Let's Get Lost, March 2,2024

7 signs your bread dough is kneaded enough explains the signs you need to look for while kneading the bread dough.

Knowing me, you know I love to cook and bake and get excited whenever I see a shop selling anything to do with kitchen supplies and decorations for cakes etc. You also know, that when I see a new r…

A simple but versatile egg cup recipe that is perfect for brunch. Includes a delicious parma ham, spinach or roasted peppers filling.

Allow me to introduce you to one of my favorite Italian custard-filled pastries. Meet pasticciotti. I'm going to let you figure out how to ...

INTRODUCTION Trust me, all traditional recipes are straightforward and easy. This recipe is no exception. However, I do not think that I will prepare this in the near future as it is very laborious. It took me about 1 hour to wrap about 40 small pieces….It is not the recipe fault but my own productivity.. […]

I know it takes me years to post a new recipe, and I apologize for all of you who are following my blog and may be wondering why am I such a lazy blogger??!! I am "lazy" when it comes to writing and posting. I essentially created this blog mainly because people were asking for recipes on my flickr page, and my answer would be: soon .............on my blog! I ,hopefully, will be more serious and post more often. This post didn't help get me back on track, I almost gave up. I had so much trouble getting it all together. I wrote it may be 5 or 6 times and kept losing the whole work after adding a link. I gave up the link- obviously- and ended up frustrated! writing always drives me nuts!! Grrrrrr..... Speaking about nuts, I need to mention couple things regarding this recipe. First, I am not a big fan of banana bread. I only make it when I have ripe bananas sitting on my kitchen counter for days. The cake itself is good and I think banana bread lovers will like it. BUT, the issue is in the "nuts". I discovered lately that I'm no fan of nuts in cakes anymore. I don't like when they become soggy when mixed and cooked with any kind of batter. So, I left their addition optional and let you decide! Pistachio & Banana Mini Cakes (or 1 large loaf/cake) 100g butter, melted and cooled 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1 cup granulated sugar 4 eggs 4 medium bananas (preferably ripe), pureed 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour 1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp baking powder 1/2 cup milk 2 Tbsp lemon juice Pinch of salt 1/2 to 1 cup chopped pistachios mixed with a tablespoon of flour Preparation 1- Preheat the oven to 350 f. Butter and flour a large loaf pan or ramekins (you need a lot of those if you're making the full recipe) 2- Beat the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the melted butter, oil and the pureed bananas. Mix until well combined. 3- Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder and the salt. Mix the milk and lemon juice. Set aside. 4- Add the dry ingredients mix to the wet one alternating with the milk. Fold in the chopped nuts 5-Bake until a toothpick inserted inside the cake(s) comes out clean. For the large loaf pan it will take between 50 and 55 minutes. The smaller ones, approximately 20 minutes. Cool before enjoying!

When I started working at Payard Pâtisserie in New York City, I had already been a pastry chef in Boston for a few years. I couldn't wait to see what this French guy could teach me. On my first day, I was handed a stack of recipes—all in French—and immediately realized it would be a challenging year. I spoke and read basic French, but I was pretty hazy on much of the baking vocabulary, and there were many words I'd never even seen before. _Pithivier_ was one of them. I didn't even know how to pronounce it. (It's pee-tee-vee-YAY .) "Watch and learn," Chef Payard told me. He sandwiched a mound of rum-scented almond cream between two large squares of homemade puff pastry and then quickly scalloped the edges of the pastry to look like a sunflower. Slash-slash-slash went his paring knife over the top pastry as he etched sun rays into the surface. The whole thing went into the oven and emerged golden brown with a glorious starburst pattern on top. It put every other pastry I had ever made previously to shame. At Flour, we give our own spin to the pithivier by omitting the rum and adding a thick layer of caramelized apple butter atop the almond cream. It's a spectacular dessert.

APPLE & CUSTARD KATAIFI PIE. We love experimenting with new ways to use our family’s Kataifi Pastry. Here, we’ve taken the classic flavour combination of apples and creamy custard, and encased it in...

Unless you’re a skilled pastry chef, wrapping ultrathin, delicate dough around a wet filling is usually a recipe for disaster. We wanted a strudel recipe for the rest of us. Most modern phyllo-based versions of strudel have tough layers of phyllo on the underside, while the sheets on top shatter before you even cut a slice. Meanwhile, fillings collapse and leak everywhere, despite the bread crumbs supposedly added to soak up liquid and prevent leaking (instead, they just make the filling taste pasty). We warmed our apples through in the microwave in order to activate an enzyme that allows them to bake until tender without collapsing, and we stirred in ultradry panko bread crumbs instead of homemade toasted crumbs since we could use less of them (thus avoiding pastiness) to soak up a comparable amount of liquid. To avoid a compressed, tough underside, we used fewer sheets of phyllo and changed the typical wrapping technique so the seam was on the top instead of on the bottom. To minimize the flyaways on top, we dusted a small amount of confectioners’ sugar between the phyllo layers so that they fused in the oven, and we sliced our strudel while it was warm. Making two smaller strudels further simplified assembly.

A saffron simple syrup soaked crunchy treat served with persian tea - I surprised my grandma with this recipe and she was blown away...it's hard to find good zulbia!

Stella Pastry and Café (446 Columbus at Green) has been delighting North Beach inhabitants and tourists alike with confections and coffee since 1942. Its Web site bears…

Creamy coconut tapioca pudding with glazed pineapple is one of the desserts I obsessed over when I lived in New York City and worked for François Payard. All of the cooks at Payard Patisserie spent our free time talking about the places we dreamed of going and the dishes we couldn't wait to try. One of the cooks told me about how Claudia Fleming, at the time the pastry chef at Gramercy Tavern, had created a dreamy tapioca that could not be missed. He was right—on one of my last nights in NYC, I was finally able to try it, and thereafter every time I went to visit NYC, I made a point of going back to order it again. Sadly, it's no longer on the menu, but I've channeled it here in this version. It's light and refreshing and uses the natural sugars of mango, pineapple, and apple juice to complement the richness of the coconut milk.

A combination of sourdough pastry and cheese is what makes one of the best snacks in the world - Sourdough Cheese Straws! Similar to our Cheese Straws with Cumin Seeds, however, these are made completely from scratch, using sourdough starter in the pastry and two types of cheese. Further flavoured with smoked paprika, these are our favourite treat to pack for a picnic!

Yes I know, I know, I'm so late to be posting about Adriano Zumbo's Summer collection but in my defence, your Honour, I don't really live closeby and I do find it hard to get here. However this time, I am ordering cakes for my birthday and of course where else would I get them but Zumbo.

I feel pretty confident in my cooking and baking skills. While there are still tons and tons of techniques and recipes I haven’t tried, I have decent success learning new methods after researching thoroughly. For some reason though, true pastry has slightly intimidated me for some time. Finally I decided I just couldn’t wait any longer […]

INTRODUCTION This post has been with me for quite a while but did not find time to share the recipe. Since I have family commitment these few weeks and unable to develop new recipes, I therefore retrieve from the recipe bank and share with readers. Crystal pao or buns is not a very common delicacy […]

We all have them. Those odd cookbooks that just seem to appear in our collections — some we picked up on travels, or were given to us by friends and family, or came from antique stores or flea markets whose covers we just couldn’t resist. Here are some of the obscure-ish but much-loved cookbooks in my own collection. I use some of them all the time, while I just enjoy having others on my shelf. Regardless, they have stories, and today, I’m here to tell you what they are.

Hi sweet readers ♥ I love vanilla cream or pastry cream, and if you have followed me for a while, you know I love vanilla. In Norway, we often use pastry cream between cake layers in cream puffs or sweet vanilla buns It is delicious and so easy to make. Today I want to show you with

This delicious recipe comes from District Nurse Team Leader, Victoria (Vicki)… “I’m a District Nurse Team Leader for Merthyr Valley…

Scones are an easy to make breakfast or brunch pastry that everyone loves. This recipe incorporates some Moroccan flavors and comes together in a snap.

According to me, from my first visit to New York City. What you must see, from the stunning interior of St. Patrick's Cathedral to Rockefeller Center, the Plaza Hotel and Central Park. What you must eat, from bagels to an NY slice to afternoon tea and a delectable French pastry you may not have heard about!

PrintThe original recipe was given to me many years ago, by Zoe Evangelou; the recipe was revised by Vali Manouelides, while later I came up with the idea to make bite-size eliopites, as by cutting the roll into thin slices the stuffing often falls off. See below my new variation for rolls and pies made with the […]

My favorite thing about the many blogging groups I’m in, besides the feeling of community and support, is that they give me direction. I like having a “homework assignment” to hel…

They're fleeing violence to an uncertain future.

If you love the sweets, try these. Our viral chocolate egg croissant balls recipe only needs a quick 8 minutes in your air fryer, and voila.

This is a traditional and delicious Welsh classic, using humble but tasty ingredients.

My experiments with and about sourdough baking have taken me to new places. There is a cult of sourdough bakers, to be sure. And if you’ve read anything at all about baking with sourdough starter i…

Sweet Tahini buns or halva buns are a Turkish bread made from tahini, brown sugar and pastry dough. If you know me I am a cookbook hoarder. And whenever I get a new cookbook I love going through it, oggling at the pictures, making mental notes of what I want to make from them and … Read More →

My husband and I like to entertain at breakfast, and we're always looking for new recipes. So I was thrilled when my daughter shared this butterhorn recipe with me. They're so rich, light and easy to make.