This walnut cake is quick and easy to make, as you can just mix all the ingredients in the food processor. The only additional step that is important for the flavor is to toast the walnuts first. Cakes like this … Continue reading Walnut Cake (Torta di Noci)
At Lo Stuzzichino we enjoyed a wonderful dessert that was simply called Lemon Delight, showing off the fantastic lemons from nearby Sorrento. It is layers of sponge cake with a lemon cream, garnished with lemon zest. I decided to make … Continue reading Lemon Delight
Although we have been to Campania a number of times, during our latest trip in September it was the first time that we got to enjoy a slice of Torta Caprese, which was at Villa Rosa. It is a flourless … Continue reading Torta Caprese (Chocolate Almond Cake)
Since we love Thai food and many recipes require kaffir lime leaves and kaffir lime zest, I decided to put 2 kaffir lime trees in my garden. They are in pots, so I can move them inside in winter. Kaffir … Continue reading Kaffir Lime Tartlets
I really liked the combination of dark chocolate and passion fruit at Casa Velha in Portugal, so back home I developed a recipe based upon that idea without trying to copy the dish at Casa Velha. The end result was … Continue reading Dark Chocolate and Passion Fruit Tartlet
A dessert that we had at Alma in Lisbon that we really liked, was more or less the combination of three desserts that are already on my blog: Almond ice cream (leave out the cherries and crumbled amaretti)… …almond madeleines… … Continue reading Almond Ice Cream, Almond Madeleine, and Orange Curd
Ripe fresh figs, directly from the tree, are one of my favorite fruits. They are so sweet, fragrant, and delicate. Unfortunately the local climate is too cold for that, and so we can only get imported figs that do not … Continue reading Fresh Figs Poached in Red Wine or Port
Strawberries are in season and this cake is a simple yet delicious way of serving them. It is an Italian recipe without whipped cream like in this strawberry cake and I reduced the amount of sugar, so it is quite … Continue reading Strawberry Cake (Torta di Fragole)
A seàda (also written as sebàda, seatta or sevada) is a typical dessert from Sardinia that we saw on restaurant menus everywhere. It is a large ravioli that is filled with unaged local sheep’s milk cheese (pecorino sardo primosale), then deep-fried in olive oil and … Continue reading Seadas con Miele
We love foie gras and I was curious to try and make foie gras ice cream. I looked at some recipes on-line, but found none that made sense to me. Some even suggested to discard (!) or save for another … Continue reading Foie Gras Ice Cream
Recently, Mimi blogged about pumpkin mousse, a decadent mousse with mascarpone. I liked the idea of pumpkin mousse, and made my own version, leaving out the mascarpone. The result is feathery light with a good balance between the pumpkin flavor … Continue reading Pumpkin Mousse
Today marks the 4th anniversary of this blog. This is the 859th post. There have been over 870,000 views in those four years, and the number of followers and daily views is still slowly but steadily increasing. It’s been a … Continue reading Sticky Date Pudding
Thanks to Nutella we all know that chocolate and hazelnuts go really well together. This flourless chocolate hazelnut cake is not only as delicious as it looks, it is also a lot easier to make than it looks. When I … Continue reading Flourless Chocolate Hazelnut Cake
Do you like chocolate? Do you like to impress your guests with your skills in the kitchen? Do you find baking a bit intimidating? Then this is the perfect recipe for you! This flourless chocolate recipe is much easier than … Continue reading Easy Foolproof Flourless Chocolate Cake
Many of our favorite recipes have come about as a way to use up leftovers. Nowadays we are so used to an overabundance of food in large parts of the world, that eating too much is more of a problem … Continue reading French Toast Sous-vide
Crostata is a very popular Italian fruit tart that is eaten both for dessert and breakfast. When we visited Jo of My Home Food That’s Amore, she gave us some goodies to take home including two jars of homemade apricot … Continue reading Apricot Jam Tart (Crostata alla Confettura di Albicocche)
Pears are in season, and pear ice cream is one of my favorite flavors. If you own an ice cream maker, making your own pear ice cream is very easy. Just blend all the ingredients and pour the mixture into your ice cream maker. The ‘official’ way to make ice cream requires you to cook a custard first, but if you don’t mind eating raw egg yolks then that step can be skipped and you will still end up with very nice ice cream. The advantage of making your own ice cream from scratch is that there are no artificial flavors, just actual pears.
The most important thing to remember is to use ripe pears, and it pays off to buy them a week in advance if needed as they will ripen after you buy them. To obtain firm but pliable ice cream and just a touch of lemon, I add a small amount of limoncello. The alcohol will prevent the ice cream from freezing into a brick.
Continue reading “Pear Ice Cream”
This recipe comes from the booklet that came with the ice cream maker. It’s so original and good that I keep making it, with as the only tweak that I add some fresh ginger juice. Ginger in sweet syrup (Dutch: stemgember) and sweet ginger syrup (Dutch: gembersiroop) are available in nearly every supermarket in the Netherlands, but I am not sure if it is as easily available elsewhere. Ingredients 35 grams (1 1/4 oz) sweet ginger, chopped 1 1/2 Tbsp ginger syrup 1 Tbsp honey 70 grams (2 1/2 oz) sugar 250 ml (1 cup) whipping cream 250 … Continue reading Home-made Ginger & Honey Ice Cream
When we were visiting our friends Tina & Magnus in Sweden, Tina made this wonderful dessert for us: rhubarb and strawberries topped with an oats crust and baked in the oven. I watched her making it and took some photos, and thought it was delicious so I got her permission to share the recipe with you. For those of you who can read Swedish this should suffice, but for the rest here is the step by step in English. I’ve increased the quantities in the non-metric equivalent a bit to avoid things like “5/6 cup”. Ingredients For the oats crust … Continue reading Tina’s Rhubarb Strawberry Crisp (Rabarber och Jurdgobbar med knäckigt havrepajs täcke)
In the small village of Montegrosso in Puglia, southern Italia, is the wonderful Osteria Antichi Sapori. We had the pleasure of dining there some years ago, and I can still remember it very well. The food was delicious and there was enough of it, we already completely stuffed after just having the antipasti (which just kept coming and coming). Many of those antipasti are hard to give a recipe for: they were just slices of a wonderful dried sausage, or some heavenly fresh ricotta. For dessert we got ricotta with crushed amaretti soaked in espresso, which they called the Puglia-version … Continue reading ‘Tiramisù alla Pugliese’
Soufflés have a reputation of being difficult, but they are not that hard and extremely festive. Just remember that they will fall no matter what you do as soon as they cool, so serve them as quickly as possible. We got a raspberry soufflé for breakfast at Librije’s Hotel a few weeks ago, and I liked it so much that I decided to create my own. I don’t have their recipe, this is something I created myself by mixing and matching various recipes for other soufflés that I found in various sources. I also used Harold McGee‘s advise for … Continue reading Raspberry Soufflé
So far I’ve been blogging mostly about single dishes, and I thought it would be nice to share with you also how I combine those dishes into a full menu. As I explained on this page, a full Italian menu consists of four courses. I like to pair wines with that as well. We had a special visitor from Australia over for dinner, so I wanted to spoil him with something nice. We had: Antipasto: Roe deer carpaccio with herb salad with a 2008 red Sancerre Raimbault Primo: Scallop and parsnip ravioli with a 2005 Chassagne-Montrachet (that was unfortunately already … Continue reading Home-made Vanilla Ice-cream to end a wonderful dinner party
This is one of my favorite desserts in summer time. Only three ingredients, easy to make, and delicious. As with many of my recipes, it helps to use the best strawberries you can find (ripe and fragrant), nice honey and the best aged artisan balsamic vinegar you can afford. The best to use for this is the real stuff: aceto balsamico tradizionale aged for 12 or even 25 years. That stuff is very expensive, but also very good. If you live in the Netherlands, the 12-year old balsamic from De Librije is almost as good for about 1/6 of the price … Continue reading Strawberries macerated with Balsamic & Honey
I tried this new idea for a cake on Sunday for a dinner party with my parents, and it was a big success! I had seen a recipe for a pear cake using ricotta instead of butter on GialloZafferano.it, and … Continue reading Pear-Ricotta-Almond Cake (Torta Pere, Ricotta e Mandorle)
Last night I made this simple but delicious almond cake for the first time, but it will certainly not be the last! I’ve used Biba Caggiano’s recipe from “Biba’s Taste of Italy” with some improvements. The springform pan I used … Continue reading Almond cake (Torta di Mandorle)
The final cake of my baking spree was this chocolate ‘bomb’. It is quite easy to make but got rave reviews. ‘Flourless’ means that the only ingredients are chocolate, butter, sugar and eggs. So indulge in small quantities 🙂 Ingredients … Continue reading Flourless chocolate cake for chocoholics
In the same baking spree as the apple pie I also made a pound cake. The name “pound cake” comes from the amounts of an old recipe for this type of cake: 1 pound of flour, 1 pound of butter, … Continue reading Pound cake
Today I’ve been on a baking spree because it was my birthday on Saturday and in the Netherlands it is a tradition to treat your colleagues to cake on (or after) your birthday. It is not necessarily a tradition to … Continue reading Classic Dutch apple pie
Note added August 28, 2022: This was one of the first recipes that I published on my blog, over 10 years ago. This still remains one of my favorites, even though I don’t prepare it very often anymore. I’ve recently … Continue reading Tiramisù
Bounet, bunet or bonet is a traditional festive dessert from Piemonte. The name is thought to be derived from “bonnet” (hat), since the dessert is the ‘hat’ of the meal. Bounet is delicious and very good with any dessert wine … Continue reading Bounet sous-vide
Stefan's Gourmet Blog 