Pistachio & Cranberry Biscotti

Biscotti and amarreti are the two most famous biscuits from Italy. The word biscotti comes from the Medieval Italian "biscotus" meaning twice baked. The good thing about biscotti is that if stored in an airtight container, it will keep well for a very long time. If you need the recipe, please send me an email.

Chocolate and Vanilla Shortbread

Churros - Persian Bamieh

Globalisation certainly led to invention of new foods by altering someone else's traditional food. Only look at the French pate a choux which is used to make cream puffs. If you fry it up, you will end up with a Spanish churro or called Mexican churro (either rolled in sugar or dipped in chocolate sauce). If you boil it, you will get the Austrian version of a sweet dumpling. If you fry it and dip it in sugar syrup, you will get the Persian bamieh.

So here is the recipe:

Bring to a gentle simmer 1 cup of cold water, 1 teaspoon vanilla essence and add 100g chopped butter. Once the butter is fully melted and starts to boil, take the saucepan off heat and add 1 cup of plain flour. Stir with a wooden spoon until mixed. Add 3 eggs, one at a time. Place the mix into a pipping bag and deep fry the batter until golden.

Tiramisu

This is simply divine. A real heavy tiramisu is converted into a much lighter version in this recipe. There is no magical technique involved in making it but the secret as to why my tiramisu is licked off the plate before a photo can be taken, is in the quality of ingredients.

• Dip Savoiardi biscuits in espresso coffee and line the bottom of a baking dish.
• To make the mascarpone mousse: Whip 170ml pouring cream until soft peaks form and refrigerate. Beat 1 whole egg, 2 egg yolks and vanilla extract with 50g white sugar until trippled in volume. Now fold in the mascarpone in the egg mixture. Then gently fold in the whipped cream into the mascarpone&egg mixture. Spread half of this on biscuit layer. Cover the cream with another layer of espresso soaked biscuits and more mascarpone mousse. Finally, dust it with cocoa powder. Refrigerate for about an hour.
• Best to use organic eggs for this one, imported mascarpone and tiny bit of vanilla bean.

Mascarpone is a soft Italian cheese from Lombardia, close to our cream cheese, but it is not a real cheese at all. It is made in a smiliar way to yoghurt. The cream is heated and certain acids are added then allowed to rest and separate and drained through a cloth. The word mascarpone is close to the Spanish "mas que bueno" which means more than good.

Orange and Almond Cake

Plenty of oranges in winter? . . . Try a real winter cake with warm orange syrup. It took months to make a friand recipe to this cake recipe but in the end the fussy cake eaters were real happy with it. It is extremely moist and it's in no real need of syrup however, if you find syrup too overpowering then you can serve it in a citrus soup (made of reduced citrus juice), a much lighter version of syrup.

Send me a quick email for the recipe.

Orange and Almond Syrup Cake

Lemon Tart

To make the filling:

Place 3 eggs, 3/4 cup cream, 3/4 cup caster sugar and 3/4 cup lemon juice in a bowl, and place the bowl over a pot of simmering water. Stir the mix until it becomes thick, almost the same consistency of pouring custard. Pour the mix into pre-cooked pastry shells and bake at 160C for 20 minutes..... OR....you can simply pour lemon curd into pastry shells and allow to set... whichever filling you choose to do, both are pretty delicious!