Category: cooking

I have baked a vegan version but I wanted to try the traditional version.

Ingredients
1 bag of tea
200g fresh Medjool dates
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon grating nutmeg
85g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing (at room temperature)
85g dark muscovado sugar (I used brown)
170g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
2 eggs
pinch of salt

Carame Sauce:
125g unsalted butter
62.5g dark muscovado sugar (I used brown)
62.5g white caster sugar
optional 1 shot dark rum
200ml double cream

Serving

• Vanilla ice cream

Process

• Pre-heat oven at 180C
• Chop the dates and cover in boiling water until soft with a tea bag
• Cream the butter and sugar.
• Add the eggs to the butter/sugar, the add the flour. Pinch of salt
• In a hand blender or similar, add the dates with some water and the spices.
• Add the date mix to the butter/sugar/flour. Combine properly
• Grease a pan with butter and flour. Pour the mix.
• Bake for 40-45 minutes. Use a stick or knife to be sure the cake is ready (should come up clean)
• Prepare the caramel sauce, in a pan, add the butter and two types of sugar. When it is boiling add the the shot and wait for the alcohol to evaporate.
• Add the cream and mix for 1 minute to avoid burning. The more you cook the sauce, the thicker will get later on.
• Remove the sauce from the heat.
• Once the cake is ready, make some holes in the top and pour the caramel sauce on the top, use a brush to cover the whole surface.

For serving

Cut a portion, add a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a bit of caramel on top.

It was really tasty. I wonder how the restaurants serve it always warm! I guess the caramel sauce and cake can be pre-heated?

Happy with the result (room for improvement too)

This is a “new” recipe It is a bit different from the one I used before as it doesnt use bread starter. One issue is still the sugar (I think) I use orange juice and that is not as sweet as Mosto.

Ingredients

250ml orange juice
125ml olive oil
62.5g sugar (next time use 100gr)
14g dry baker’s yeast (1 sacket)
2 medium eggs (reserve 1/2 for brushing)
1 pinch of salt
500g strong flour (>12gr protein) (maybe a bit more next time)

Process:

• Warm up a bit the orange juice. Dont boil it. You should put a finger without burning

• Mix in a bowl the orange juice, yeast, oil, sugar and eggs.
• Add the flour bit by bit. And the salt, It will be sticky
• Knead the dough by hand until smooth. Mine was sticker than the video and took me a while until it became that shiny.
• Put it in a bowl and let it rest until double in size
• Then divide the dough. I made pieces of 190gr aprox. Then pinch them to form a ball and shape them.
• Let is rest until double is size
• Pre-heat oven at 180C
• Before baking, brush them with a mixed egg and add a pinch of sugar on top.
• Bake until golden (20m or more)

Just before getting into the oven

After baking

The ones from my hometown are more spongy, mine are a bit too dense.

The color and share were good (still far from the real ones) and the taste as well was not close to it. Still you can enjoye them with a nice hot chocolate 🙂

I haven’t tried in a while so yesterday was the day. This hit the spot.

Simple ingredients and good result. Although I struggle when recipes use “cup” measures…. I did a smaller batch (two cups and one egg) and my batter was too liquid compared with the video, so I will have to try again.

Dry Ingredients

• 3 cups of flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tbsp baking soda

Wet Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups milk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 3 eggs

Frying

• Butter or coconut oil (I guess whipped salted butter, is just buying salted butter and whip it?)

Process

• Mix all dry ingredients in one bowl
• Mix all wet ingredients in another bowl
• Pour the wet mix into the dry bowl and mix a bit, dont overdo it.
• This is the difficult part. In a hot pan (at mid-heat), use the butter or oil for frying. I used a small frying pan so I just did one big pancake at each time. Wait for the edges to by brown/fried. Dont stir. Once you see (several) bubbles on top, then you can flip the pancakes (I had to add a bit of oil to avoid burning)

I made 6 pieces. Dont look amazing but tasted really good. So can’t complain

I had some shredded coconut and decide to make something I wanted for some time, “coquitos”. I found this video and I was surprised how easy it was!

Ingredients

• 80g sugar
• 100g shredded coconut
• 1 medium egg
• 1 tbs vanilla essence

Process

• Pre-heat oven at 180C
• Mix sugar and coconut
• Add egg and mix all very well. Use the hand at the end
• Let it cool down for 30 minutes in the fridge
• Make small gold balls with the hand and leave them in a tray with baking paper
• Bake for 15 minutes or until golden

I made 9 coquitos:

They were tasty and lasted for a long time

I already tried this recipe but I wanted to try again. This time I followed a different video

Ingredients:
900g cream cheese (3×300 packs), room temperature
80g grana padano cheese grated (I didnt have Manchego Cheese)
150g sugar
5 whole eggs, 2 yolks
600g heavy cream (30% fat)
4 tbsp normal flour

Process:

• Preheat oven at 250C.
• Prepare the baking mold. User a bit of butter in the bottom. Add two sheets of baking paper, add butter so the cake doesnt stick too much
• In a bowl, cream together the cream cheese, grated cheese and sugar. I used a hand-mixer at medium speed.
• Add the eggs and yolks, one by one, mix with the hand-mixer. Dont add the next until fully blended.
• Add the cream and continue mixing.
• Add the flour and mix a bit more.
• Pour the cheesecake into the mold.
• Bake the cheesecake for 30 aprox, until it jiggles like gentle waves and the top is brown.
• Let it cool down and then transfer to the fridge. Chill for 6-8 hours or overnight.
• Take it out of the fridge for 1h or so before eating so it is at room temperature

To be honest, I dont remember how it was my first time. But it doesnt look bad at all.

I think I should have put the temperature a bit lower as the top got brown too fast and then the center too creamy.

So know yourself and your oven!!!!

Watched this video, and decided I had to try. My food processor is small so I can’t make that much.

Ingredients:

• 1 jar (480g) roasted red peppers: I used all pieces but one as I wasn’t sure if my mini processor was enough
• 120g walnuts
• 6 tbsp breadcrumbs
• 1 garlic clove
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp pure pomegranate molasses (I found it in a Turskish supermarket, but not sure if it is 100% pure pomegrenate)
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp chilli flakes
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cumin (I didnt have it)

Process:

• Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Toast the walnuts, stirring from time to time.
• Add the breadcrumbs to the walnuts, don’t burn them! Stir until brown.
• let it cool down for a couple of minutes.
• In the food processor, add the garlic, walnuts and breadcrumbs. Blend until getting fine crumbs.
• Add the roasted peppers (drained!), olive oil, pomegranate molasses, lemon juice, all spices and salt.
• Pulse! don’t blend! Do several times until to get a consistency like the video.

Ready to eat. You can top it up with walnuts, pomegranate seeds, olive oil, mint, etc.

Very easy, quick and tasty!

This is a typical Portuguese cake. I have done it before, but some years ago so time to repeat. And this is the original recipe.

Carob can be used as a replacement for chocolate. It is a pity is not used much more.

Ingredients:

• 6 eggs (divided into whites and yolks)
• 200g sugar (brown if possible)
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 200g melted butter
• 180g of self-rising cake flour (if not, normal flour)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 60g carob powder (as much pure as possible)
• 50g chopped nuts (almonds, walnuts, etc)
• optional: 1 tbsp of alfarroba (carob) liquor or almond liquor (amarguinha)

Process:

• Pre-heat oven 180C
• Beat the egg yolks, sugar, vanilla and butter until it becomes an aerated mix. You can use a hand mixer for this.
• Shift the flours and baking powder together, and add gradually into the wet mix. Mix with a wood spoon!
• Beat the egg whites into soft peaks, then fold into the batter.
• Once all mixed, add the chopped nuts. Be sure they spread equally
• Butter a cake pan. Then spread evenly the batter.
• Bake for 30-35 minutes. The goal is to have a kind of brownie, moist. So try to not get the center fully dry. This is the most difficult part for me. So if the top is baked (with a crust) and using a toothpick doesnt come 100% clean, it is ok.
• Take the cake and let it cool down

Before getting into the oven

Day after:

The look is quite “chocolaty” and tastes very good! But I overbaked it… the cake should be less dry.

I watched this video and I had to try.

Ingredients

• 2 eggplants sliced
• flour for coating the eggplants
• salt, honey (optional)
• Sunflower oil for frying the eggplants
• 700g good tomato passate
• 3-4 garlic gloves chopped without core.
• fresh basil or dried oregano if you dont have it
• 2 balls of mozarrella (or smoked mozarrela if you find it)
• Parmigiano

Process

• Spread salt generously over the eggplants. Let is rest for 30 minutes. This is very important step to remove the acidiness.
• The eggplants should have sweat some water. Clean all the slices with water and dried them with a towel.
• In a sauce plan at medium heat, pour a glop of olive oil, when hot, add the garlic. Dont burnt it !!! Then add the tomato passate and basil/oregano. Add salt/pepper. Add a bit of honey, optional. Simmer for 30 minutes or so. Leave aside.
• Heat up a pan with some sunflower oil to deep fry the eggplants. The oil is ready with you put the tip of a wood spoon and fezzes.
• Pre-heat oven at 200C
• Coat slightly the eggplant slices with flour and deep fry until golden in both sides. 2-3 minutes each side. This is the most tedious part. But it is worth it. After removing form the pan, use kitchen paper to absorbe excess oil.
• In an oven dish (metal/glass), pour a bit of the tomate sauce. Add a layer of eggplant, add slices of mozarella, add some basil/oregano, grated parmigiano . Repeat: tomate, eggplant, mozarella, basil/oregano, grated parmigiano.
• Bake in the oven at 200C for around 30 minutes of golden on top.

Really tasty!!!

This is a typical sweet from Portugal too and I wanted to make it for some time, and this was triggered by chance via this video. And then I checked this one for getting an idea about the quantities

Ingredients

• 250g maria biscuits (dont try to hard biscuits…)
• 150g dark chocolate chopped
• 50g cacao powder
• 50g pistachio chopped
• 70g butter

Process

• Smash the biscuits, but dont make it powder!
• Add the pistachios
• Melt the chocolate and butter
• Add to the biscuits
• Mix well, like a dough
• Pour the mix over clean film, try to roll like a chorizo
• Let it cool down in the fridge.

Then you can decorate it like a salami if you wish

Obviously, it doesn’t look like in the videos (although it was tasty). My main mistake was using oat biscuits that are quite hard.

2nd Attempt. A bit better but still not as I would like it:

I was curious about this cake and tried it.

Ingredients
800g Cooked chickpeas (2x cans)
200g peanut butter
120ml maple syrup
2 teaspoons of baking powder
2g salt
100g chocolate 90% chopped roughly

Decoration
150g melted chocolate 90%
150g peanuts crushed

Process:

• Pre-heat oven at 190C
• Put all ingredients together but the chopped chocolate in a food processor.
• Once it is all mixed (it is like a very dense peanut butter), add the chocolate chips and mix with a spoon.
• Pour the mix into a mold of 25x10cm with parchment paper.
• Bake at 190C for 40-45m
• While it cools down, prepare the decoration. Melt chocolate using “mary bath” (you can add a bit of butter to make more glossy).
• Add the crashed peanuts to the chocolate and pour it over the cold cake. Spread in all sides.
• Let it cool down again.

Before getting into the oven

After letting it cool down:

To be honest, it is not very sweet. I used 90% chocolate but still is tasty. So you can put a bit more maple syrup and 70-80% chocolate.

It goes great with a glass of milk or even whipped cream!

This cake is a protein bomb!