Happy New Year!

I wish everyone lots of fun tonight and a happy new year with these Danish tea-biscuits decorated with Sugar Belle’s 20-second icing technique.

The round-shaped cookies are sort of confetti and the triangular cookies are sort of party hats. :)))

Roasted Hazelnut Brownies

The brownie has been on my wish list for a long time now (since September :))) ) and I only had to wait until now.  

The opportunity showed itself as 1) at Christmas I have more time to bake; 2) I have a big family, who can try and test them and 3) my father has a huge stock of hazelnuts from last year.

I chose Jamie Oliver brownie recipe, but adapted to my taste.

Blueberry Panna Cotta

It seems I cannot take a break from making panna cotta. Here is a newbie, panna cotta with blueberry sauce.

I prepared the panna cotta just like I did with Cranberry Panna Cotta or with Panna Cotta with Mango Sauce.

Gingerbread Cookies

I received an amazing gingerbread cookie recipe from a kind neighbour of my grandma. It was SUPER EASY to prepare. Really. Last year I had a recipe, where the dough was so hard to handle that my wrist hurt at the end because of rolling out the dough. Not this time. I could have use only one finger to roll out the dough. It is definitely a keeper.

Christmas Panna Cotta

Let me start saying I LOVE PANNA COTTA. I could eat panna cotta every day. As Christmas is almost knocking at our doors, I decided to make my own Christmas panna cotta inspired by ginger bread cookies. :)))

Meringue Kisses

As there were 3 egg whites left after making a zabaglione, it is not a surprise that I made some meringues. 

Actually, I made meringue kisses at least that is how we call them in Hungary. I made two sorts: one with nuts, peanuts and almonds, the other one with dried cranberries and cinnamon.

Panattone with Zabaglione

Finally, I managed to try panattone, as I found a nice, small (100g) packet in the supermarket. Compared to a 1 kg packet, I saw all the time.

As I heard from my Milanese colleague, pandoro is the traditional Christmas pastry for Verona, but panattone is from Milan.

Danish Tea-Biscuits for a Baby Shower

This week I had another excuse to make sugar cookies as we were invited to an almost baby shower party. Almost as the due date is still 3 weeks ahead and the almost new parents wanted just a small get together before the baby comes. Anyway, it was a good excuse for me to surprise them.

I baked the sugar cookies on Friday and decorated them on Saturday.

My first intention was to bake the same sugar cookies as the Santa Clause cookies, but I changed my mind and made some vanilla cookies. They all tasted like those Danish tea-biscuits that they sell in red, round-shape metal boxes. As my husband is not fond of marzipan and almond flavour ( - I really do not understand why - ), he just loved these vanilla cookies. So here comes the recipe

Snowflakes Cookies

I needed the following:

- royal icing (piping and flooding),

- Wilton #2,

- piping bag,

- blue food colouring,

- toothpick.

Reindeer Cookies

I needed the following:

- royal icing (piping and flooding),

- sugar pearls,

- Wilton #2,

- piping bag,

- brown and red food colouring,

- toothpick.

Santa Clause Cookie

I needed the following:

- royal icing (piping and flooding),

- sugar pearls,

- Wilton #2 and #16,

- piping bag,

- red food colouring,

- toothpick.

Snowman Cookies

I needed the following:

- royal icing (piping and flooding),

- sugar pearls,

- Wilton #2,

- piping bag,

- brown food colouring,

- toothpick.

Sugar Cookie and Royal Icing Recipes

As sugar cookie is very popular just as cupcakes there were a tons of recipes. My favourite sugar cookie decorating blog so far is "The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle" I wanted to try her basic sugar cookie recipe.

Again I struggled was the amount of the ingredients as I did not need 100 cookies. After all I came up with the below, from which I made 16 reindeers, 12 Santa Clauses, 8 snowflakes and 8 snowmen.

Sugar Cookies for Santa Clause

I have been playing with the idea for some time now to try decorating sugar cookies. Mainly, after I came across "The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle". She is amazing.

As it was my first time and it took me a day to figure out things, to bake, to prepare icing and to decorate, I had no more time today to write a post. 

Vanilla Custard

After my first encounter with the pandoro, two weeks later we brought our second pandoro. As in one of the Hungarian comments Vica said that it is amazing with vanilla custard, I made some this time.

The basic vanilla custard is egg yolk, sugar and milk. Nothing else. Of course, you can add some vanilla extract or beans if you want.

So, I gathered up myself to prepare a fabulous breakfast for my husband.

Moelleux au Chocolat

In Luxembourg all pastry shops sell moelleux au chocolat, which looks like to me as chocolate soufflé.

I found the recipe of moelleux au chocolat here. It seems indeed that the ingredients are very similar to that of the soufflé. The only difference is that you do not whisk the egg whites separately.

It takes 20 minutes to prepare the dough and another 20 minutes to bake it. So it is a fairly quick pastry. The only thing I changed is the amount of sugar i.e. exchanging the packet of vanilla sugar to vanilla extract.

Garlic Cheese Crescents

I found Mónika’s (aka "kreatív konyha") garlic-cheese crescent this Friday and I should say, it was love at first sight. Sadly, I cannot smell these pastries through internet, but my nose was immediately triggered. The other pastry I initially planned to bake today was postponed to Sunday.

Tasting Pandoro, the Christmas pastry of Verona

It has been a week since all I see in the supermarket is the huge boxes of pandoros and panattones. I came across them a couple of year ago, but I haven’t tried either of them. First, because they are really HUGE, like it is for a family of min. 10 people and second, because they are ready-made and ready-made pastries taste – for me – artificial.

So, I was very sceptical. This weekend, however among the huge boxes I found a little, only 100 g box. The manufacturer – of course – stated on the packaging that this is the best Italian pandoro. So what else a food blogger should have been done? Yeah, I bought it. :)))

Apple Cookies

I think I inherited from my grandma to use everything before they go bad. 

Since Monday I have been watching the apples getting closer and closer to go bad, but I had no fancy to eat them just like that. So I asked it from myself: What should I do with them? Eureka, all I have to do is to adapt the triple chocolate cookie recipe. Have I also seen some nuts, peanuts and almonds in the cupboard? Oh yes.

Chocolate Tart with Mascarpone Chestnut Puree and Marzipan Trimmings

I wanted to try David Lebovitz’s chocolate tart since the beginning of October, but caramelizing the sugar was still very scary for me (see my previous experience). This weekend however, I gathered all my courage and gave it a go.

Chestnut puree and chocolate always amazed me and I have been wondering for a while now how would the famous Mozart-Kugeln taste with chestnut puree instead of truffle. As finally I chose a recipe with seasonal ingredients, there was no turning back.

Raspberry Mascarpone Cream

I love mascarpone. When I can, I always try to incorporate it in the recipe somehow. I think you can match mascarpone with everything. I know that it is not the season of fresh raspberries, but I caould not wait until next July. 

Panna Cotta with Mango Sauce

As I loved the cranberry panna cottas, I decided to try it with other sauces. This story began with me seeing mangoes in the supermarket. 
 

To make panna cottas, I used the same recipe as to make cranberry panna cottas.

Cranberry Panna Cotta

I have been thinking about panna cotta for a while, especially after I tried it in Vapiano. When I saw cranberries in the store, I was destined to try to make them. As it will be a first for me, I tried to make it to be special, so I decided I do a multi-layer panna cotta.  

Granny’s Milk Pie

This dessert in Hungary is also known as intelligent cream pie. This is because if you make it as a regular cake, then out of one dough you will have the paste part, the cream part and the mousse part. You do not have to do anything. The layers will be formed on their own in the oven. It is incredible.

However, my Grandma makes it as a thin cake and roll it up. The whole family turns into piranhas, when she makes this cake and 2 minutes later it is usually gone. One batch is never enough.

Ganache (Chocolate Banana Tarts)

What the hell is a ganache?

I thought that behind this French name there is a special chocolate cream. But I was wrong. It is one of the easiest chocolate cream I have ever seen.

"Macarons" from Namur

I have been planning to try the MACARON for 2 months now. Yes, macaron with all capital letters, as a pastry shop cannot be called a pastry shop if it does n't sell macarons.

I have been waiting because it is such a small cookie (1 inch in diameter) and still costs more than 1 EUR (1.5 USD).

I've heard before about Namur as the best pastry shop in Luxembourg. And when I was in the city center looking for a book store and suddenly bumped into Namur.

Cinnamon Tarte Tatin

It was sooo hard to wait until the weekend. I have been thinking about Tarte Tartin for 5 days now.

I knew it is not the easiest "tart" in the world, but it must be one of the most delicious one. I read tons of recipes and watched hundreds of videos and on Saturday morning I took a deep breath and started. 

My First Encounter with Panna Cotta

Panna cotta is a dessert that I constantly mix up with crème caramel and sometimes even with crème brulée.

We were at an Italian restaurant called Vapiano and I saw the panna cotta on the menu. Since I started blogging I pay extra attention to try new dishes, desserts etc. So there was no question on what should I try this time.

Hot Chocolate Triple Chocolate Chip Cookie

I only made these cookies a few times, but I already adore them. Moreover, it is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe I have ever tried. To be honest, I haven’t tried much, but still...

I was in a chocolate chip cookie mood, when I came across this recipe.

I am rookie in the field of cup-gram conversion and I didn’t have a proper cup measuring “device” either. So after I measured all ingredients with my regular tee mug, it seemed like I had a ton of dry and 2 litres of wet ingredients that would probably make 100 cookies.

As I am only leading a two-person household, namely me and my husband, I thought 100 cookies would be a bit too much. The ingredients have already been mixed, so the only thing I could do was to take ¼ of both dry and wet mixture and go on.

Later on, I did measure the ingredients that would make 10-12 cookies. See you below.

Mini Cream Tarts with Grapes

I had a lot of grapes, so I began thinking what to do with them. I searched on the internet, when I came across a delicious cream filling. 

The ingredients were mascarpone, heavy cream, honey and zest of lemon. 

French Apple Tart after Jane Price

Decorating is also important here, although I didn’t work with either marzipan or icing.

Baking this tart was very easy, although you have certain steps you cannot do parallel that makes it slower to make. 

I call it "French apple tart after Jane Price" as I adapted it from a recipe in her book of The Essential Dessert Cookbook.

Cake with Marzipan Tulips

First of all, it is only fair to say that decorating this cake was very time-consuming, at least for me. It is mainly due to the fact that I made all pieces from the first down to the last on my own. The tulips, the basket and the grass took me 3 hours to make (not counting in the baking of the cake itself :))). The truth is I was also very slow.

How to Make Marzipan Orchids?

This is my first cake that I baked and covered with marzipan completely on my own. 

The occasion was the graduation of my niece. :)))

I thank the recipe for Mariann, who originally made this fantastic blueberry mascarpone cheese cake. And thank also to the 2-day course at www.desszertmester.hu, where I learned how to cover a cake with marzipan.