Cereal Chocolate Cakes

Eating cereals in a traditional way with milk has never been my thing. 

I still adore them because they are perfect for breakfast or as an afternoon snack. 

I just happen to prefer them in other form. Also this way they are easy to take with you in a hurry :)

CEREAL CHOCOLATE CAKES

300 g preferred puffed cereal (I used millet but you can use rice, wheat etc.)

200 g chocolate/nut spread of your choice (I used biological hazelnut chocolate)

200 g cream cheese/ricotta

2 teaspoons vanilla sugar

Mix together the chocolate spread, fresh cream cheese / ricotta and vanilla sugar. Add the cereals and mix well. Divide in a muffin tins and put in a fridge for half an hour. Serve with your morning tea or coffee. Keep the cakes always in a cool place and consume in a few days. 

Walnut Baklava Rolls

If I'd have to choose just one favourite pastry it would be too hard but baklava for sure would be in the top three. I have eaten many versions of it from various origins but I can't say which one I like the best.. I love also making baklava at home even though I still have a long way to go before I manage to make it like I wish and prepare the phyllo pastry by my self..

I post here also some photos of amazing mosques of Istanbul, Haga-Sofia and Blue Mosque, which I visited last november. During the five days trip I managed to eat approximately one kilo of baklava..

WALNUT BAKLAVA ROLLS

300-400 g of phyllo sheets
200 g butter
300 g walnuts
85 g (1dl) brown sugar
3 teaspoons cinnamon

Syrup:
125 g (1,5dl) brown sugar
200 ml water
2 teaspoons of lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 180 C.
Crush walnuts and mix it with brown sugar and cinnamon.
Melt the butter. Take a phyllo sheet one by one and butter it all over with a brush. Continue for about 5-7 layers. In the long end of the sheet sprinkle the walnut-sugar-cinnamon mix and start to roll it up. Cut the roll into about 3 cm bites and place them in a square shaped buttered oven pan. Repeat doing the other rolls until you finish the phyllo sheets. Sprinkle some leftover walnuts on top of the rolls.
Bake in the over for about 30 minutes until the colour turns golden brown.
Meanwhile prepare the syrup. Cook the water and sugar in a pan until the texture becomes thicker. In the end add lemon juice.
Remover the pan from the oven and pour the syrup all over the rolls.
Wait for about another 30 minutes and serve with good strong coffee.

 

Vanilla Muffins

Never getting tired of vanilla. I love it in my yoghurt, in my tea, in my morning café au lait (my favourite Nespresso capsule), with berries and in ice cream...

In baking I haven't done many recipes without vanilla sugar on it. Choose the real vanilla products instead of vanillin (not the same thing, try to taste the difference).

VANILLA MUFFINS

Muffins:

2 eggs

130 g (1,5dl) brown sugar

160 g (2,5 dl) white flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons vanilla sugar

50 ml vanilla soya milk

50 g melted butter

Topping:

200 g cream cheese

1 teaspoon of yellow colouring extract 

250 g icing sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla sugar

+ rainbow sprinkles

Prepare a muffin tin putting on paper liners.

In a bowl whisk eggs and sugar to a white foam. Mix together all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and vanilla sugar). Start adding them together in the egg-sugar mixing carefully, then add vanilla soya milk and melted butter.

With a kitchen spoon fill the muffin forms and bake in the oven 200 C for about 15 minutes until the top of the muffins becomes golden. Remove from the oven and let cool.

Mix together cream cheese, colouring extract, icing sugar and vanilla sugar. 

With a help of a spoon, place the topping on the muffins and decorate with sprinkles. 

Place in the fridge and serve cooled with good tea of coffee. 

Lingonberry Smoothie

Finally I'm on my long waited holiday in Lapland! I missed being back home and specially my parents.. 
They had reserved a great amount of berries for me and I'm eating them all the time. Here I made a healthy smoothie of lingonberries picked from the forest of our lake house :) You could also add some protein powder if you wish but I preferred to use quark which is already naturally full of it.

LINGONBERRY SMOOTHIE

200 g lingonberries
200 g quark
100 ml milk (I like soya vanilla)
2 teaspoons vanilla sugar
2 tablespoons of honey

Put the still half frozen lingonberries in the mixer and add other ingredients. Mix well until the texture is smooth and pour it into glasses. 
Enjoy with oatmeal biscuits :)

Cheese Cake with Buckthorn Jam

Buckthorns are super healthy and full of vitamins, just what I need this period :)

It's quite rare here in Italy so I wanted to make my friends taste it in a dessert. 

If you can't get this jam in particular you can use any other you wish instead.

CHEESE CAKE WITH BUCKTHORN JAM

Base:

400 g cereal biscuits

100 g butter 

Filling:

400 g cream cheese

3 eggs

170 g (2dl) brown sugar

3 teaspoons vanilla sugar

6 gelatines

2 tablespoons limoncello

Topping:

200 g buck thorn jam (or which you prefer)

silver decoration balls

Cover the base of a spring cake tin with baking paper.

Crush biscuits and mix them together with soft butter. 

Press the mix on the bottom of the cake tin.

Prepare the filling. Put the gelatines into a cup covering them with cold water. Mix in one bowl egg whites with both sugars until the texture it's very thick. In another bowl mix philadelphia and egg yolks and add them in the first bowl. Heat limoncello and add in the softened gelatines, mix carefully and add with all the other ingredients.

Pour the mix on top of the base in a cake tin and place it in the fridge at least for 6 hours. Spread the jam on top of the cake and sprinkle on some decoration balls.

Before removing the collar, run a sharp thin knife around the cake and place it on a serving plate. Enjoy :)