Tiramisu

Ok so maybe the picture does not look super appealing but I can reassure you this recipe is very good. It's the one my mum makes and it's so yummy and very simple! I've made tiramisu many times when we had big gatherings for birthdays with my friends and I think everyone liked it :)
Hope you try making it!

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs 
• 300g mascarpone (sometimes they only sell 250g ones and that quantity is also ok. Makes the mascarpone mixture more liquid)
• 50g Sugar
• Salt
• 250-300g of lady fingers
• Lemon zest/lemon juice
• 1 dl of very strong coffee 
• 3 tablespoons of Amaretto
• 5 tablespoons of rum
• Chocolate powder

For this recipe you will need 2 large bowls and an electric mixer! (very important!)

Preparations: 

1. Prepare some instant coffee (add lots of it so it's very strong) and a teaspoon of sugar. Add the amaretto and rum and set aside so it cools down. 
2. In 2 large bowls, separate the egg yolk from the white. 
3. In the bowl with the 2 egg yolks, add 50g of sugar. Mix with the electric mixer until it becomes white/beige-ish. Add the mascarpone to the mixture (best here to just mix with a spoon/fork and not the electric mixer. Might make it a little too liquid-y). 

   

   Mascarpone mixture!

4. In the bowl with the egg white, add a pinch of salt and use the electric mixer to beat until they form peaks. As you mix, add a table spoon of sugar. It will become pretty compact and you will be able to turn the bowl upside down (and the egg white should not fall. If it does then it's not ready :P). As the cake noob that I am, I have messed up the recipe one time because I was lazy and did not wash the electric mixer (after using it to mix the sugar and egg yolk) before beating the egg white... It will stay all liquid-y so make sure there's no yolk or anything else before beating the white! (Just don't be lazy like meee! :P)

   

   fluffeeeehh

5. When it's done, add the egg white to the mascarpone mixture very delicately. For this you can either use a spatula or a spoon and mix in a circular motion not to destroy the egg's white fluffiness. 
6. Place the coffee into a bowl and dip each lady finger generously and place them in a mould (I usually use an oven dish ^^). Create one layer and add one coat of mascarpone mixture. The repeat this process (lady fingers dipped in coffee-rum-amaretto) and coat with the rest of mascarpone (ok I always have a problem here, I always either use too much in the beginning or not enough so try to make it equal unlike me :P). You may also realize that you just don't have a perfect amount of lady fingers.... (like me) so just YOLO it up. 

   

   Make it work :P
   
   
   

   

7. When you're done, cover it and refrigerate it for half a day or 24 hours (24 hours is usually better) so all the flavors sink in the lady fingers! 
8. When you are about to eat it, cover it with some chocolate powder and it's done! :D

You can cover with dark chocolate powder but I've used Nesquick as well and it works :P

Nut Cake to go nuts for!

Pretty :3

For New Years Eve, my mum made a hazelnut cake! This is considered an all time classic in our household for being delicious, simple, and yeah just delicious. If you are allergic to nuts, then yes, this is definitely a recipe to avoid… You can also replace hazelnuts with walnuts (also yumz). Anyways, here is the recipe as my mum makes it!

Ingredients:

• 100g of butter
• 200g of sugar
• 3 eggs
• 100g of hazelnuts (crushed)
• 80g of flour

Preparation:

1. Pre-heat the oven at 200C. 
2. Butter the mold and add some flour so the cake won't stick. 
3. Melt the butter, and add the sugar. Mix well.
4. Add the eggs one by one while mixing, and add the crushed hazelnuts and the flour. Mix until smooth.
5. Add the mixture into the bowl and bake it for 30min.

When ready, you can add a think layer of nutella and other decorations (ie. chocolate sprinkles). You can also serve with creme anglaise like we did. For New Years, my mum also added some chocolate chips/sprinkles inside!

Enjoy! :)

Recette en Francais:

Ingredients:

• 100 g de beurre
• 200 g de sucre en poudre
• 3 oeufs
• 100g de noisettes broyes 
• 80 g de farine

Preparation:

1. Faire fondre le beurre, puis dans un saladier, le travailler avec le sucre.
2. Ajouter les oeufs un a un en brassant, puis verser les noisettes et enfin la farine. Le melange doit former une pate homogene.
3. Verser le tout dans un moule a manque beurre et farine. Enfourner a 200C (th. 6/7) pendant 30min. 

You can see the chocolate chips on the side ><

Receta en Español: Torta de avellanas

Ingredientes:

• 100g de manteca
• 100g de azúcar
• 3 huevos
• 100g de avellanas molidas
• 80g de harina

Preparación: 

1. Ablandar la manteca y agregar el azúcar. Mezclar bien. 
2. Agregar los huevos uno por uno mezclando. Después, agregar las avellanas y la harina. Batir todo hasta que la mezcla sea homogénea. 
3. Meter el todo en el molde (el molde tiene un poco de manteca y harina para que la torta no se pegue) y al horno durante 30min a 200C!

Se puede agregar chispas de chocolate y/o nutella! 

Nutella Cake

For this year's Christmas cake we decided to make something new: Nutella cake. I think everyone is a big fan of nutella and most people would probably enjoy this recipe. As a baking noob, this recipe was still quite easy to make (even for me). I found the recipe on a French site and the link in French can be found at the end of this post! :)

Ingredients for 4 nomsters

• 6 spoons of Nutella
• 150g of flour
• 120g of sugar
• 1 yoghurt (plain yoghurt)
• 3 eggs
• Half a pack of baking soda

Preparation

1. Pre-heat your oven at 180C and butter your mold and cover it with flour so the cake doesn't stick. 
2. In a big bowl, mix the eggs with the sugar (you can use an electric mixer for this). Add the yoghurt, melted butter and mix well. Once it becomes smooth, add the flour and baking soda while mixing. 
3. Finally, add the Nutella. It didn't say in the recipe but we used the electric mixer (Nutella is quite thick so it was quite a hassle to mix. It was just faster!). 
4. Once the Nutella is incorporated, add it to mold and bake it for 30 min! 

Yeeey, so easy! Ok so this cake was pretty good. One minus point, it did not taste like Nutella as much as I thought... A little disappointed with this but it was very soft and spongy. It was also nice that it wasn't too sweet. If you add more Nutella it might be a little too intense... But yes, I think you should definitely try this out! We ate it with creme anglaise (vanilla flavoured *recipe coming soon*) and it was absolutely delicious! 

Nutella cake with creme anglaise

We made it Christmassy by adding powdered sugar (kind of like snow hehe) and some little decorations as you can see on the photo :)

Can you tell how spongy it is? :)

Recette en Francais --> http://gateau.com/gateau-au-nutella-facile.htm

Enjoy!

Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup

Two years ago, I discovered Reese's peanut butter cup via an American exchange student and it was definitely life changing.

Not being such a fan of peanut butter to begin with I was a little reluctant to try them at first but now I must say I am definitely HOOKED. 

Couple of months ago I heard of the existence of Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream and definitely had to try it. Luckily, American products are becoming more readily available in London compared to 4 years ago and it was easily found in local super market. 

Verdict: 

This ice cream is now one of my favorite at the moment. Compared to other Ben & Jerry's ice creams (for example Chocolate Fudge Brownie which I love but is too sweet for me) is that this one is not too sweet. It tastes like peanut butter but not too much (not being such a peanut butter fan, I found this perfect) and does not give you a heavy feeling afterwards.

Entire piece, YEY!

You can find pieces of the cups which is absolutely delicious (if you eat this ice cream you will fight with your family members or friends to get the cups :P). They are usually broken into halves but I was lucky to find have an entire one in my bowl! ;)

Overall, as a Nomster I would really recommend this ice cream despite the high calories :P

nom nom nom

How to spot a good Eclair au Chocolat

Eclair is, in my opinion, one of the most well-known French dessert. As a Nomster, I have tried a high amount of different eclairs (mainly chocolate flavor) in different countries and heard the criteria for a good Eclair many times throughout my life via my (French) mother. There are a variety of signs that can tell you if the eclair is going to be good. Here are a few tips:

1. Creme patissiere: this is the cream that fills the eclair. It is very important that it is chocolate/coffee flavored depending on the eclair of your choice and most importantly that the creme is NOT white. I have had many disappointments upon buying or finding those shaped like and called eclairs but filled with whipped cream. If you see white cream in the inside, remember, it is an impostor.  
2. Chocolate icing on top of the eclair. On a good eclair, the chocolate icing should be shiny. I find it aesthetically more appealing and it also shows that it is not the same cream used for the filling and the covering. 
3. Dough: this is something that can only be tested once in your mouth. The eclair dough has to be soft and moist. If it is too chewy and dry, it means the dough was left on the fire for too long. 
4. The filling: the filling inside of an eclair is called creme patissiere. This cream should be filling the eclair generously. If not, the eclair may feel rather dry. 
5. The taste of creme patissiere: a good one will obviously taste like chocolate or coffee. Sounds obvious but I have come across some that were rather tasteless! 
6. Consistency of creme patissiere: the cream inside should neither be too liquid or too thick. If too liquid, eating it without any spill will be a challenge and if too thick, it will make the eclair heavy. 

Below is a chocolate eclair from a French boulangerie that opened in West London. As you can see the icing in very shiny and dark and the filling tasted like chocolate with a good consistency. The only minus point was the dough that could be softer. 

The next eclair is from Maison Blanc at Chiswhick. This one was absolutely delicious: the dough was light and the filling was exceptionally good. It was pretty thick and you could really taste the chocolate (you can also see it's pretty legit by the colour of the filling as well!). The only minus point was that they were a little stingy on the chocolate icing on top.

Filled with deliciousness!

Hope this will help you identify more authentic eclairs :)