
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Black pepper
Salt

Instructions

Cut and slice the ingredients as you please, it's still gonna be one hell of a salad.

In other news

On Saturday we organized a cute little picnik just for us two in Bear's garden. Panda barbequed and Bear made a salad and a cake (from which we don't have a decent photo, so for now we're not going to post the recipe either). Later on we moved inside, turned off the majority of lights to get that cozy vibe,  made a pile of blankets on Bear's living room floor, under the glass doors that open to garden to be able to gaze outside and got our cuddles on. Woke up like this... flawless... Panda, Bear and a Dog. We wish we could have our really own dog already, but Panda says it's not happening until we have our own house with a big beautiful garden. Any ideas how to get rich fast? We're all ears. So on Sunday we barbequed... yes, again... let a Panda loose in a meat store with an empty stomach and he ends up buying the whole store. As the sun was about to set, we managed to escape Bear's parents, who wanted to put us on garden duties and finally got the chance to try out the new trains to get to Panda's place.

The end.

Yours truly,

Bear and Panda

Crunchy Peach Pie

Ingredients

Pie Crust

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 

1 teaspoon salt 

1 tablespoon sugar 

1 cup unsalted butter (room temperature) 

1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

Filling

6 large peaches, peeled and sliced 

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice 

1/4 cup brown sugar 

1 vanilla bean, halved with the seeds removed 

1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom 

3 tablespoons cornstarch 

1/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions

Pie Crust


In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and sugar. Add the butter and, using your hands, squeeze together the butter and flour until it resembles coarse sand.
 Add 1/4 cup of ice water and mix together the dough with your hands until it holds together when squeezed. If needed, add more ice water by the tablespoon until the dough reaches this consistency.
 


Filling

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius.


In a large bowl, combine peach slices and lemon juice. Set aside.


In a medium bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, vanilla bean seeds, ground cardamom, cornstarch, and salt. Sprinkle over the peaches and mix until evenly coated. Set aside once more.


On a lightly floured surface, roll out half of the pie crust dough into a circle and transfer to a pie pan. Gently press dough into the bottom and sides of the pan. Add the pie filling.
 


With the remaining dough, roll it out into a rectangle, keeping the thickness the same as the bottom crust. Using a long knife, cut the dough into 1-inch thick strips and arrange in a lattice pattern on top of the pie. Cut off any excess from the strips and pinch together the top and bottom pie dough to make a sealed edge around the rim. 

Bake the pie for 50-60 minutes, or until the pie crust is browned and the fruit is bubbly. Remove the pie from the oven and allow to cool for 2 hours before cutting into it.


Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or simply on its own.



In other news

A bear and a panda walk in to the zoo. Albeit being an awesome start to a joke, we really did make it to the zoo this weekend. After standing in the line (which has never really happened before) we had a nice sunny little walk around the zoo. Okay who are we kidding, most of our time was spent watching a little polar bear cub prance around the cage. When it went back inside for a hard earned nap, we sneaked out of a closed gate and had some nice italian noms in Rucola. 

Oh, and how do you know that they postponed the ice age again? Varblane lounge is open! Watermelon this, watermelon that, Oprah is giving away watermelon stuff for everyone! No but seriously, watermelon mojito and a watermelon-kiwi shisha go together so well.

Our next post will be from prison for breaking out of the zoo.

#renegade





Yours truly,

Bear and Panda