Simple cardamom sponge + Jason Reitman

I watched “Young Adult” last Saturday in an almost empty theater and at the end of the movie, to my surprise, most of the viewers were saying awful things about it; I understand that Jason Reitman’s kind of humor is not the very popular kind (thank heavens!) and I’ll admit that his movies should come with a bar of chocolate attached – a little mood enhancing for the end of the session – but to

Spiced plum pavlovas + a nice hint

You know well about my love for Donna Hay’s work: I have some of her cookbooks – cannot live without “Modern Classics 2” – and I’ve been a subscriber to her magazine since September 2006. But for the past year I’ve been having trouble receiving the magazines – last year’s winter issue never arrived and the same happened to this year’s summer issue. I do not know if they’ve changed the shipping

Cinnamon and cardamom buns

I usually feel the urge to bake yeasted breads when there is no time at all for that – go figure. And this time, to make things even more difficult I felt like baking a very specific type of bread: I wanted it to look good (I’m a complicated human being, my friends, I’ll admit to that). There was an amazing recipe using bananas in one of my current favorite cookbooks, but I would not have the

Chewy macaroons + "J. Edgar"

The first time I saw Leonardo DiCaprio was in his – and mine – teenage years: I’d rented "This Boy's Life" expecting to watch another great performance by Robert DeNiro (back in the day when he was a wonderful actor) but what really took me by storm was this boy’s performance, this boy I’d never heard of before, whose face or name I did not recognize (that was way before the whole “Romeo and

Danish chocolate-streusel-swirled coffee cake

Computers can be and are used in many different ways and for both good and bad. It has become a constant part of most people’s lives and sometimes it is extremely necessary.

I was once talking to Fatima (my maid) about that and she told me that her two daughters - one is 15 and the other, 13 – had been asking for a computer. I told her that a computer would be very good for the girls – they

Glazed apple lattice coffee cake

Some ideas are so great that we wish we’d thought of them ourselves. When I read that David Helfgott was the man behind the amazing piano played in Emotion Sickness I was stunned - Silverchair is just genius.

The same thing crossed my mind when I saw this coffee cake on the Oct, 2007 issue of Bon Appétit magazine. A coffee cake filled with apple, brown sugar, zest and spices was something I

Spiced madeleines

Ever since creating the blog, I have tried a huge number of new, different ingredients. I can’t even list them anymore – too many for my poor memory to gather up.One of those ingredients is allspice. I’d seen it around in several recipes but it only premiered in my kitchen last week, when I baked these tender and light madeleines. For a spice fan like me, it was about time.Speaking of "premiere"

Cardamom coffee rolls and loads of gifts

These delicious and incredibly tender rolls are the result of a recipe taken from the book I won at Allen’s giveaway a couple of weeks ago. But that’s not all: Allen is such a dear that he sent me not only the book but also lots of other gifts!



Inside the huge box, there were dried cherries, lavender and 2 products from the Martha Stewart line: a gorgeous plate (the one holding the roll on

Cardamom yogurt pudding with grapefruit and cardamom honey syrup

I’d never tasted anything with cardamom – seen in many recipes, it made me curious a bunch of times but not enough for me to buy it.The event on “Colher de Tacho” (the blog with events for blogs written in Portuguese) was the perfect excuse for me to try it. And the conclusion is: I shouldn’t have waited that long. :DThis dessert is fabulous: a few ingredients, simple to make and a visually rich