For 5 medium pieces of cartof, you will need

130g biscuits

50g butter

60g condensed milk

2 tbsp of cocoa powder

1 dash of rum

+2 tbsp of cocoa powder

After crushing the biscuits, add the melted butter, condensed milk, cocoa powder, and rum.

 

I suggest removing them from the fridge a few minutes before eating them. This way, they will not be too hard. Roll them through cocoa powder; then, enjoy their taste!

Shells

170g flour

2 tbsp of sugar

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 tbsp of cocoa powder

1 tbsp of butter

1 small egg

3 tbsp of Port (if you don’t have Marsala)

Filling

325g ricotta

130g sugar

for 8 cannoli

I don’t like the scent of burnt oil in the house; on the other hand, I was craving cannoli. I’m thinking, ’Could I bake them?’.

I had prepared the filling the previous night, draining ricotta and mixing it with the sugar.

To make the cannoli shells, mix the flour, sugar, cinnamon, cocoa, butter, and egg. To give them their typical flavour, add 3 tablespoons of Port if you lack the classical Marsala.

Knead until you have a compact dough (insist until all the ingredients are fully incorporated!). Let it sit in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Divide the dough into 8 balls. Then, crush them and roll them out. Draw circles using a 12cm-diametre bowl. Cut them out. Wrap them around the cannoli tubes. Use a few drops of water to stick the ends.

Place the cannoli tubes into a baking pan. Then, bake in the preheated oven at 180°C for 15 minutes.

By using a piping bag, fill the shells with the ricotta and sugar mixture.

Tip: I prefer filling the shells every time we have cannoli, keeping the piping bag in a mug in the fridge.

At times, you’re craving something sweet even if you’re undergoing a detox, you’re fasting, or your diet is vegan. I’ve discovered something tasty, easy to make, and filling!

What did I use?

225g pitted dates

75g Romanian almonds

½ tbsp of cinnamon powder

3 tbsp of cocoa powder

100g coconut flakes

Soak the dates and almonds overnight.

Rinse them and transfer them to a blender with the cinnamon and cocoa powder, pulsing for 1-2 minutes until you get a paste.

Shape 32 bonbons (it helps if your hands are wet). Roll them through the coconut flakes (chop them in the blender if they’re too large).

These 25 days of detox were some of the roughest I've ever lived! There was good in them, too! I discovered lucuma! So, here's a simple recipe

for about 18 lucuma chocolates--

40g coconut oil

10g cocoa powder

40g lucuma powder

4 tbsp of date sugar

Mix all the ingredients in the order listed above.

Pour the mix into the chocolate moulds.

Keep in the freezer for about 1 hour.

Munch.

In May-June, we went through a rigorous detox. It is hard to cook when you are not even allowed – on top of lactose-, sugar-, egg-, and gluten-free ingredients – nuts, very sweet fruits, beans, peas, chickpeas, or cornmeal.

This is one of the desserts put together back then using

100g flaxseed flour

30g tapioca powder

3g baking powder

350ml water

3 tbsp flaxseeds

20ml flaxseed oil

50g date syrup

35g cocoa powder

20 raspberries

Mix all the ingredients in the order mentioned above.

Pour the batter into a 20x20 cm baking pan.

Place the raspberries on top.

Bake at 160°C for 30 minutes.

Enjoy!

40g brown sugar

salt

3 tbsp cocoa powder

3 tbsp cornstarch

420ml milk

80g sour cream

100g dark chocolate

Homemade puddings and pudding powder puddings are a million miles away. This one is the best version I’ve had. I hope that you agree!

Mix the brown sugar, salt, cocoa powder, and cornstarch in a deep pan. Then, add 120ml of milk and stir well until there are no more lumps. Pour the remaining milk and mix in the sour cream.

Start heating the mix on low heat. Stir from time to time. After boiling, add the chocolate (chips or cut into pieces); stir until it is incorporated.

Remove from heat and place the pudding into the serving dishes. Let the pudding cool; place the serving dishes into the fridge for at least 4 hours.

Enjoy it!

I’ve seen many attempts to make a different type of tiramisu – from oats. In theory, it looked inviting. In practice, chances were high for it not to be. So, I decided to test it and come up with my version. (I also tested ricotta tiramisu – I liked one I tried in Agrigento, but Marcel said that this oats tiramisu tasted better, so—)

For one portion, I used

15 teaspoons of (gluten-free) oats

1 tbsp of (prepared) coffee

130g goat or buffalo yoghurt (I tested them both)

5 teaspoons of honey

+1/2 tbsp of cocoa powder

Pour coffee over the oats; mix them with the yoghurt and honey. Leave the bowl in the fridge overnight. In the morning, sprinkle the cocoa powder over the mix.

20 bars | Mould: 34 x 24 cm

500g powdered milk

40g cocoa powder

170ml water

400g sugar

125g butter

a drop of rum essence

Here is my Mom’s homemade chocolate recipe. On the other hand, this is a more recent one, which is almost always faultless.

Mix the powdered sugar and cocoa powder in a big bowl.

Add the water and the sugar to a pot and leave it on low heat (to dissolve the sugar) without mixing.

3 minutes after you note bubbles form on the sides of the pot, add the butter and leave the pot on the heat for 3 minutes more.

Then, remove the pot from heat and add a drop of rum essence.

As a last step, transfer the powdered milk and cocoa powder mix to the sugar syrup, mixing well.

When the dry ingredients have been incorporated, pour the chocolate into a mould lined with baking parchment.

Let it sit in the fridge for at least 2-3 hours before cutting the chocolate into bars (you don’t want it to harden excessively). It will keep in the fridge for a few days (though I am not sure it will last that long). J

Homebaked. A different thing. J 

Here are the ingredients that you need—

500ml whipping cream

50g sugar

25g tapioca flour

vanilla extract

50g dark chocolate

for the filling

3 eggs

150g sugar

10g vanilla sugar

230g flour

4g baking powder

20g cocoa

120ml milk

70g butter

for the batter

+2 bananas

+butter and flour -> baking pan

First, make the filling.

Place the whipping cream, sugar, and tapioca flour (you can replace it with starch), mixed beforehand in a pan, on low heat. Stir from time to time, removing the pan from the heat after the cream has boiled. Then add the vanilla extract, then the chocolate pieces. Place the pan immediately in the fridge. This way, the chocolate will melt, but not completely, keeping its crunchiness.

Mix the eggs with the sugar well. Continue to incorporate, with the help of a wooden spoon, the vanilla sugar, flour, baking powder, cocoa, milk, and then the melted and cooled butter.

Pour the batter into a round mould that has been previously buttered and floured. Bake in the preheated oven at 180⁰C for 30 minutes.

Let the cake cool. Then, cut out a piece of the cake (leave approximately 2 cm from the edge). Scoop out pieces from the cut-out cake, crumble them and place them into a bowl.

Place the bananas cut into half on the bottom of the scooped-out cake.

Mix the cream and pour it on top of the bananas. Then, start making the molehill cake from the pieces scooped out from the cake. Let the cake sit in the fridge for at least one hour before cutting it and serving it.

Here’s a recipe that’s quick to get your dessert into a baking pan and then... your plate.

It has only a few ingredients, like most of my recipes.

Baking pan: 34 x 24 cm

120g (gluten-free) oatmeal

200ml milk

100ml water

2 bananas

2 eggs

a pinch of baking powder

1 teaspoon of ground coffee

a drop of rum essence

30g cocoa powder

+150g vegan chocolate chips

100g butter

+ a few drops of flaxseed oil

Pour the milk and water over the oatmeal; allow the oats to swell for 5 minutes.

In a separate bowl, mash the bananas. Then, add the eggs, the baking powder, the coffee, the rum essence, and the cocoa powder.

Mix the swollen oatmeal into the above batter.

Pour it into an oiled baking pan (I used flaxseed oil). Bake the cake in the preheated oven, at 180⁰C, for 25 minutes. Let it cool a bit.

Melt the butter on low heat. Add the chocolate chips and mix until they melt, too. Pour this mix over the cake.

Let it rest in the fridge for at least one hour.

It is finger-licking good!

P.S. For the vegan version, use nut butter instead of butter, plant-based milk instead of milk, and two teaspoons of flaxseeds mixed into six teaspoons of water instead of the two eggs.

serves 6

One of my dearest friends is from Pakistan. We had been exchanging recipes for a while when she gave me this one. A question came along—’Do you have rusk?’...

I had no idea what that was, so I improvised using fette biscottate. I adapted the recipe. It was a successful dessert, in the end.

Of course, if you have rusk, you can use it. J

The ingredients used were—  

250ml milk

½ tbsp of Arabic coffee (if you only have regular coffee, add cardamom to it)

1 tbsp of sugar

for the 'sauce'

200ml sour cream

200ml whipping cream

6 tbsp of sugar

1 tbsp of cocoa

for the cream

+10 pieces of rusk/fette biscottate

Mix the milk, the coffee, and the sugar in a large pan. Let the mixture simmer until it boils. Remove the pan from the heat and let the mixture cool.

To make the cream, mix the sour cream, the whipping cream, the sugar, and the cocoa.

Prepare a pound cake baking pan (31x12.5 cm). Mine is made of glass because this dessert looks better in it.

Taking a piece of rusk at a time, dip it into the milk mixture and then place it in the pan. I needed three pieces and I used half of the fourth. Pour one-third of the cream over the pieces of rusk.

Repeat this step twice. Then, place the baking pan into the refrigerator and leave it there overnight.

It hardens more than you think. It is moist, flavourful, and delicious!

100g buckwheat flour

30g tapioca flour

150ml water

2 tbsp flaxseeds

20ml olive oil

50g agave syrup

35g cocoa

5-6 large strawberries

…because even we, vegans, sometimes crave yum desserts, here’s a tasty version of a plant-based brownie. J

How to make it? In a bowl, mix the buckwheat flour, the tapioca flour, the water, and the flaxseeds (if you let the flaxseeds sit in water for 5-10 minutes before adding them to the mix, that’s great). Add the olive oil, the agave syrup, and the cocoa.

Place the batter into a baking mould (I used a round silicone one). Cut 5-6 strawberries into slices and place them on top; then, bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven, at 160°C.

Let’s enjoy strawberries while they’re still in season! ♥