Chocolate cake... yeah!

My favorite chocolate cake

This is THE chocolate cake that I chose for one of the first birthday cakes for my kids that became a very popular one among my kids AND their friends!
Given this success in taste, this is the one that I chose as base for several birthday cakes later on.
I only changed the decoration/topping to fit to the occasion and you will see how a humble cake can end up to such an awesome cake :) Trust me and try it, you will become addicted!
Special tribute to all my family (husband and kids) that helped me to decorate the following cakes. These were moments of pure happiness... I love you!
Let's start from the basics...



Ingredients
2 cups of flour for cakes
3/4 cups of cocoa powder
3/4 cup of butter
2 cups of sugar
6 eggs
1/2 cup of milk
vanilla flavour
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda

Procedure
Use a mixer to mix all the ingredients very well for a few minutes. Pour the mixture in a baking dish covered with butter that can have any form that you like. Put in the oven at 175 degrees (Celcius) for 40-45 min.   
Decorate with a chocolate topping, marzipan, sugar topping or whatever you or your kids like!
Get ideas from the following photos, and discover how this love affair started and how it evolved with time...

So, what do you say, it worth to try it, no? Simple but delicious... from Vivian!

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Summer break!

It's been a very productive year, so it is time for a summer break!
Enjoy your vacations all of you out there and meet back again here from September with fresh ideas and passion for creativity :)

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Cheese balls/Gougeres au fromage

Today I will share with you a simple and delicious recipe that my polish friend Anneta does and that I really like. It's great for buffets like birthday parties, various celebrations at home, at work, at school of your children, etc. and it's so easy to make!
In french they call these cheese balls "Gougeres au fromage" and if you speak french have a look in the original recipe here: http://www.marmiton.org/recettes/recette_gougeres-au-fromage_20095.aspx

For the ones, that cannot understand the french, I will try to translate :)
Thanks Anneta for sharing this recipe and please send a nice photo to us if you have one!



Ingredients

4 eggs + 1 yolk (optional)
150 gr grated gruyere cheese (my friend says that she puts the double amount or improvise according to your preferences :) 
150 gr of flour
80 gr of butter
salt, white pepper and optionally

Procedure

Warm the oven at 200C/fan. In a small casserole, boil 25cl of water with the butter cut in pieces and 1 teaspoon of salt. Take it out of the fire, add all in once the flour, mix well and put back into low fire to dry well for 1 min. Take it out of the fire, let it cool and add the eggs and whisk well and eventually add the salt, the pepper and the cheese.

Using 2 teaspoons, make small balls of this mixture and put them in an oven dish that you have greased before or you have put the special cooking paper. If you want, cover them with the beaten yolk using a kitchen brush. Put them in the oven for about 25 min or until they get a nice golden color. Enjoy!

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We are the champions :)

I have been pretty busy lately with various things so I was not so often blogging here, but I would like to share with you one of the reasons :)

My husband is a pilot and his club was organizing a treasure hunt and me with kids joined him in the team and guess what? we won THE FIRST PRIZE!

So we celebrated the event with a bbq organized at the club and it"s only today that i got back into cooking doing pasticcio :)

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Jello dessert, for summer parties!

Want a summer dessert? Then a jello dessert is what will freshen your summer parties :) It is easy, quite popular and very tasty... See how you can do it :



Ingredients

2 packs of petit-beurre biscuits (or digestive, ...)
1 big can with fruits in syrup (your choice of fruit)
1 box of jello (your choice of flavor)
2 cups of milk
2 egg yolks
4 spoonfulls of flour
3 spoons of corm flour
1/2 cup of sugar
1 vanilla
2 spoons of butter

Procedure

   

Drain the can of the fruits and use the syrup to moist one by one the biscuits.

In a rectangular dish (20x30cm) that can go in the fridge and has a cover, make two layers with these moist biscuits. Put the dish in the fridge. Prepare a pastry cream by putting in a small casserole 1 1/2 cup of the milk together with the sugar to boil and in the rest 1/2 cup of milk dissolve well both types of flours and add it to the casserole. Continue stirring until the cream starts to thicken and then take out of the fire and add the egg yolks well beaten and mix well. Put back in low fire and adding the butter stir again for 2-3 minutes.

The cream is ready. Leave it to cool for a few minutes and then pour it on top of the biscuits and spread evenly.

Put again in the fridge and prepare the jello following instructions in the box and leave it also to cool for a few minutes.

Once the jello has cooled, put the canned fruits on top of the pastry cream and pour the jello slowly on a spoon on top of the fruits. Be extremely careful as the jello has to stay on top, otherwise it will pass under the cream!!! Cover and leave in the fridge for a few hours (better overnight) until the jello becomes solid. Enjoy!
     

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salmon "plaki"

"Plaki" is a way that in Greece we cook fish in the oven using tomatoes, onions and parlsey. We can use whatever fish we like, but here I am using salmon just because I found nice fresh salmon today that it's the favorite of my husband. It's a recipe that I strongly suggest to try, as it tastes great!








Ingredients

6 slices of salmon
5-6 potatoes
3-4 nice red tomatoes (or canned)
1 onion (optionally)
salt, pepper, olive oil, parsley
1 lemon

Procedure

Wash salmon, and if needed take out the skin. Put in the middle of an oven dish, and fill the space around with peeled potatoes that you have cut in slices.






Cover the salmon with some slices of a tomato, minced parsley and the minced onion (I did not put today). Pour on top of salmon and potatoes the pureed tomatoes, add salt, pepper and olive oil. Pour water to cover half of the potatoes.

Put in the oven (180C/fan) for about 1h30. Watch out for water and not to burn on surface (Mine was on limit today :). Enjoy it as it is really delicious!

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Spaghetti with shrimps

Typical summer dish, spaghetti with shrimps (garidomakaronada) is a popular choice during vacations like in a greek island. It's easy, fast and delicious!










Ingredients

300 gr shrimps
1 onion
1 green pepper
3-4 good red tomatoes or canned
salt, pepper, olive oil, parsley
500 g of spaghetti

Procedure

Boil the spaghetti in a big volume of salty water. Drain them and add some olive oil and mix well.

In a low casserole, add olive oil, the minced onion and the green pepper cut in slices. let them fry for 2-3 min . Add the shrimps that you have washed them before and let fry again for 2-3 min.

Add the pureed tomatoes, the salt, pepper, the parsley and 1 cup of water. Cover and let them cook for about 15min or until the tomato sauce becomes quite thick.



Serve the spaghetti with this tomato-shrimp sauce on top. Bon appetit!

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