Gingerbread caramels

My friend Ana Elisa’s adventure in making torrone reminded me of how much work these caramels were: it took forever for the mixture to achieve the desired temperature, and I was melting in my kitchen while stirring it; after that, another century went by before I finished cutting them, oiled knife and all. Not to mention they were super soft and hard to wrap, too.

You’ll probably ask me why

Super lime ice cream

There are simple things in life that have the power of lighting up our day – like arriving home and finding a package or your favorite magazine waiting for you in the mailbox. I love that.

My copy of David Lebovitz’s ice cream bible was delivered Friday and Saturday morning I was in the kitchen, preparing a recipe from it. Are you surprised my first choice was a citrus flavor?? Didn’t think so

Very berry meringues

After so many batches of custard based ice creams – there are recipes I’ve made three or four times – I had several egg whites left. I did freeze some but there were a couple of whites still in the fridge – that seemed like the perfect excuse to make meringues.I’d bookmarked this recipe ages ago – I just love Delicious. magazine’s website – and it called for only 5 ingredients, all of them in my

Lavender marshmallows

It seemed like a good idea – something delicate, almost ethereal. But it did not turn out as I expected...

Have you tried lavender marshmallows? I remember seeing a photo on a magazine, months ago, but there was no recipe – it was an ad from a bakery or something. I decided to use a vanilla marshmallow recipe from DH mag #36 adding the dried lavender instead of vanilla extract.

The

Chocolate, pistachio and cranberry panettone

Happy New Year, everyone!

Thank you for your comments and emails – I took some time off and haven’t posted here or visited my favorite blogs. I intend to correct that as soon as possible and I start this panettone. I adapted this recipe, replacing the raisins and hazelnuts for dried cranberries and pistachios.

I wish you all a great year, full of joy, love and hope. May all our dreams come

Cinnamon scented challah

I was watching music videos on TV other day when I saw the ugliest creature ever. Really – at the moment he took off his shirt and opened his mouth I felt like running, running like there was no tomorrow.
A quick visit to a certain profile on imdb was essential to avoid being scarred for life. :D

Making something pretty also helps. I decide for this challah, inspired by the gorgeous one Jaden

Yeasted banana bread

I have to start this post by deeply thanking a Brazilian reader of mine, Debora – after reading my desperate request for a good yeasted banana bread, she left a comment with a link for a recipe, and it looked like what I wanted.I finally baked the bread and what a wonderful recipe this is! The rolls came out extremely tender and with a delicious banana hint. Since they are not overly sweet, you

Sake panna cotta

My dear and sweet friend Clarice is hosting a special event to celebrate 100 years of Japanese Immigration in Brazil. She is a Brazilian of Japanese ascendancy and has been living in Japan for almost 2 decades now.



The event is about cooking or baking with Japanese ingredients. I thought about so many different recipes, but ended up choosing this one – all I did was use sake instead of

Waiter, there's something in my... picnic! Olive, herb and parmesan sticks

I haven’t taken part in blog events lately – I never seem to keep the deadlines in mind – but picnics are something I hold very dear and they are the theme for this “Waiter, there’s something in my...”, hosted by Johanna, Jeanne and Andrew.

When I was little, my parents used to take me and my brother to parks on the weekends, and we had wonderful picnics there (I once wrote about it here). To

Honey-almond coffee cake

Almonds are delicious – my favorite kind of nut. I also love honey – when I was little, my mom used to mix honey and lime juice and feed me by spoonfuls when I had colds and coughs.
Put almonds and honey together and you’ll have a super delicious combo.

It’s like De Niro and Scorsese. They are both wonderful, but when they are together... Magic is made.

Hey, Marty, enough with the DiCaprio

Cheese Stuffed Crusty Rolls

Choosing something doesn’t always have to be a difficult task – and that coming from the one who can take forever to decide which recipe to prepare is quite an improvement. Sometimes, we just know where to find it.If you have a twisted, weird, crazy-looking role, you get Gary Oldman. Very simple. And if you want beautiful, delicious, out of this world desserts, you just go to Helen’s blog. But

Marbled lemon-blueberry butter cake

I’m afraid of certain things. Robert de Niro and his long nails, Dakota Fanning – they scare the bejeesus out of me. And I almost had a heart attack the night I dreamed that Amy Winehouse was my doctor.

Making jam?? That is pretty scary. I think I could mix the ingredients together and check the jam for doneness, but I couldn’t sterilize jars correctly if my life depended on it.
That’s why

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

Zuger Kirschtorte

I usually write about myself, my family and friends here. I share info about my favorite food, music and movies with you, my dear readers. But today I am going to tell you a story that happened to someone else – Neusa, a coworker of mine.She was once at her mother-in-law’s and was served a beautiful, delicious cake for tea. The cake was on Neusa’s mind for a while – that was, for sure, a

Streuselkuchen

Now you’ll see the shallow side of yours truly. :)

How can one NOT bake something called streuselkuchen?? I mean, isn’t it fun to say? So it must be fun to eat – that’s my theory. The same one I apply to snickerdoodles.

Only half of the German yeast dough is used in the recipe, so you can either cut it in half or use it again on the next day (see note). I made blackberry jam pull aparts with

Chocolate discs with orange cream and marinated oranges

Before I tell you about this luscious dessert, I want to thank you all for your support regarding my last post. I don’t even know how you are able to walk around with your hearts, since they are the size of a house.I haven’t taken part in Sugar High Friday for quite a while now – which is a total shame, since I love participating in food events. Just need to get organized and watch the deadlines

Caramel-dark chocolate truffles with fleur de sel

Cookies, cakes, bread. I do love baking. But I also love making candy and working with chocolate as well. There was an Easter, a couple of years ago, when I made almost 50 chocolate Easter eggs. Some of them had creamy and gooey fillings, like this heart shaped chocolate I posted last year. YUM!I printed a recipe for tangerine truffles but the result was a much too soft, messy – although quite

Brown sugar and cinnamon meringues with praline cream

I'll admit it: I can be quite stubborn sometimes. Some people say it’s because I’m a Scorpio and others will even call it “persistence”. What I know is that if something gets stuck in my head I won’t put it to rest until it’s done.

I was looking for a recipe with cinnamon - my favorite spice – and saw this. It was a huge coincidence, since there were 4 egg whites in the fridge. Off to the

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