Coconut milk chocolate panna cotta

"Never underestimate the power of chocolate!"

I call it quite a harmless dessert. There is no cream in it, it tastes quite rich and yet light. Besides a good chocolate dessert once in a while never hurt anyone. I served this to quite a few people already and everyone asked for more!

Carrot cake

Large, naked raw carrots are acceptable as food only to those who lie in hutches eagerly awaiting Easter. ~Fran Lebowitz

For anyone, who is not too big of a fan of big, creamy, heavy and frosted cakes, this one is a perfect choice for the Christmas table. And there's always an option to add some frosting on the side to be served for the sweets lovers. I studied several carrot cake recipes and decided to go with a bit of everything, creating my own mix, yet not stepping too far from what the recipe books offer.

Rose wine jelly with fresh raspberries

"In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria." David Auerbach, 2002

The sun is coming out more often, the days are longer and the greenery is more and more visible each day! Love spring! May favorite time of year and probably one of the main reasons besides nature's rebirth is the fact that summer is approaching and there will be loads of berries, herbs, vegetables! With winter way behind me, I'm so not in the mood of baking pies for desserts or making something creamy. I'd much rather prefer something very light, fragrant and colorful    that would be a perfect end to a light meal. 

Rum baba

"Anybody who believes that a way to a man's heart is through his stomach flunked geography." ~Robert Byrne

Black coffee and Hazelnut Bailey's jelly

"Man does not live by coffee alone"!

Banana ice cream

“I just made ice cream. Accidentally. I made regular cream, and then winter kicked in.” ― Jarod Kintz, This Book is Not FOR SALE

That's almost how it happened to me - at least with the winter part.
It may sound very cliche, but seriously - where have I been until now that I haven't tried this yet?

I quit eating dairy products well over a year ago, because of some serious lactose intolerance. Needless to say - things like ice cream have been cut out of my menu for that whole time with some very rare guilty pleasure moments a few times a year.

After the Christmas and New Year's marathon, had a bunch of overripe bananas and had a huge craving for something sweet, yet something I wouldn't curse myself for. And this is how my banana ice cream "happened".

Pear poached in apple cider with raspberry sauce

"Once in a young lifetime one should be allowed to have as much sweetness as one can possibly want and hold." ~Judith Olney

Well not in this case! It had nothing too sweet, creamy and neither it was crammed with calories. But it sure was rich in flavor! 

I love desserts that are somewhat different from the usual and don't make you feel too heavy. After all, the dessert is something you finish your whole meal with and the taste stays with you long after the memories of starters and main courses are gone.

Another upside to making such a dessert is being able to pull it off even with surprise guests - improvise with some of the ingredients and poach them in almost anything, as long as you have some pears resting in your fruit basket!

Pruneaux à l’Armagnac - my take on it

This little piece of heaven comes from Gascony. Invited for a visit at someone's place in the region often means an invitation for pruneaux. The prunes are often served after dinner as a digestif - nothing less than prunes soaked in Armagnac for a lengthy period of time.

A friend of mine who owns a gourmet store promised me a treat during one of my visits - some kind of a special prune. Didn't expect anything that amazing! Needless to say - I bought a jar of pruneaux. And although I was savouring it for more special occasions - as much as all good things - it was gone over some time.

So trying to reinvent pruneaux, I decided to try and combine it with Porto instead of Armagnac and see how that works.

Champagne jelly with fresh berries

"I drink champagne on two occasions: when I'm in love and when I'm not!" Coco Chanel

Rhubarb pie

“We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.” 

Molten chocolate cake

"Chocolate is the answer! Who cares what the question is!"

Les canelés de Bordeaux

"I think careful cooking is love, don't you? The loveliest thing you can cook for someone who's close to you is about as nice a valentine as you can give." Julia Child

Lemon Meringue Cake

You can say this for ready-mixes - the next generation isn't going to have any trouble making pies exactly like mother used to make. ~Earl Wilson

I never thought I'd get into the dessert thing... Seriously - it takes way too much precision for my taste (cooking, not eating :P). At the end of the day it is one of the biggest pleasures to cook for someone's special occasion. After all, as the Greeks say - "Food is love". In this particular case I was preparing the "present of love" to myself - my birthday.

Brownies...

"There are two kinds of people in the world: those who love chocolate, and communists." ~Leslie Moak Murray

Didn't mean to sound political, but loved the quote to describe how I felt about this dessert... Who would not love something like this? Not that I have much of a sweet tooth, but those rare moments when craving for some dessert - it has to be something like this one. Or the flour less chocolate cake... Or the chocolate muffins with cherries... You get the idea, right?

Cream cheese muffins with marzipan and craisins...

"There is no love sincerer than the love of food." ~George Bernard Shaw 

Could not have said it any better! And the love of wine....? Hopefully not to be doomed as an alcoholic - I do sincerely love wine. Not just any wine - chilled, crisp, that leaves a trace of all the amazing mixtures of tastes well after the gulp has flown down the throat.

Got carried away... Back to muffins. Got home after work one of those days, when I desperately needed something good and tasty and couldn't tell what that may be. Decided to go for something sweet - to be made of whatever ingredients I had in the cupboards. Came across all kinds of dried berries and fruit and a huge piece of marzipan. Dediced to go with muffins. Although just the discovery of the marzipan at that moment was plenty enough to satisfy my tastebuds, but I had really gotten in the mood to bake something.

Dark chocolate dipped strawberries...

"Chocolate doesn't make the world go around. But it certainly makes the trip worthwhile."

The chocolate dipped strawberries accompany nearly each and every romantic love scene in movies that involves champagne, stars and/or fancy lingerie.

Never done them before, but now I can openly confess - they are the easiest thing to make and totally worth it :). I was preparing the strawberries for my second edition of the flourless chocolate cake.

Chocolate muffins with cherries in rum

I take a vitamin every day. It's called chocolate

Well I don't take chocolate every day. Every day would be a bit of an exaggeration. Not THAT much of a chocoholic - I love chocolate once in a while. But when I have something with it, it has to be very rich to be worth having a few bites.

Today started of as a very lazy Sunday. A few cups of coffee in the morning, that lasted till 1 or 2 pm, watching some downloaded TV series. Then the idea to do some cleaning around the apartment turned into something much bigger and it had to be crowned with culmination in the kitchen. The perfect combination of scents in the air now - fresh laundry and chocolate. Mmm...

Flourless Chocolate Cake with Dark Chocolate Glaze... (2nd edition) And chocolate dipped strawberries

There’s more to life than chocolate, but not right now!

It is far beyond classics - chocolate is good for any and every occasion. Needless to say, the flourless chocolate cake has been on the "to do" list for quite a while now. It's in the oven as I write and the scents coming out of the kitchen are heavenly!

If you have made yourself a promise not to overindulge in sweets and desserts, but then you have an "emergency" or "life and death" kind of situation, you need to go for something that is that good! 

Olive Oil and Orange Cake, Inspired by Mario Batali

“A man is not an orange. You can't eat the fruit and throw the peel away”. Arthur Miller

First of all, to give heads-up - the photo is "borrowed" for the time being - just to give an idea how my cake looked like prior I poured the glaze on - then it looked like it was sitting in a puddle of the glaze that was spreading all over the table and dripping on the floor. I know what I had done wrong, but now from the beginning...

A few weekends ago we were planning to visit some friends living in the neighborhood and I promised them I will bake a cake, having this particular one in mind. I had made it many times before and it has turned out absolutely lovely! This time I had the glaze (that I had learned from Martha Stewart) in mind and was very eager to try that one on my cake.

Apple pie with whipped cream and thyme

"But I, when I undress me Each night, upon my knees Will ask the Lord to bless me With apple-pie and cheese." Eugene Field, ‘Apple-Pie and Cheese’

No cheese here, but oh!... The sweet juicy red apples... The inspiration!