Today was my name day. Not many people are aware of it. 😊 I do celebrate it, though, if only with something sweet. My friend Sidra sent this recipe over more than two years ago. I’ve only managed to adapt it and try it today. However, better late than never to lick your fingers.

• I used

10 medium-large dates

10 walnut cores

10 teaspoons of peanut butter

100g hazelnut spread [we made some ourselves; to be continued] or melted chocolate

salt without anticaking agents

• Method?

Open the dates and pit them [Kara enjoyed playing with two date pits].

Place the walnut cores inside the dates, one by one.

‘Seal’ them with the peanut butter.

In the end, soak the mini-desserts in the hazelnut spread.

Before placing these treats in a dish and letting the dish sit in the freezer for half an hour, sprinkle some salt on them.

• I hope you loved them!

I had some almond flour left (bought for this cake). I had forgotten how sticky the almond flour batter is!

The ingredients?

2 eggs

65g almond flour

30g tapioca powder

3g baking powder

salt

a banana

+1 teaspoon of coconut oil

+some honey, some ground walnuts

for 4 pancakes (Φ 14 cm)

Mix the eggs, the almond flour, the tapioca powder, the baking powder, and the salt. Add the banana that you mashed.

Fry them in a teaspoon of coconut oil. They are ready when you see bubbles form in the batter.

To end in glory, serve them with honey and ground walnuts.

Honestly, they were even tastier than I expected them to be! That’s why they’re on this blog! J

I am performing an inner and outer cleaning. In short, I reorganise stuff. I may have not observed the posting days this week and unintentionally skipped a piece 3 weeks ago, but here’s a double dose. J

Today: walnuts

What terrifies me the most when working with walnuts? The thought that I could accidentally prepare a dessert with a piece of walnut shell inside!

Where do I get walnuts from? I’ve tasted walnuts from several places where they’ve grown for centuries, but Romanian walnuts are still the best for me!

Why do I love them? They are incredibly versatile; they immediately change a dessert, making it more inviting!  

How do I use them? From all sorts of cakes to pancake toppings. In my opinion, however, they shine most in cozonac.   

I’ve been thinking... what cake should I make for the kittens on their birthday? They love whipped cream. And I had one butternut squash left. Wait a minute, this can actually work!

Ingredients used:

130-150g butternut squash

30g butter

5 tbsp brown sugar

50g biscuits

20g walnuts

150g whipping cream

20g sugar

Marcel cleaned the butternut squash, cut it into slices, and let it sit in the oven for about one hour in a baking pan lined with baking parchment, at 180-200⁰C.

Then, add three butternut squash slices to a pan (about 130-150g), together with the butter and the brown sugar, stirring until you get a homogenised mix.

Separately, crush 50g of biscuits in a blender, grind the walnuts, and whip the whipping cream and the sugar.

Use a big bowl (and 2 smaller ones) to set up your dessert: the butternut squash mix as your base, a ground walnut layer, a whipped cream layer, a crushed biscuit layer, another whipped cream layer, and the final crushed biscuit layer.

Who, in your opinion, licked the bowl where I whipped the cream? :D

…a fall dessert, received as an idea from our friend Edin, a very talented pastry chef. It turned out delicious and we thank him!

We used—

30g butter

24 prunes

10-15 walnuts

3 tbsp of brown sugar

1 orange (and some orange zest)

+

150g whipping cream

15g sugar

It was easy to make.

In a 20x20cm baking pan, place 15g of butter and melt in the oven.

Pit the prunes and husk the walnuts.  

Fill the prunes with the walnut halves and place them in the baking pan.

Add small amounts of butter to each prune.

Juice the orange and add some orange zest.

Bake them in the oven for 40 minutes at 160⁰C.

We worked as a team (Marcel and I) and savoured every bite with whipped cream.

 

And I didn’t use all the classic ingredients; I adapted them—

30g basil

2 garlic cloves

20g walnuts

3 tbsp of olive oil

2g sea salt

a drop of lemon juice

Blend them. Then, store the pesto in a small jar in the fridge.

It’s not only great with pasta, but with some fresh or crunchy slices of bread, too! 

P.S. For this year’s pesto jar (I am trying to make one each year), I used

45g basil

2 garlic cloves

30g pine nuts (I still had some bought in Tunisia)

4 tbsp of olive oil

3g salt.

It turned out very creamy, with a rich, fresh flavour.

12 muffins

a (ripe) banana

120g gluten-free oatmeal

4g baking powder

85g peanut butter

an egg

25g agave syrup

25g walnuts

This recipe’s for those days when you’d like to munch something baked fast, which is equally tasty!

How to bake them?

Crush the banana, add the oatmeal, the baking powder, the peanut butter, the egg, the agave syrup, and the walnuts – cleaned and lightly crushed.

Using a tablespoon, divide the batter between the muffin moulds/papers.

Bake in the preheated oven, at 170⁰C, for 10 minutes. Then, lower the temperature at 150⁰C, rotate the baking pan and bake for 8 minutes more. 

Even kittens (who do not go crazy after bananas) will love them!

If I were to link bananas and berries for a cake, I’d choose raspberries. Here’s why, for a vegan banana pound cake, we’ll need—

2 bananas

3 tbsp plant-based butter (e.g. peanut butter)

60ml coconut milk

35g coconut oil

120g flour

4g baking powder

60g dates

15g walnuts

90g raspberries

How to bake it?

Mash the bananas using a fork. Add the plant-based butter, the coconut milk, and the coconut oil.

Slowly mix in the flour and the baking powder. Clean the dates and walnuts and cut (break) them into pieces.

Add the raspberries last because they're so fragile – either fresh or defrosted. Moreover, they tend to fall to the bottom of the bakes. The pound cake will also deflate when you remove it from the oven.

First of all, though, you should bake it: 35 minutes in the preheated oven, at 180⁰C, in a pound cake baking pan.

It’s delicious and perfect for breakfast!

This is the cake that my Mom used to bake every year, on December 31^st – her birthday. I have wanted to make it for a long time and the moment was right this year, on my Dad’s birthday.

200g butter [I used homemade butter]

200ml milk

200g sugar [I used 100g coconut sugar and 100g regular granulated sugar]

3 tbsp cocoa

9 tbsp flour

½ sachet baking powder

4 eggs

100g dark chocolate

30 walnuts

First, make the syrup by mixing the butter, milk, sugar, and cocoa in a pan, on medium heat. Let it boil and then cool.

Then, put aside 15 tablespoons from this mix. Into the syrup that you’ve got left, add the flour, the baking powder, and the egg yolks. Beat the egg whites stiff and slowly stir them into the mix.

Pour the mix into a baking pan (I used a round baking pan with a removable bottom) and bake in the preheated oven, at 180°C for 10 minutes and 150°C for 25 minutes more.

While the cake cools, make the glaze. Add the dark chocolate into the syrup and let it melt on low heat. Remove the walnuts from their shells and toast them; then, add them to the syrup. Pour the glaze onto the cake and let it cool.

’...hey, Dad, did the cake’s flavour remind you of anything?’ J♥

125g almonds (or walnuts)

150g (melted) butter

150g sugar

1 drop of vanilla extract

250g flour

5g baking powder

4 eggs

150g milk chocolate

I’m back on the road with Marcel (and publishing the recipe as we travel). So I thought... what cake keeps best on the road? A pound cake!

And I ended up testing another recipe of my Mom.

Grind the almonds (walnuts), add the melted butter, sugar, vanilla extract, flour, baking powder, and 4 yolks. Stir well. Beat the 4 egg whites until stiff and slowly mix them into the previously-obtained batter. Finally, add the chocolate chips.

Bake in a pound cake baking pan lined with baking parchment, in the preheated oven at 180°C, for 40 minutes.

Let the pound cake cool well; the chocolate will harden. It is a delight!

120ml water

3 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp cocoa powder

100g biscuits

75g almonds or walnuts

15 sour cherries

Make a syrup using water, sugar, and cocoa powder; mix the ingredients and let them simmer on low heat for 5 minutes.

After removing the pan from the heat, add the chopped biscuits and almonds (or walnuts).

Knead a little to homogenise the dough; then, take bits of it, flatten them, add a sour cherry to the middle, and shape them into bombs.

Let them sit in the fridge for one hour before munching them.

Enjoy them and enjoy every single day!