Coconut "Ravani"

Ok, a difficult day for me (2 of may) has passed and life gets it's rhythm again. So, what's best than trying my favorite Greek cake? Coconut "Ravani" or Coconut semolina moist cake :)
Do you remember the recipe for ravani? If not, time to revise it ...
Find today a slightly different version that is one of my favorite Greek cakes with flaked coconut.


Ingredients1 cup of sugar
1 cup of self-raising flour + 1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 cup of semolina
1 cup of flaked coconut
6 eggs
1/3 cup of milk
For the syrup:
3 cups of water
2 cups of sugar
lemon zest
1 cup of butter

Procedure for the cake

Preheat the oven in air and 170 degrees of Celsius.
Whisk the sugar with the eggs until they get whiten and thick, adding little by little the milk. Mix in another bowl the rest of the ingredients  and add them slowly to the mixture.
Empty in an oven dish that you have buttered well before.
Bake for about 30-35min.
Cut it in medium diamond shaped parts. Leave it to cool and start preparing the syrup.

Procedure for the syrup
Boil all the ingredients in a small casserole apart from the butter for about 5-6min. At the end, add the butter and mix until it is melted completely and integrated in it.
Pour slowly on the cake all over until all the syrup is absorbed in the cake.

Add the extra flaked coconut on top to decorate the cake. Leave it to rest for a few hours, ideally serve it the next day.
Store it covered in the fridge. Every day that passes it gets even better, yummy :)

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Chocolate chip cookies

What to do in a rainy day? Make chocolate chip cookies and boost your moral and the one of your dear ones to the maximum :)
Classic recipe, that similar you can find all around the web, but I like to keep good recipes once found, so here it is the one that I prefer...



Ingredients (for about 30 big cookies)
250gr butter
100gr brown sugar
100gr white sugar
vanilla flavor
2 large eggs
350gr plain flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder or (bicarbonate) soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
200 gr of good dark chocolate (chips or chunks)

Procedure

Preheat the oven to air and 170 degrees of Celsius.
Whisk the butter with the sugars until whiten. Add the eggs and continue. Add the flour and the rest apart from chocolate and make a nice soft dough (adjust the flour to the feeling of the dough).
Add the chocolate chips or chunks and mix to go evenly all over your dough.
Make small or big dough balls (depending on your preference for chocolate cookies :) and flatten them. Put them in oven trays (you will need 2) that you have covered with the special baking paper.
Cook for about 10-15min depending on the size of your cookies (the bigger, the longer...).
Let them cool and then stock the remaining ones (of course, some will be already eaten in the meantime ;) in a tin box for cookies.
Let me know what o you think about this recipe, once you have tried it ...

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Happy Greek Easter!

Too many things going on this period, so I missed lots of events linked to Greek Easter that was yesterday, but I have cooked quite a lot of stuff that are linked to it as you can see in my posts.
So, with a day of delay, all my best wishes for a world with lots of love and much much less of wars and violence in general...

Happy Greek Easter! 

especially to my family and friends... that I think of you, even though we see each other once per year maybe.
 Flower syntheses, offered to me from my precious daughter that has really a talent and borrowed from our beautiful garden.

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"Tsoureki", the greek easter sweet bread!

No recipe today (too tired :), just photos to show you my "tsourekia", traditional greek easter sweet breads that are formed of braided strands of dough.
Just google the name and you will find lots of recipes out there and next year I will give you mine ...
For the time being, I am just telling you that they taste great and we have almost consumed all of them in half a day, imagine :))))
Just click on "More..." to enjoy more photos !

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The muffins of the day!

These are the muffins of the day according to my recipe Vanilla muffins that is so easy to make and tasty too.
The inspiration of the day was to add some sliced almonds on top and decorated with a lollipop as they are going to be sold in my kids' school to finance a field trip....
If you read this post on time, come and buy one before it is too late :)

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Happy Easter, whatever that means to each one of you!

Dear readers of this blog, wherever you are around the globe or just next door ;)

Happy Easter period!

I will be coloring eggs, baking traditional easter cookies from Greece and celebrate with this fluffy and creamy pudding :)
All the best,
Vivian

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Grissinis

Hubby loves Grissinis, so here's a reason to try to make them :) I have to admit that he likes the Greek version but I will try today the original ones from Torino...  that I like sooo much :) And with the remaining dough, I will make some nice small rounded breads, what do you say?
Who does not like those crunchy delicate fluffy delicious thinny bread sticks? No excuses of not trying, as it is pretty easy...

Ingredients
500 gr of good quality flour for bread
40gr yeast
a bit of salt, sugar, honey and olive oil
1 cup of warm water

Procedure

1. Start by diluting the yeast in the cup of warm water and a bit of sugar and leave it for about 10min.
2. Make a nice elastic dough by mixing flour, olive oil and the above mixture. 
3. Leave the dough to rest for about an hour in a warm place covered with a thick blanket (The traditional greek way of doing such stuff :)
4. Roll out the dough using a cylinder.
5. Cut with a knife thin slices from the dough and stretch them. (smoothly, if they break do not stick them back, bake them as is)
6. Put them next to each other in an oven tray.
7. Cover them and let them to rest again for about 30 min
8.  
9. In the meantime, you can prepare with the rest of the dough small rounded breads like in the photo and let them also rest.
10. You can sprinkle the grissinis and/or the breads with sesame seeds if you want.
11. Bake all at 180 degrees and fan for about 20 min or until they get a nice golden color.
12. Watch them carefully as the grissinis can easily get burnt.
13. Save them in a tin box. Serve them with Milanese salami or prosciutto, hmmmm....  (decorated with flowers offered for my bday :)

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