Spices are ingredients I love – to the point of buying a cookbook devoted to them – and I use them throughout the year, but this time of the year is when I reach for them the most: lots of ginger, cinnamon and cloves to set the mood for Christmas. My holiday series starts now, with super tender muffins perfumed with ginger, both fresh and ground – and to make everything even more delicious,
Gingerbread chocolate chip muffins - it's Christmas time around here!
Spices are ingredients I love – to the point of buying a cookbook devoted to them – and I use them throughout the year, but this time of the year is when I reach for them the most: lots of ginger, cinnamon and cloves to set the mood for Christmas. My holiday series starts now, with super tender muffins perfumed with ginger, both fresh and ground – and to make everything even more delicious,
Amaretto butter cakes + "Argo"
Years ago I watched a good movie called “Gone Baby Gone” which to my surprise had been directed by Mr. Ben Affleck; he’d never been one of my favorite actors, but since I’d been pleased with his directorial debut and had also liked his performance in “Hollywoodland” I thought that watching “The Town” was mandatory – and what a great film that turned out to be, with an insanely good performance
Chocolate peanut butter biscotti
The biscotti-craze doesn't seem to be going anywhere, therefore it was not so difficult for me to choose which recipe to make first from the oh, so beautiful "Tea With Bea": the cheesecakes looked amazing and I felt tempted to start with one of them, but since I did not have any cream cheese in the fridge I went for the chocolate pb biscotti. I have to honest with you: the dough needed some
Lemon and almond buns + Dragonette
I have many favorite TV shows and one of them is “Chuck’s Day Off” – not only because the food looks delicious but also because to me it has the best soundtrack among the cooking shows. After watching several episodes, I noticed that one album cover kept appearing at the end of the show, and after listening to some of the tracks I completely fell in love with Dragonette’s “Fixin To Thrill”. My
Apple, berry, almond and chocolate crumble
Since almonds, berries and apple worked so beautifully in tart form, I could not wait to try this crumble: all those flavors combined without the need of making pastry – not that I don’t like making pastry, I actually enjoying it very much, but when the need for something sweet is urgent there’s no time for chilling pastry. :D
I was also very intrigued by the addition of chocolate to the
Lemon-frosted pistachio cake
Hollywood is dominated by men, or better, by white men, so I am always glad to watch women deliver great work. Not many directors are women - some of them are really, really talented and responsible for masterpieces, like Jane Campion and Susanne Bier. Now Vera Farmiga, an actress I'm very fond of, has stepped into directing shoes and brings the beautiful and so sensitive "Higher Ground" - a
Orange cardamom madeleines with Cointreau glaze
These madeleines were a sort of a baking accident: I grabbed Martha's gorgeous book to pick a Christmas cookie (to start off this year's Christmas series) but when I started flipping through it the first recipe I saw was the one for these madeleines: they looked so beautiful! I had all the ingredients at home so to the kitchen I went to make the madeleines, and since the batter needed some time
Double chocolate cookies (made with sweetened condensed milk)
After a time consuming cake I thought you deserved an easy recipe, and these cookies are very, very easy; I have made tons of chocolate chip cookies so far but what made me curious about these was the sweetened condensed milk based dough - I'll just warn you that it is going to be very difficult not to eat the dough right out of the fridge by spoonful. :D
Double chocolate cookies (made with
Maple pecan chiffon cake with brown butter icing
Much the same way I bought Alissa Huntsman's latest cookbook because of her beautiful previous one, I could not wait to get my hands on Julie Richardson's new cookbook since I adore her "Rustic Fruit Desserts" so much - a book full of cake recipes? You know I like that a lot. :D
I first thought of making an angel food cake - because of the insane amount of egg whites in my freezer - but when I
Roast tomato and goats cheese frittata
Another great idea for a quick and easy dinner or lunch, this frittata recipe can work as a blank canvas: I went for roast tomatoes, which I love, and goats cheese, which I also love and had to use up before it went bad, but you can use other types of cheese, vegetables and herbs (zucchini, feta and mint come to my mind right now, yum!). And as Jamie's tart, the frittata tastes great either hot
Santa Lucia sour cherry and saffron buns
Usually it takes me some time to consider a cookbook a top favorite – I love beautiful books and they certainly get my instant attention, but I like to try some of the recipes first to be sure they actually work. However, Signe Johansen’s Scandilicious Baking is so pretty and everything in it sounds so delicious I came to the conclusion that it was the best cookbook I purchased in the last 11
St. Clement’s drizzle cake
Not everything in life turns out the way we expect it be and to me understanding that is part of growing up – learning to deal with deception and disappointment may not be a pleasant thing to do but it is certainly necessary. And exactly because of that I find it wonderful when something I expected to be great actually is, even little things like a good movie or a good book. My hopes were high
Almond and rosewater shortbread
I might love baking cookies but I usually shy away from rolled out kind – yes, I’m lazy and yes, I’ve turned several rolled out cookie recipes into slice and bake cookies out of sheer laziness. Not a very nice thing to admit, I know, but true. So months ago, on a cool day – which because of the temperatures we’ve been having here lately seems even more distant – I decided to make roll out
Molasses and caraway apple muffins
New ingredients always intrigue me: I love trying new flavors in my kitchen. I got even more interested in baking with different flours after making Alice Medrich's fabulous chestnut pound cake and also after purchasing Kim Boyce's fantastic cookbook; Kim's carrot muffins turned out delicious, so when I saw a new recipe for muffins made with a bit of spelt flour I had to try them - these are
White chocolate cake with passion fruit icing
I know, I know, white chocolate and passion fruit combined again – since I had passion fruits galore in my fridge and the flavor combo had worked so beautifully in cheesecake form, I thought that using it again as a cake would be a great idea – and indeed it was; but don’t worry: if you’re not into sour flavors as I am, just glaze the cake with a simple dark chocolate ganache – that is what