White, Black and Wood Mood

The tones I'm loving these days.

Wishing all a great weekend!

sources: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 

Denmark's Loveliest Home

Danmarks Skønneste Hjem was a program on Danish television where people opened the doors to their homes and competed for the tittle of Denmark's Loveliest Home. I followed it religiously, even though I couldn't understand half of what the judges were saying (Danish is NOT an easy language). But I couldn't pass the opportunity of peeking inside all those wonderful homes - minimalistic, bohemian, eco-friendly, mid-century inspired... 

Every week the judges would visit 3 homes in search of the most "inspiring, personal and wonderful" of them all. Obviously that was an extremely subjective and difficult task. But that was not my problem and all I cared about was to absorb as much inspiration as possible in those few minutes of filming. 

So today I'm sharing some photos of the winning home, taken by Mikkel Adsbøl for Femina magazine. 

I must confess this was actually one of my favourites. And what I love more about it is the wonderful succession of black and white spaces. The contrast of those transitions is absolutely stunning!

The predominance of white, the open and fluid spaces and the ingenious way of combining great pieces of design with findings from a flee market, leave no doubt that this is a great "specimen" of a Scandinavian home. 

all images via Femina

Scandinavian style - Colours

I realised that, on my last post, I mention that we can find the use a very specific combination of colours in many Scandinavian design collections - Black and white, pastel tones and some "pop up" colours - but I don't know if it became clear what I meant by it. So I decided to demonstrate it here with a few more examples of Scandinavian design. And if you usually look for images of Scandinavian interiors, you have most likely seen the same scheme of colours applied to an entire room or home.

via ferm Living

ceramics by ferm Living   .   images via

Omaggio by Kähler   .   images via

Contrast cups by Royal Copenhagen   .   image via

DML DML xL by HAY   .   image via

Linda Lundgren

I´m still on vacation on a very warm and very humid island! 

So I´ll just quickly put here some beautiful pictures, some in tones of white, others in tones of black, by the Swedish food stylist  Linda Lundgren on Agent Bauer.

All images via Agent Bauer.

chalckboard paint jar

As I mentioned earlier this week, I made my first experiment with chalkboard paint. I used an empty bottle of Cocio (Danish chocolate milk), that may or may not have been consumed with some hot-dogs... and got myself a nice black jar, but since I'm not good at keeping flowers alive I chose to use reeds instead.

I ordered the paint from Amazon (specific for smooth surfaces like ceramics or glass). You are supposed to paint the bottle and let it dry for 24h. Unfortunately, due to some inexperience or pure "nabness", I put to much paint in some areas, which covered parts of the nice texture the bottle has. And the jar is full of imperfections because the paint started running down like a candle melting. I love it anyway but my advise is to not use to much paint in the beginning, because it has a tendency to spread by itself when it's drying anyway. And then if need be, apply a second hand later. After it's dry, it goes in the oven for 35 minutes at 150.C. When it's done you can use chalk to write on it. Looks nice and it's fun.

Black mood...

No, I'm not sad or depressed. 

I've just been doing my first experiment with black chalkboard paint, and now I need to wait 24h for the paint to dry, then cook it and only then see the finally result. So, in the meanwhile, I felt like sharing some beautiful pictures about black.

via Suvi sur le vif

by Annaleena

via FERM living

by Elisa Ossino

mo+mo living

mo+mo living

looking down #1

Chocolate Cakes! (yes... 2 recipes)

For the last 2 weeks I've been debating with which chocolate cake to make and post here. The thing is, my boyfriend has been begging me to make the same cake I made for new years eve; and my friend Ana, my oldest friend, has asked me to post the recipe of a cake that my grandmother used to make when we were kids.

I was going to make the cake for Ana because it would be something different, since instead of flour it takes milled almond, and because I haven't tasted it for many years. But Emil used his power of veto and "demanded" the normal chocolate cake for this Saturday (I normally bake on Saturdays).

So, to make everyone happy, I leave you here the two recipes... they are both very good... enjoy!

Normal Chocolate Cake

for the cake:

4 eggs (separate yolks and whites)

180g sugar

180g butter

200g dark chocolate 

100g flour

a pinch of salt

to cover:

150g of dark chocolate (the reason it's not the whole 200g is that Emil normally stages a "coup" in the kitchen and eats some of the chocolate)

2 table spoons of butter

1/2 cup milk

You probably know the drill but here it goes:

Pre-heat the oven at 180.C.  Melt the chocolate with the butter. Beat well the egg yolks with the sugar. Add the chocolate mixture and beat until well mixed. In the meanwhile beat the whites until stiffened. Add the flour in small amounts at a time and beat the mixture very slowly and not for long, just enough. Add the whites and mixed it by hand, slowly with large movements, you want an fluffy and airy mixture. Add a pinch of cooking salt just to open the flavour of the chocolate. Goes to the oven 15-20 min, and it's supposed to stay moist in the middle. Melt the chocolate and the butter with the milk (low fire), for the cover, and mix well. cover the cake and wait until it gets cold to eat.

My Grandmother's chocolate and almond cake

200g milled almond (with skin)
200g sugar
200g dark chocolate
200g unsalted butter
6 eggs

Melt the chocolate with the butter. Add the almonds. Beat the yolks with the sugar. Add that to the 
chocolate mixture. Add the beaten whites and mix. (this part is more or less the same as with the other recipe). But then it goes to the oven in a water-bath (bain-marie) at 200-220.C for 1h30m.

E sim, também escrevi em português...