Easy Boiled Fruit Cake

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted a recipe, but this is a good one! While busy in the kitchen tonight making this fruitcake it occurred to me to share this quick and easy recipe on my blog. Although it’s called “boiled fruitcake”, it’s baked – the name comes from the fact that some of the ingredients (fruit, butter, sugar) are boiled together beforehand, giving the cake a more complex flavour. It’s a lovely, light fruitcake, perfect for tea or a snack. This recipe was passed down from my grandmother to my mother and now to me.

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Top 10 posts of 2016 (in case you missed them!)

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I’m always curious why some posts are read more often. Here were the most-read posts of 2016:

1. Namaqualand

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2. Road tripping from Czech Republic to Slovenia and Croatia

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3. Watersports and beaches at Müggelsee

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4. Battle of the Seelow Heights and a walk near the Oder river

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5. The wedding planning continues

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6. Lakes of Berlin

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7. Cross country skiing in the Harz mountains

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8. The legend of Drachenfels

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9. The complications of a multi-national wedding

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10. Middle Europe Weekly small pleasures #20: Cambridge in spring

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Enjoy! 🙂

There and back again – December to January

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My last real blog post was just before we went away for Christmas holidays to South Africa via Namibia, and now it’s February already! I feel like I’m always behind these days. In between travelling I am overloaded with work, trying to meet all my many deadlines before the next trip. At the moment I’m away again, at a meeting in Switzerland. It should calm down a bit in February, but let’s see. Hopefully then I’ll have time to update on the places we’ve visited in December and January. Here is a sneak preview in the meanwhile. Continue reading →

Middle Europe Weekly Small Pleasures #30 – November ’16

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Every year I say this, but this year seems like the fastest one ever. I feel like we were celebrating Christmas not long ago and here we are already on the 1 December again. We’re into winter days already (not officially since winter starts on the 21 December) but golden autumn is definitely gone and it’s got a lot colder. Since I haven’t written a weekly small pleasures post for a while (a blog event started by Mani at A New Life Wandering), I thought I’d update on some of the highlights of November. Continue reading →

First snow: hiking in the Harz mountains

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This weekend a friend organized a spontaneous trip to the Harz mountains when a colleague mentioned to her that it was snowing there. Although the highest peak, the Brocken, is only 1141m, the area has an alpine character with lots of fir trees and receives much more snow than the surrounding areas. It was amazing as we drove from autumnal forests full of orange and gold up to a snow-covered winter wonderland. We visited earlier this year in January or February when the snow was deep for cross country skiing. This year we did some hiking in the hills instead, another way to enjoy the beauty of the snowy trees. I can hardly wait to visit again. Continue reading →

Middle Europe Weekly Small Pleasures #29 – chocolate, kriek and autumn forest

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Well 2016 has certainly been a year of change worldwide. Terror attacks, Brexit, turbulent politics in South Africa and now Trump’s election. They say you always remember where you are when you hear dramatic news, and probably I will always remember that I was in Brussels at a meeting when Trump was elected. Because of my meeting, my husband and I spent the weekend in Belgium. We’ve been to Brussels several times before and have also visited Bruges, Ghent, Blankenberg, Spa, Lieges and Leuven, so this time we decided to take a day trip to Antwerp. I’ll write about our trip in a separate post, but Belgium is full of things to enjoy, and so this week my weekly small pleasures were Belgian ones. Check out the weekly small pleasures of others here at a New Life Wandering. Continue reading →

Posts I’ve yet to publish

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Dear bloggers, I bet all of you have a few posts in your draft box that have not yet been published! Well, Alyssa at the blog alyssagoesbang wants to hear about them. I definitely have some sitting around that I’ve been meaning to finish (or start) for ages, and I enjoyed reading other people’s lists too. Here is my list. Which one of these abandoned posts would you like to see me finally publish? Continue reading →

Festival of Leaves – week 7

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It’s time for another year of Festival of Leaves. This is the place to share your love for autumn and rain, for dark evenings and cups of tea, of books and all that you love during this time of the year.

– Verena Cave

The last few weeks have been very grey with a lot of mist, but luckily the bright yellow leaves shining on all the trees cheer everything up. The pavement outside my work looks like a whole lot of yellow stars fell to the ground.

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The leaves are falling quite fast though – from the beginning to the end of this week one particularly beautiful tree has lost almost all of its leaves. I’m looking forward to getting out to the countryside in the weekend to really enjoy the autumn colours, before they’re all gone!

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