Cocoa or vanilla daisy pastries?

daisy short pastry

Hello! We are enjoying warm Spring days, which are getting longer and longer. Sometimes, after dinner time, it might happen you want to enjoy a glass of fresh milk and perhaps a light dessert in front of a good reading. The following recipe of small daisy pastries is for those who, like me, love to bake simple genuine tastes at any time of the day. Of course children would love them too!

As for the short pastry:

• 250 gr all purpose organic flour
• 100 gr sugar
• 1 pod of vanilla
• 1 egg
• 100 gr butter
• a sprinkle of salt
• 2 or 3 spoons of cocoa powder
• a sprinkle of cardamom
• vanilla icing sugar

As for the filling:

use what you have in your pantry, or what you like best. I used some home made apricot jam for the cocoa daisy short pastries and “nutella” cream for the vanilla daisy short pastries.

First of all, make the short pastry by mixing well and very fast the ingredients all together. Only in the end, add the cocoa powder and a sprinkle of cardamom, right after you have split the mixture in two portions, in order to have two different tastes, that is vanilla and cocoa. Leave the short pastry to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Start with the vanilla short pastry. Help yourself with a rolling pin and greaseproof paper and get a thin (2-3mm) layer. Make small daisies with a mould and spread “nutella” cream on the surface of the daisy, then cover it with an other daisy. Do the same work with the cocoa version of daisies, spreading their surface with apricot jam. The daisies go in the 170°C oven for 10/12 minutes.

Out of the oven they will be deliciously fragrant with a warm melting filling inside. Serve them with vanilla icing sugar on top.

Now, can you tell which tastes you like best, vanilla or cocoa? Thank you and wishing everybody a good new week!

daisy short pastry

Almond bread: an old family recipe on Easter Monday

It was a very special Easter Day, which was spent, most of it, between writing and talking to members of the family and friends. Besides, according to the culinary traditions of my family at Easter time, last night I enjoyed baking a fragrant almond bread ideal to be served at any coffee pause throughout the day or to bring with as a dessert for a picnic now that Spring has come.

The ingredients of the recipe to make the almond bread are:

• 170 gr cake and pastry flour
• 100 gr sugar
• 75 gr butter
• 3 eggs + a yolk to paint on the surface of the bread
• 250 ml of white wine
• a coffee cup of Alchermes liqueur
• 100 gr peeled almonds
• 50 gr hazelnuts
• the peel of a lemon
• a sprinkle of salt
• 2 cloves
• 8 gr baking powder

1. Start with beating one egg and an albumen with 25 gr sugar and the Alchermes. Then, add 50 gr minced almonds and the hazelnuts, a couple of cloves and work all together until you will have a fluid creamy mixture.
2. Prepare a second mixture made of flour, one egg and a yolk, a sprinkle of salt, the butter (at this proper, my aunt, who used to enjoy baking this bread and to deliver it to neighbours and members of the family, would have add lard instead of butter), the rest of minced almonds mixed with sugar, the peel of a lemon and the wine. Add the baking powder and work the mixture just a couple of minutes in order to have all ingredients well combined.
3. Divide the mixture in two parts (help yourself with a rolling pin and little flour) and make two layers for your greased, floured baking tray.
4. Place the first layer in the baking tray. Please, do not forget to make 1 cm border with the first layer all around the baking tray.
5. Pour the cream made with the first mixture and then add the second layer on. Seal hermetically, paint some yolk on the surface of the bread, make some decors with a knife.
6. Place the almond bread in the oven and bake it slowly and gently for about 50 minutes (160°C).
7. Decor your almond bread for the right occasion, serve it with a couple of spoons of vanilla cream or some ice cream or enjoy it with your preferred drink.

A good Easter Monday and safe new week to everybody! Thank you 🙏💖

Shall we take a walk?

Looking at pictures I took in Stockholm in the Autumn season, it just comes to my mind the strong desire of being there again. Indeed, temperatures have been very nice recently. Any way, while we wait for a vaccine and the right therapies, which should cross humanity over the dreadful pandemia and finally guarantee safer health conditions for everybody in the world, let’s try to live one day at a time, in the good effort of being in contact with nature as much as possible.

Shall we take a walk? Enjoy the video ❤

Glad Midsommar

Please, stay safe everybody and enjoy Summer days ❤

Welcome June

“The poetry of the earth is never dead.”
― John Keats

Time for some relax and for enjoying long walks into nature. Wishing a good weekend to everybody!

• 

  Branta Leucopsis

• 

  Branta Leucopsis

• 

  Branta Leucopsis

• 

• 

  Branta Leucopsis

• 

  Branta Leucopsis

• 

  Branta Leucopsis

• 

  Branta Leucopsis

• 

  Branta Leucopsis

• 

  Branta Leucopsis

• 

  Branta Leucopsis

• 

  Branta Leucopsis

• 

• 

Zucchini flowers and Summer nuances for a picnic

Soon it’s gonna be Summer again and we love staying in the open air, living the cosy moments of conviviality with family and friends around a table or, even better, sitting on the grass for enjoying a picnic. At this proper, stuffed zucchini flowers, fried and served warm, might be an inviting and very welcome appetizer. Here to follow we have got the ingredients and few steps for the execution of the dish.

• 20 zucchini flowers
• 500 gr cow milk ricotta cheese
• 25 gr parmigiano + 25 gr rodez cheese
• 50 gr mortadella Bologna
• 10 green big olives
• flour and cold sparkling water for the batter
• peanut oil to fry
• salt and black powder pepper.

1. prepare the stuffing mixing the ricotta cheese, grated cheese, a sprinkle of salt and pepper, minced olives and mortadella.
2. Wash the zucchini flowers and dry gently them on a sheet of blotting paper.
3. Prepare a thick batter made with flour and cold sparkling water, add a sprinkle of salt and leave it to rest for 10/15 minutes.
4. In the meanwhile, stuff the zucchini flowers with the mixture (help yourself with a tea spoon) and accurately close them.
5. Warm the oil in a frying pan.
6. Dip each stuffed zucchini flower in the batter at first and then fry it in the oil.
7. Serve the stuffed zucchini flowers as entrée with a glass of wine you prefer and enjoy the picnic.

Zucchini flowers

Preparing stuffing for zucchini flowers

Stuffing for zucchini flowers: ricotta cheese, mortadella bologna, green big olives, grated parmigiano and rodez cheese, black pepper powder

thick batter made with flour and water

stuffed zucchini flowers before being fried

An excellent dish: hand made pasta bows and broccoli on Mardi gras

• 

• 

• 

Hello! For celebrating Mardi gras we are going to prepare an excellent dish that both children and older children, who enjoy to make pasta dough, would love to try. We need only few genuine ingredients, which, by the way, remind of traditional tastes of Apulia gastronomy.

As for the pasta dough, on this occasion, I mix semolina flour and a local ancient biological durum wheat flour with some water. No eggs are necessary. It takes only few minutes for a thick homogeneous mixture, which then will be worked (you may help yourself by using the nonna papera machine) for becoming very thin sheets of pastry. After that, make small rectangles of those sheets. Next step is to join both the longer sides of each rectangle right in the middle in order to have small bows. Let pasta bows dry accurately for some hours.

Once it is time to prepare the dish, dip small broccoli for a couple of minutes in hot boiling salt water. Strain broccoli (please, do not forget to save that water for later) and add them in a pan with hot extra virgin olive oil, an idea of golden garlic and hot pepper. Cook broccoli for about 5/7 minutes by adding some of that water you saved before. Add a sprinkle of sea salt and pepper if it is necessary. At this point, broccoli should be tender in order to make small pieces of them straight in the pan, by using a wooden spoon. Add some fresh grated ricotta sheep milk cheese on top of broccoli in the pan and let it melt for a couple of minutes.

In the end, cook hand made pasta bows for about 7/8 minutes in hot boiling salt water, strain and add them to broccoli for gently mix all together. Serve pasta bows and broccoli warm in a bowl with crisp golden breadcrumbs and a sprinkle of fresh ricotta sheep milk cheese on top. Enjoy the dish in good company of your family and friends and wish everybody a good Mardi gras. Bon Appétit! ❤

• 

• 

A gracious tulip to make Springtime

• 

  A gracious tulip to make Springtime

• 

  A gracious tulip to make Springtime

• 

  A gracious tulip to make Springtime

We are still in January and it is gonna take a little before milder temperatures. However, we can take good energy from the food we have even at Winter time, of course without forgetting that simple food is the best. At this proper, here it is a light genuine recipe of a cake for enjoying our coffee pause or to bake and serve to children as snack.

The ingredients are: 100 gr all purpose flour, 50 gr coconut flour, 75 gr sugar, 75 gr carrots, 50 gr dark (75%) chocolate, 3 soup spoons maize oil, 25 ml milk, 1 egg, vanilla seeds, 1/4 baking powder yeast, carrots to decor. Firstly, in a bowl mix both the all purpose and the coconut flour with the grated carrots and then add sugar, maize oil, the egg, vanilla seeds, the baking powder yeast and the milk. Secondly, once you have got a homogeneous mixture, pour it in a well greased and floured baking pan for cakes. Thirdly, dip small pieces of dark chocolate in the mixture and place the cake in the oven for about 30 minutes 120°/200° C, until you will see its surface becoming a little bit crisp. In the end, out of the oven, before serving the cake, decor it with small gracious tulips made of carrot and enjoy a piece of fragrant cake and a cup of good warm coffee or tea. What is more, you may add some vanilla cream on a side of the plate, if you prefer. Besides, this cake might be a wonderful idea for a children party or a light dessert after dinner.

To make little tulips, take a piece of carrot and make oblique cuts around it for creating petals, then cut the piece gently and use a toothpick for fixing the tulip in the cake .

Many thanks, I hope you will enjoy the recipe ❤

Tulips in Sweden

Capture the moment: “You are poetry of light” .