Chocolate chip muffins

Start your day with them!

A classic recipe that still not so easy to find that works well...
So, here it is my favorite!



Ingredients (For 12 muffins)

250gr flour
baking powder (~ 3teaspoons)
a bit of salt
100gr (or more if you prefer :) of chocolate chips (I prefer dark chocolate)
1 egg
150gr sugar
vanilla
150ml milk
125gr of melted butter

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven at 180 degrees of Celsius and fan.
2. Butter a muffins tray or line with baking cups.
3. Combine in a bowl the following: flour, baking powder, vanilla, salt and the chocolate chips.
4. Mix well using a mixer the rest: sugar, butter, egg and milk.
5. Mix slowly using a spoon, the 2 parts.
6. Pour the final mixture equally in the 12 muffin tray.
7. Bake for about 20min.
8. Enjoy!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Best cinnamon rolls ever!

Want to try the BEST cinnamon rolls on the planet? Then you have to go to Iceland !
Or just try my

cinnamon rolls!

Just came back from a road trip to discover this beautiful country with the dramatic scenery and our eyes are full of majestic waterfalls, lava fields, startling geysers and so much more :)
But let's concentrate to cinnamon rolls today.

There are several quality bakeries (called "Bakari" in Icelandic) and the two best that I can definitely suggest to try are : Braud&co and Passion in Reykjavik. The first one had the best cinnamon rolls on earth!!! that they are caller "kanil snudur" in icelandic btw.
You can imagine my first thought coming back from my trip:

redo my recipe of cinnamon rolls!

What a best way to start the new school year :)
Not to forget the lamb, btw. You have to try the lamb in Iceland... just delicious!

My favorite restaurant was outside of Reykjavik, close to Kerid crater: Þrastalundur.
I tried their lamb and family their pizzas ... best ever pizzas on earth too !!!
Happy traveling! 
    

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Oat flake and chocolate chips cookies

Great and healthy cookies full of oat flakes but also with chocolate!
Let your children play and make them for you, sooooo easy :)



Ingredients
120gr of oat flakes
100gr of chocolate chunks (or instead 220gr of a ready-made mixture of both as in my case)
240gr of all purpose flour
2 eggs
150gr brown sugar
120gr of butter
baking powder
vanilla flavor

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven at fan and 180 degrees of Celsius
2. Soften butter
3. Mix all ingredients together, but not too much
4. Shape small or big cookies with your hands
5. Bake for about 10min according to the size that you have chosen
6. Share them with your dear ones!
7. You can also join them by pairs using your favorite ice cream and make yummy sandwiches :)

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Vanilla flan

Easy summer recipe discovered through my Spanish neighbor (thnx!) Really fast to prepare but needs to be prepared a day ahead!



Ingredients
1 can of concentrated Nestle milk (397gr)
1 1/3 of the above empty can of milk
3 eggs
vanilla
1/2 cup of sugar (for the caramel)


Procedure

1. Put in the oven and at 180 degrees of Celsius, a wide oven dish filled with water up to 1/3 of it and wait to warm enough.  
2. Prepare the caramel by putting the sugar and a bit of water in a small casserole. Bring it to boil and wait for a couple of minutes until it turns to a nice caramel. Be careful though that it won't burn!
3. Pour the caramel in a cake mold and stir it to cover well the bottom and a bit the edges.
4. Beat well using a mixer the rest of the ingredients and pour the liquid mixture over the caramel.
5. Put the cake mold in the oven as in bain-marie and bake for about 30min.
6. take it out of the oven to cool down.
7. Refrigerate for several hours or better overnight.
8. Carefully un-mold the flan in a nice recipient, pour the rest of the caramel to drip on top and enjoy!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

My first book !

Happy birthday to me!!!

You won't believe what I got as a birthday gift (which was yesterday btw :) ...
my blog printed as a book !!!
If that is not a cooool gift ever ...
It's been a long time that I wanted to do such a thing but it takes so much time editing a book that I was always postponing it.
And my dear hubby did it for me!!!

You cannot imagine my emotions ....

My dear, it's a precious gift, those five years of my (our !) life through cooking and baking in a stylish book. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking all those long hours to do such a thing for me that you kept top secret with kids ...

Have a look at it... isn't it gorgeous??? and it's even better in real :P

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Moist coconut cake

I really love coconut and one of my favorite greek cakes is the coconut Ravani.
Given that it has a syrup, it makes it quite heavy in calories though. So, I was looking for a cake with coconut that is close to ravani but lighter.
Find today this version that I tried and I really liked a lot...

the moist coconut cake ! 

(In french we could call it "gateau moelleux au noix de coco")
If you like coconut, you have to try this easy but tasty version!







Ingredients
3 eggs
185gr of all purpose flour
250ml of milk
125gr butter (melted)
200gr sugar
75gr shredded coconut (and some extra for decoration)
1 baking powder

Procedure

1. You just mix well all the ingredients together for a few minutes and you empty in a buttered baking dish of 20cm of diameter. (Ok, if you want it fluffier, you can incorporate the ingredientd gradually) 
2. You bake for 30min and air at 180 degrees of Celcius. 
3. You can decorate with some extra coconut that you sprinkle on top. 

Enjoy!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

I cannot cook without them !

It's been a long time that I wanted to write an article about it... my favourite cookware!

Today is the day to start...
Here there are my favourite cooking cookware and other tools will follow soon:

• the enamed roaster BEKA, 42cm, for cooking in the oven
• it keeps the oven clean, food is delicious, meat is kept soft, it's easily cleaned
• the pressure cooker Fissler Vitavit, 10lt, 26cm, induction
• for fast, design, high-tech, healthy cooking
• the TEFAL ingenio wok pan, 26 cm, induction
• non-stick, easily cleaned, keeps moisture
• (more to come soon)   

How about yours?

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

St. Valentine's day

Want to find an excuse to try this
triple chocolate mousse cake?

How about St. Valentine's day ? (Indeed, it is today, 14 of February :)

Otherwise, anything with nutella will do!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

February 2 the day of crepes in France!

In France, February 2 (yesterday) is the day of crepes.
They call this day "Chandeleur" (Candlemas in english) and it is linked to religion (commemorate the purification of Virgin Mary and the presentation of baby Jesus)
but practically, people are making and consuming lots of crepes. 
You won't believe the amount of Nutella, and rest of ingerdients that are consumed those days.
As this is the weekend the closest to the Chandeleur, here's a recipe reminder to succeed your crepes and here is one for pancakes if you are too lazy for crepes :)

Happy Chandeleur!!!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Nutellotti, the nutella cookies!

Who doesn't like Nutella? So, imagine a recipe full of Nutella in a form of cookies and only 3 ingredients... Nutellotti... Yummy! A popular recipe, that had to be in my blog too.
Thanks to my dear daughter, crazy in love with Nutella, we made together those marvelous cookies and ate them all in once!

Ingredients (only 3!)
180gr of Nutella
1 egg
150gr of flour for cakes


Procedure

1. In a bowl, empty the Nutella (a silicone spatula is the ideal tool) and with a fork mix first the egg in it and then the flour to make a nice soft dough. 
2. Form with your hands a long cylinder of about 3cm of diameter. 
3. Cut with a sharp knife slices of 2cm and with the back of a wooden spoon press in the middle as in the photos.
4. Align the cookies in an oven dish covered with parcement paper leaving some space in between.
5. Bake at 180 degrees of Celsius and fan for 10min. 
6. Take them out of the oven, allow a few minutes to cool down (if you can resist :) and consume with moderation !!! 

Enjoy!
P.S: You can find in the web, several versions of Nutellotti where often they fill the hole in the middle of the cookies with Nutella, but I think that despite that indeed is sinful and very attractive, it is too much.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Kurtos Kalacs or chimney cakes

This romanian pastry that is called Kurtos Kalacs, is often called in english chimney cakes. It's a fluffy yeast dough (similar to brioche) that is sweetened rolling them to a sugar and cinnamon mix, sometimes even in ground walnuts, and at old times used to be served in weddings. Nowdays, we can find them in small street kiosks that bake them in coal grills.
Hubby tried them first in Prague on a trip for his work and came back telling that it was so soft and delicious that I would surely love it!
I searched for the recipe on the web and indeed I found how to make them at home but eventually never tried them. It took me a couple of years until I would taste them in Budapest (I liked them so much that there was no day passing without eating at least two!!!) But still coming back home, I did not dare to try making them... until one evening, coming back home from a busy day, hubby had made them for me!!! That was a nice surprise :)
So, here it is our homemade Kurtos based on the following 2 recipes found online (thank you both!):

• http://honestcooking.com/kurtoskalacs-chimney-cake/ (Honest cooking)
• http://pearlsofbaking.blogspot.fr/2013/11/chimney-cake-kurtos-kalacs.html?m=1 (Pearls of baking) 

*** Beware, you have to find several carton moulds (from paper towels) before doing the recipe ***


Ingredients
240gr all purpose flour (of high quality)
7gr active dry yeast
30gr sugar
a bit of salt
1 egg
45gr melted butter
120ml lukewarm milk

For the topping:
melted butter, sugar, cinnamon
 

Procedure

1. Start by making the moulds. Use the cartons from paper towels or similar. Cover them completely with aluminium foil and brush the melted butter all over them.
2. Put in a small bowl the milk, some sugar and the yeast and allow around 10min to get foamy.
3. In the bowl of your mixer add all the ingredients and the above milk-yeast mixture. Knead to form a dough and continue for about 5min.
4. The result is a quite sticky dough. Do NOT add more flour, this is how it should be.
5. Cover and allow the dough to rise for an hour in a warm place. Often I cover it with a blanket :)
6. With a silicone spatula, cut parts of the dough and in a well floured surface shape thick sheets.
7. With a pizza cutter, divide in long ribbons of 1.5cm wide.
8. Start to wrap those ribbons around the homemade-buttered moulds like shown in the photos. When completely covered, brush them with butter and roll them in the sugar-cinnamon mix.
9. Arrange them in an oven tray like in the photos and bake at 190 degrees of Celsius for about 20min or until they get a nice golden color.
10. Tap them to get out of the moulds and allow a few minutes to rest if you can resist :)

Share only your dear ones !!!
   
 

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

French orangettes

Orangettes is a traditional french food gift during Xmas. It is actually candied orange peel stripes dipped in dark chocolate that if you like the combination of orange and chocolate you will get addicted to it!
I would like to thank the teacher of a school that I am a volunteer that proposed me to help with doing them this year in order to finance the school trip of their class by selling them to a Christmas market.

I have never done them before, so it was a challenge for me but also a heavy responsibility. So I had to make them first at home to be sure that I am well trained.
End of year period is very busy so I did not have enough time to get nice photos but I did my best given the circumstances. 

The result though was delicious !!!  but be prepared... it takes time too !!!

I can share the recipe with you and here it is the original recipe that we were based on.


Ingredients: (for about 500g of orangettes)
3 big oranges (organic, untreated)
250g white sugar
50cl of water
200g of good quality dark chocolate (around 60-70%)

Procedure

1. Wash well the oranges and peel them carefully cutting the skin in quarters.
2. Put them in a casserole covering them with cold water and boil them for 5 min. 
3. Drain and redo the last step once more.
4. Drain and let them cool.
5. Cut in thin strips of about 0.5cm getting the maximum of length possible.
6. Prepare the syrup with water and sugar. When start boiling add the strips and boil for 5 min. Allow to cool completely and repeat once more the whole step.
7. When completely cool, arrange them in a cooling rack and allow overnight to dry.
8. The next day, melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water (bain-marie).
9. Drop a handful of the orange peel strips and turn them with a fork to coat. 
10. "Fish" them one by one with the fork, allowing the excess to drip off. Arrange them in a tray lined with parchment paper. Allow them to dry completely in a cool place.
11. Once done (best the next day), make small decorated bags and offer them to your dear ones! 

Enjoy!!!   

  

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Happy 2018 !

Happy New Year to all !
Cook more, less war in this world ...

How about starting the year by making this delicious french Epiphany cake (Galette des rois)?
I think that my 2018 version is the best that I have ever done :)

reade more... Résuméabuiyad