sweet delights

what to do w/ homemade apricot jam?

I made lots of apricot jam during summer. Of course it’s absolutely delicious to have some homemade apricot jam on your fresh roll or croissant or crispy toast or soft French bread or … nevertheless what else can you do w/ the jam? So I started surfing … I thought about something like a cake or a tart or … whatever. It’s end of summer now, but there are still wonderful fresh apricots around us…

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sweet delights

clafoutis with plums

End of August I stumbled across plums in my trusted food store – the first plums of the season. At once I got some ideas about plum cake, plum sheet cake, plum cake w/ crumble … Finally I decided to create a clafoutis w/ plums. To be honest I’m not a fan of any plums like plums uncooked … plums always tend to be rather sourish. However, if cooked or baked plums are great w/…

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sweet delights

a cake disaster … turning into a delicious butter-sugar-almond affair

I stumbled across the idea for this recipe in Mimi Thorissons’s cookbook A Kitchen in France. It sounded nice & delicious & I thought it would be fine w/ my espressos (you know that I’m addicted to espresso!). So for my next shopping I made a mental note to buy an organic lemon as well as dry yeast … & some almond flakes. The rest would be waiting in my fridge resp. pantry. Originally the…

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sweet delights

ricotta cake with mashed berries

This cake is so simple and easy. You can use it again and again. It’ll go fine always … & anytime of the year. Depending on the seasons you can add some fresh fruit or some mixed-berry-sauce or some chocolate sauce or whatever to create your own special cake event. One approach is flavoring the cake with lemon or orange flavour & adding fresh fruit e. g. fresh berries. Okay – you won’t have fresh…

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sweet delights

little cakes – type bundt

Once I happened to get a present: a small Bundt cake pan (∅ 18 cm). So I started baking little cakes. Little cakes are fine for 2 – 4 people for coffee, for dessert … I’m not talking about a real big Bundt cake that may lead up to 16 big slices! After having managed to define the proper amounts of the usual suspects (like butter, flour, sugar, eggs …) in order to achieve a…

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sweet delights

carrot cake w/ cream cheese frosting

I remember my very 1st true carrot cake: it was during a USA holiday trip many years ago somewhere in Northern California in a small diner – rather late in the evening – when it turned out that only carrot cake was left for dessert. It wasn’t a simple cake it was a 3-layer structure w/ lots of frosting & minced walnuts … it was just delicious! To set the record straight from the beginning:This…

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sweet delights

rhubarb tart: soft & creamy!

We’ll create a tart – soft, but slightly sour rhubarb surrounded by a lemony cheesecake filling on top of a juicy crumbling crust: dig in … & once in your mouth all will melt into a soft sweet & sour mess … Rhubarb season started some weeks ago. When working on my blog I stumbled across this recipe for a rhubarb tart – now updated, however, as delicious as some years ago. In a nutshell:…

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sweet delights

chocolate cake & the importance of eating healthy

This is a chocolate cake. A simple chocolate loaf.(It’s a chocolate cake w/ chopped pistachios which are optional.) Is this a healthy cake? Maybe you’ve already made an educated guess … This isn’t a brand-new post – I published it about 4 years ago. Then I’d like to present a recipe for chocolate cake & some insights – my very own! – about healthy food in general & especially about posts featuring the It-word healthy.…

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sweet delights

it’s just bread & butter, milk & eggs

I came across this simple treat years ago when watching Jamie Oliver in one of his early TV shows: Panettone in a bread & butter pudding provides a flavorful basis loaded with raisins & candied lemons & candied oranges  – so you only need to add eggs & milk & … I started w/ a medium size panettone of about 500 g bought in my trusted food store. At first I thought about using the whole…

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savoury delights soups

lazy butternut stock

I had a fine butternut sitting on my kitchen desk for some days & decided to try an approach for a soup w/ lots of vegetables. I had some carrots, some frozen peas & some spring onions. What else? There was some bacon in my fridge & I thought it might be a fine add-on concerning the flavour. … & of course I had some of this dark green, intensive pumpkin seed oil for the…

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savoury delights

shakshuka – for breakfast & dinner

We are in Southern France, living for 4 months in a small house in Carcassonne. As I told you already: the kitchen is small & the kitchen equipment is limited. So cooking is somewhat of a challenge … However, what fits is Shakshuka. … & you may prepare it for breakfast as well as for dinner! (We almost never have lunch here, but of course it’s also a delicious simple lunch!) Some years ago I…

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sweet delights

limoncello muffins

As always during the last weeks I’m in a hurry because of the endless preparations for our planned move. Nevertheless I need to empty my pantry … so baking some sweet delight is always on my agenda. When checking my pantry I found a bottle of limoncello – this very nice Italian lemon liqueur. The bottle was almost empty, but … soon I had the idea of some muffins w/ limoncello. A quick affair. No…

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sweet delights

vanilla muffins w/ orange flavour

Summer is in its way … autumn will come. The sweetness of summer fruit may be preserved & create desserts for some months. It may be combined w/ fluffy muffins, plain vanilla muffins w/ intense orange flavour. That’s just what I tried to create. There is some red fruit compote – in Germany it’s called Rote Grütze. Some compote will end up on a bowl & a muffins will dive into this red deliciousness. Let’s…

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sweet delights

rhubarb – cream – sponge

We are now full in the rhubarb season … & I like to give you a recipe for an easy rhubarb dessert. (I admit that I posted this recipe years ago, but it hasn’t lost any of its deliciousness!) For this dessert rhubarb is transformed into rhubarb compote, which I often prepare in order to have 2-3 tablespoons together w/ banana & yoghurt for breakfast. Around the Easter weekend there is always a mix of…

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