These pleasantly salty and buttery Cheese&Rosemary Halfmoons are perfect to serve with root vegetable soup. They are made with a semi-soft to firm sort of cheese with a mild flavour – something like Havarti, for example. We used a sort which is called Russian cheese here. And the fresh rosemary that I bought comes from Israel. This rosemary grew on a sunlit land and made such a long way to be eaten here, in this small Northern country! Poor herb. I cherish the hope of planting my own tiny herb garden next year, although I’m not sure the delicate herbs would stand the Latvian weather. There’s a joke about Latvian weather which explains the difference between winter and summer: you wear your coat fastened in winter and unfastened in summer. That’s true. Not that it’s so freezing cold in winter - but it’s almost equally mm…fresh outside all year round. I’m very picky about choosing a coat for myself because I know I’ll be wearing it October to April. And April to June I’ll be wearing a jacket :) Then I’d be off to a warmer corner of the world - I hear, however, that some people go swimming here as well, in mid-July, when the temperature of water in the sea reaches whole 18C. Haha!
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The best Pahlava I have ever tried was in Turkey: it was soaked in honey, golden, and crunchy. Tatar Pahlava in the Crimea is also good, usually made in two ways: with minced walnuts and without them, just of thin, glossy honey filo pastry. Here in Riga you can find Pahlava in, say, Armenian restaurants or even buy some in a supermarket, but of course it’s not as fresh and good as it is in those Southern parts of the world, where the sun makes honey melt, and your fingers stick together as you take another piece of delicious Oriental dessert.
Dreaming about all that warmth and sunshine and summer laziness, we cooked this “Lazy Pahlava” today. It’s really lazy as we didn’t make any filo pastry. And we didn’t add any rosewater or other special flavourings that are added to traditional Pahlava. But, I think the result was very good nonetheless! Lazy Pahlava is quick and easy to make, it doesn’t require a lot of ingredients, the crust is soft and the filling is pleasantly moist. Actually, we used fresh organic walnuts from Slovakia, so the filling is incredibly juicy!
If you try this, you might want to substitute at least half of the sugar for honey I guess. It’s just that not everyone in our family likes honey in baked goods.
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On weekdays, I start my day with just a cup of tea and a tiny bit of cottage cheese. Even if I have something yummy in the fridge, I don’t care because I am usually too sleepy to enjoy food. The situation changes greatly on weekend mornings that bring you all the luxury of long and lazy breakfasts, with endless tea drinking and a slow, relaxed talk.
This plum tart was baked last night and, despite the irresistible smell of melted plum jam, it waited patiently until this morning to be served along with the wonderful Ginkgo tea I get from Slovakia.
The pie is absolutely easy and turbo-quick to make, as it uses frozen puff pastry and home-made plum jam (taken from Mom’s collection of preserves: tons of strawberry, cowberry, plum, cranberry, black currant, cherry and raspberry jam). The jam was strong, sour and even with a tiny note of bitterness. I served the pie with a drizzle of dark chocolate sauce, but unfortunately the photos turned out to be blurry when I viewed them on a large screen, so just believe me: it goes very well with dark chocolate dressing.
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Last week we bought some incredibly soft and sweet autumn pears, and Mom immediately came up with the idea of a Pear and Cream Cake. We used frozen puff pastry – or you might prefer to make your own at home, which means you are a very patient person :) I easily come to a compromise between the store-bought and the home-made when it comes to puff pastry. They sell some really good-quality pastry in a nearby supermarket, and it makes life so much easier! Isn’t a home-made croissant or turnover made with frozen puff pastry still better than having sandwiches for lunch again?!
Anyways, we laid those sugary-simmered pears on a sheet of pastry, topped them with whipped egg and cream, sprinkled the cake with almond shavings, put it into oven and waited for 45 minutes, enjoying the warm smells of melting cream, vanilla, and baking pastry. The cake came out tender and sweet, with a very mild citrus flavour and a dreamy touch of vanilla. We let it cool until room temperature, so it became easy to cut. You might as well try serving it warm with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. Read the rest of this entry »
In this Northern country we happened to live in, autumn is approaching already. I’ve noticed I have much less cravings for ice-cream and sorbets, and much more for tea, hot chocolate and something sweet and baked, preferably something you can prepare on a Friday night and stretch the pleasure into the weekend.
Sunny P said she was with me about the lemon zest diet – well, unfortunately I haven’t yet thought of one, but we did make a pie with four large and juicy lemons the other night. Just imagine that tart-and-fruity filling wrapped into a soft, moist pastry. Mmm. I think we’ll be making this pie with cranberries in place of lemons some time in future, and of course I’ll post the recipe and pictures if we do. Basically you might use almost any fresh berries as a filling, but something sour is better. And the most exciting thing about lemon filling is that you grind the lemons entirely, with all zest.
Another important tip is to let the pie cool properly before serving. Maybe even leave it in a cool place overnight and let the lemons soak into the pastry.
Finally, about the lemons. We had those really sour ones, so we took 1 cup sugar per lemon for the filling. If you prefer to use sweeter sorts of lemon, such as Meyer or other, please make sure you re-calculate the amount of sugar you need. Read the rest of this entry »
We baked this delicious, summery cake for Mom’s birthday just the other day.
A luscious raspberry filling resting on a buttery sweetcrust base and topped with a layer of airy, delicate whipped egg whites, covered with tiny drops of sugar syrup. Those amber-coloured drops appear if you leave the cake overnight; you don’t have to apply them specially, just in case you were wondering:) Just because when people first see this cake they’re mostly interested in how we make these drops of sugar for decoration.
Actually, if you look at the list of ingredients, you will see that it’s very simple.
I have to warn you however, that when you bake this cake, the hardest part is not to eat it all in the process of cooking. Personally I can never restrain myself from having a bit of raw home-made shortcrust pastry again and again while I am busy with other ingredients. Then, the egg whites; whipped with caster sugar and vanilla, they could serve as a standalone dessert, I believe. And of course the sugared raspberries – so ripe and enjoyable. So I am sincerely happy for you if you don’t like raw sweetcrust pastry or whipped egg whites. At least you’ll be able to wait patiently till the cake is ready. I can’t.
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