I know, the photo turned out a bit scary looking. There was no way to fix it since the rest of the batch was eaten earlier. Oh boy, were they good!

I guess there’s no need to tell you about the antioxidant properties and all other health-benefits of the pomegranate juice - everyone is amazingly educated these days. But if you find juicing of fresh fruit somewhat labor-intensive (honestly, I do) or simply can’t find fresh pomegranate (they are seasonal), there’s a blessed product - POM Wonderful - natural juice which is available year round in any well-stocked grocery store.

Continue with the recipe »

I had a little bit of mascarpone cheese left over – not enough to fill a tart or a cake. So, I put it in the fridge and forgot about it. The poor cheese spent there a few days too long and, when discovered, it was suitable for baking purposes only. So, I made some cookies. They turned out quite yummy. They also behaved well as the ice cream sandwiches – neither became too hard nor lost their crispiness once frozen.

I apologize for the recent lack of posts and some unanswered e-mails. We are on vacation. We’ve just returned from one trip and now planning another one. Hopefully, everything will return to normal pace as soon as the school year starts. Thank you, everyone, for the lovely comments you have left! I greatly appreciate it.

Continue with the recipe »

And here’s the sherbet I mentioned earlier. It tastes fresh (despite the roasting) and feels creamy (despite the egg yolks absence). I’ve already blogged how much I’m in love with the roasted strawberries. The roasting can turn even grass-like tasting berries into the flavor-bursting ones. I highly recommend it when the strawberries are not in their season’s peak and tasteless.

The sherbet is good on its own or paired with vanilla ice cream (everything goes well with vanilla).

Continue with the recipe »

For me, it’s like heaven on earth. I’m mad about spicy chocolate; Dagoba’s “Xocolatl” is my all time favorite bar. And this cake is my favorite flourless chocolate cake. It’s spiced just enough (you won’t burn your palate, don’t worry). The texture is reminiscent of dense chocolate mousse. And I love this light crunch the figs give to the cake.

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner it might be just a thing to serve. Let me put it this way… if you are looking forward to a marriage proposal, make the cake. It will definitely facilitate the event. Make the ice cream to go with the cake, and I can guarantee you a happy family life (at least for a year, then… repeat the cake).

Grace from “A Southern Grace”, with whom I share my love to spicy food and cinnamon, is hosting a wonderful event this month – “Cinnamon Celebration”. Since this dessert has plenty of cinnamon it goes right there.

Continue with the recipe »

December’s Daring Bakers challenge hosted by Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux was Yule log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand. This was not the usual Christmas log that first comes to mind. This one was a frozen dessert (I’d say semifrozen, the mousse doesn’t freeze hard) composed of total of 6 elements put together in the certain order. We were free to chose our own flavor variations. Mine were as follows:

• cranberry-kumquat-pear mousse,
• kumquat-ginger crème brulee insert,
• white chocolate-pistachio praline crisp,
• bittersweet ganache insert,
• pistachio dacquoise,
• and chocolate gelée glaze.

For the mousse layer I cooked the cranberries, seeded kumquats, chopped pears in cranberry juice with fresh ginger and star anise, then pureed the fruits and used the puree as the mousse base. It turned out quite good. I would recommend a different assembly sequence though, since the hard layer of the crisp in the middle of the soft-textured mousse made it tricky to slice. Next time I would put the crisp at the bottom, right before the dacquoise layer.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Continue with the recipe »

Don’t be surprised it wasn’t served with ice cream. See, I need to shed a couple of pounds here - I am trying to squeeze into this party dress by the end of the month. So, the dish is basically my diet food – less fat, more vitamins. If you are favoring traditional views you can top the crumble with a scoop of vanilla or orange ice cream. But the yogurt actually turned out pretty tasty, and it was good with the crumble, as well as on its own.

Does anybody else think that food blogging has an inevitable weight-gaining side-effect?

Continue with the recipe »