Lemon tart

This one requires a bit of patience, but it is worth it. Or you can use a frozen ready made dough to make it much quicker.

For the dough
100 g butter
3,5 dl flour
1 dl sugar
1 egg
pinch of salt

Mix flour, sugar and salt to the butter, add egg. Put the dough between two large pieces of cling film and let it rest for 30 minutes in the fridge. Roll the dough between cling film, remove one cling film and put it on tart  tin with a removable base. The other cling film helps you to press the dough evenly. Remove the cling film and line with greaseproof paper and peas.

Blind bake in 200 for about 15 minutes, then remove the peas and bake for few minutes more.

For the filling:
4 eggs
3dl sugar
zest of one lemon and one orange
juice of 2 lemons and 1 orange, total amount about 2dl
1,5 dl cream

Whisk the eggs and sugar until fluffy, then add juices and zest and last the cream. Filling is very liquid and you might want  to pour some of the filling to the tart tin when it is already in the oven to avoid spilling. Bake in 160 for about 40 minutes until it is set.

Let it cool until the next day, put some icing sugar on top and serve with fresh strawberries.

Delicious and worth all the effort!

Delicious Greek style cheesecake

This cake is not a super sweet one, but it is delicious none the less! Very easy to make, too!

for the base:
200 g digestive biscuits
100 g melted butter

400g cream cheese
400 g quark or Greek yogurt
6 eggs
2 dl sugar
vanilla

frosting:
2 dl plain yogurt
runny honey
pistachio nuts

Crush the digestives, add melted butter.

Mix cream cheese and quark/yogurt, add eggs one at a time. Then add sugar and vanilla to taste. Pour it on top of the digestive base and bake first for 30 minutes in 175, then lower to 150 and continue baking for about 30 minutes. Let it cool down in the oven.

Once the cake is cooled down; pour yogurt on top of the cake, dribble with honey and crushed pistachios. Serve with fresh strawberries when available.

Chocolate espresso fondant

These heavenly fondants have a liquid espresso heart.

For the espresso "ice cubes"
50 g dark chocolate
1 dl strong coffee

for the fondant
250 g chocolate
250 g butter
8 egg yolks
4 egg whites
4 tbs corn flour

Melt the chocolate in hot coffee, pour into ice cubes and put into freezer for about 3 hours.

Melt the butter and chocolate in low heat. Beat the egg yolks and add to chocolate-butter mix. Add the corn flour through a sieve to avoid lumps. Beat the egg whites and add carefully to the batter.

Butter and flour 6 - 8 ramekins, pour a little of batter, then place an espresso ice cube and more batter. Leave some room for expanding.

Bake for about 15 minutes at 180 degrees.

Serve with ice cream or whipped cream and strawberries.

Cherry tomato - feta - thyme pie

For the base:
100 g butter
3 dl flour
1 tbs baking powder
1 dl natural yogurt

For filling:
about 20 cherry tomatoes
1 packet of feta cheese, about 200g
fresh thyme
pepper
3 eggs
2 dl milk

Mix flour and baking powder to the room temperature butter, add yogurt and spread the dough to a baking tin. Cut the feta cheese into thin slices and alternate row of feta and a row of sliced cherry tomatoes. Sprinkle with fresh thyme and pepper - no need for salt as the cheese is salty. Beat the eggs lightly with a fork, add milk and pour over the pie.

Bake in 200 for about 30 minutes until it is nice and golden on the top.

Here is also a broccoli - grated cheese - thyme version of the pie.

White chocolate - Matcha cake (Japanese green tea powder)

Here is another version of the basic cake recipe. This one is with Matcha - the Japanese green tea powder and white chocolate.

200 g butter

2 dl sugar

3 eggs

2 tsp baking powder

3 dl flour

2 tsp Matcha powder

100 g white chocolate

Beat the butter and sugar, add eggs one at a time. Then add baking powder mixed with flour. Divide to two bowls. Melt the white chocolate and add to one of the bowls. Add the Matcha powder to the other bowl. Pour first one part of the white chocolate, then the Matcha and finally rest of the white chocolate to the bake tin.

Bake in a greased and floured cake tin at 175 for about 50 minutes.

Poppy seed cake

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I just love poppy seeds and this recipe combines them with my other favourite, lime! Those lovely little blue dots and green bits in the cake make it cute. To make it more festive, you could glaze it with cream cheese-icing sugar-citrus juice or try substituting cheese with Greek yoghurt.

200 g butter
2 dl sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp baking powder
3 dl flour
2 tbs poppy seeds
1 tbs vanilla extract
grated lime/lemon/orange zest and 2 tbs juice

Beat the butter and sugar, add eggs one at a time. Then add baking powder mixed with flour and poppy seeds, vanilla and citrus.

Bake in a greased and floured cake tin at 175 for about 50 minutes.

Moleskine recipe journal

I have just received my last Christmas gift from Amazon, a new recipe journal by Moleskine. I´ve used Moleskine notebooks for years and think they are the best. Just before Christmas I noticed that they had these new types of journals for recipe, wine, music etc. Others must have noticed those too, as they ran out of them. But now I am the lucky owner of two recipe journals!

Having collected recipes in various folders, notebooks, boxes for years, the first thing I noticed in this one was the index. All the pages are numbered and at the end there is an index you can fill. So this time, you can actually find the recipies fast rather that search for them from various locations like I´ve done for years. First part of the journal has a template you can fill, the rest are empty pages. There are also some funny stickers you can attach to your recipies. Compared to many other recipe journals, this one gives you a lot of flexibility with the stickers and empty pages to create and arrange something that looks like yours. I can´t wait to start filling mine!

Lunch at Vapiano

Vapiano has a fresh concept of made-to-order pizza, pasta and salad. To me it somehow reminds of New York with all the space and fresh ingredients. It was a nice break on a snowy gray Tuesday.

I had a tasty orange-chili, pak choi and turkey campanelle pasta with a nice Primitivo red. For dessert a lovely mascarpone, coconut and lime cake, some Darjeeling imperial second flush tea and to top it all, my favourite digestive, Sambuca caffe. To a tea enthusiastic they have a very impressive tea selection.

Delicious and not expensive at all! Someone had commented that this might be the best fast food chain and I would have to agree.

Lime cupcakes

How else could I start a food blog named lime & chocolate other than with a lime recipe. If you are making it to adults; Cointreau, Limoncello or other citrus liquor makes it even more intense. These are very moist, even better the day after.

This recipe makes about 14 cupcakes.

2 eggs
2 dl sugar
4,5 dl flour
1,5 tsp baking powder
1 dl of melted butter or margarine
2,5 dl quark
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 dl orange juice
1 tbs lime juice
(1 tbs Cointreau or other citrus liquor) optional

Beat the eggs and sugar, add the dry ingredients and then the rest. Check the taste. Divide into forms and bake in 175 degrees about 20 - 25 minutes. Let the cupcakes cool.

Frosting
200g cream cheese
1 tbs butter or margarine
3 tbs icing sugar
1 tsp orange/lime juice
(a drop of Cointreau) optional

Grated zest of lime/lemon/orange

Mix the ingredients, check the taste and spread to cooled cupcakes. Garnish with grated zest.

Lime and Chocolate

Lime

With chicken, fish, chocolate, cake frosting, Caipiroska, Caipirinha... Sweet, sharp, bitter.

Once I travelled to Key West in search for a perfect Key Lime Pie – and found many. Other citrus fruits, too. Lemon Soda in Asia with few drops of liquid palm sugar to make it sweet enough. Earl Grey tea – my all time favourite is Harrod´s Earl Grey with such an intense smell and flavour. Freshly squeezed Sicilian Tarocco blood oranges for breakfast when they were in season.

Chocolate

Dark, dark, dark. Venchi, Valrhona.

Sunday evenings with my roommates in Italy, a block of dark chocolate, sharp knife and a bottle of chilled dessert wine. This is when I discovered the wonderful world of dark chocolates – and delicious dessert wines. My chocolate cake with a twist of chili or lime – or both. French chocolate tryffels for Christmas. Rich and thick Italian hot chocolates that require a spoon. Maybe a small bite of white chocolate. My white chocolate cheesecake.

These two ingredients could be my most important ones in the kitchen. But there are many more. And I am always willing to try some new ones! In this food blog I try new recipies, revisit forgotten ideas, comment what I pick up from food programmes, magazines, cookbooks, from others.

My fellow gastronauts, please join me to this intriguing journey to the world of food!

Yours,

M