Milk chocolate stracciatella ice cream

The day is cold, gray, cloudy, the rain comes and goes, and I plan to spend the afternoon under the blankets, with a bowl of popcorn and a good movie. Too bad this delicious ice cream is long gone - it was so amazing I would certainly have a bowl of it even on this chilly day. :)

Milk chocolate stracciatella ice cream
from the always amazing The Perfect Scoop

225g (8oz) milk chocolate, finely

Chocolate crème brûlée tartlets

Sometimes it takes me forever to do certain things – make a recipe, watch a movie – and then, when I finally do it, it just feels... bleh.

Many, many years ago I watched the trailer for “November” and it intrigued me: I thought it looked interesting and I liked the idea of watching Courteney Cox in a drama: to me, she was the funniest of the girls in “Friends” – to this day I haven’t

Macadamia crunch ice cream + my favorite cookbooks

Every other day I receive emails from the readers asking which are my favorite cookbooks; for each of those emails I reply two more arrive in my inbox – not a very practical thing. That is why you’ll find below the list with my all time favorite cookbooks – the ones I love the most (in no particular order):




This delicious ice cream – if you think I’ve become

Summer blueberry tart and nice surprises

Isn’t it great to find good things unexpectedly? Surfing the net I accidentally discovered that Camera Obscura is the band responsible for a song I adore. Nice surprise. Like the one I had the other day while buying fruit at a supermarket near the office: fresh blueberries. They’re not easy to find near my house so I decided to buy a couple of punnets (despite their not-very-friendly price).

Vanilla flan with gingerbread crumbs

Those of you who – sometimes – devour lunch with an eye on dessert, please, raise your hand. 0/

I made a beautiful, delicious salad with tuna – from this book – for lunch and, even though I happily savored each bite of it, I was really interested in trying this flan. :)

And since I know you are all so dear and won’t judge me, there goes the recipe. :D



Vanilla flan with gingerbread crumbs

Lemon raspberry crème brûlée

The lovely Sabrina is the one responsible for my preparing this dessert – she commented on one of my posts one day, asking for a lemon crème brûlée. That’s when I realized that I’d tried orange, but not lemon yet. Shame on me. ;)

These little pots of heaven were devoured in no time (I halved the recipe below)– the addition of raspberries made them extra special.

Lemon raspberry crème brûlée

Devilish angel food cake with passion fruit curd

I’m baking with Susan again – and I almost had to call for help to stop eating this cake. :)

I kept lying to myself saying that “this is practically only egg whites” after eating each slice of cake, then Susan wrote me the same thing in an email. You see, it’s not only my fault. ;)

I made some passion fruit curd to serve the cake with, but now I have an eye on Suz’s version with raspberry

Pandoro with peach jam

I’ve been trying, for a while now, to cook and bake using seasonal ingredients – influenced by my good friend Ana Elisa – and for that reason this recipe was kept on my messy files for almost a year. Finally the peaches are in season and I could make it – this jam is so delicious it was worth waiting that long for it.

The pandoro itself is not very sweet, therefore perfect to be eaten with the

Raspberry trifle cupcakes

I have to tell you two things about these cupcakes: first, they were delicious; second, the icing was a bit of a pain in the neck to make – I beat it forever using the electric mixer and it still did not firm up like the one on the magazine (I believe it happened because I used a different kind of cream).

It was not as quick as I’d expected it to be, but I wasn’t determined not to quit – I was

Jam buns

Yeasted challenged, fear not: these buns are absolutely easy to make and good to finish up that jar of jam that has been around your fridge for weeks (months, maybe?). :D

It’s not even right for me to take the credit over these – the standing ovation should go to my stand mixer.



Jam buns
from Donna Hay magazine

2 teaspoons active dry yeast
5 tablespoons caster sugar
¾ cup (180ml) lukewarm

Rhubarb tarts

A dear friend of mine once blogged about “good envy” – is there such thing? I mean, can we associate envy with a positive adjective, even if it’s to show admiration for someone/something?

An example: during all these years into blogging I’ve been “envying” my lovely friends from Europe and USA for having lots of rhubarb around; now I could finally find it here in São Paulo (thank you, Ana!)

Butterscotch pots

You almost got another panna cotta here today. :)

I think of panna cotta every time I need to use up heavy cream before it goes bad – what changed my mind this time, you might ask? The poor lonely egg yolks left from the buttercream on my MIL’s birthday cake. :D

These pots are delicious but also very, very rich – small cups are the way to go here.

Butterscotch pots
from Sticky, Chewy, Messy,

Crème brûlée with passion fruit topping and a thank you

No, no, the crème brûlée bug has not bitten me – to be honest, I made this recipe just because of the passion fruit topping. :)
Not sure if that is a sensible way of choosing a recipe to make, but what else could you expect from someone who watches “Lie to Me” just because of Tim Roth? ;)

On a totally different note, I would like to thank Amanda for this lovely, beautiful article about my blog

Apricot and almond tart

Apricot jam instantly makes me think of fall and winter. And not only until very recently I understood why: I suddenly remembered some of my childhood days, when I’d visit my godmother. In cold, rainy afternoons we’d have tea together, with toasts and apricot jam. She’d have the table so beautifully set, with gorgeous china and all the trimmings... That was pretty amazing for a 7 year old. :)

Pistachio lime cookies

I’d promised myself I would stop buying cookbooks – because I have so many already – but I’m a very weak person and the so called promise lasted a couple of months, only. :S

In order to feel less of a failure, I’ve switched that promise for another one, much more feasible: start using more the books I already own. Beginning with one I bought several months ago but hadn’t used yet.

Pistachio

Orange crème brûlée

I tried to write a nice post for today’s recipe but all I can think of is that my coconut ice cream photo came in second in April's DMBLGIT! :)

I’ve taken part in several DMBLGIT editions, but had never won anything – it is so good to be there. And to see my lovely friend Meeta there, too, with her gorgeous brioche- yum!

A special thank you to Julia for hosting the event so beautifully, and

Fresh mint choc chip ice cream

Wasting food is not an option at my house – I’m sure none of you like that either. After making the pineapple mint sorbet there were still some mint leaves around – they smelled so good I started eating some while washing them. :)

Those mint leaves ended up becoming ice cream – choc chip mint ice cream, to make things even better. I always have the feeling the mint flavored sweets taste like

Coconut ice cream

I wasn’t going to post another coconut recipe so soon, but this a revolutionary ice cream: I’ve made it several times already by my husband’s request – the same husband who’ll only eat either chocolate or stracciatella ice cream. That’s quite something – almost a solar eclipse. :)

The recipe comes from here, but I first saw it on Valentina’s blog.



Coconut ice cream
from Australian Gourmet

White chocolate and cinnamon crème brulée

I have a new toy and, according to my husband, it has turned me into a very dangerous woman. :)

One of my bosses gave me a kitchen torch as a Christmas gift after his wife read my eggnog brûlée post – how lovely is that?

I thought that using my favorite spice – which happens to be very Christmassy as well – would be a great way to use my gift for the first time; to be on the safe side, I

Apple crumble ice cream

In one of my days off I woke up decided to organize my bookshelf – it was a huge mess, you have no idea...
Going through all those books, magazines and recipe prints I ended up finding a CD I thought I’d lost for good – in moments like that I understand why my grandma always told me to be organized... :)

My favorite song on that CD is “Up from under” and from it comes one of my all time