Tag Archives: Blogging

Eat the World Dubai

Hello guys! How is your week going on? Today I’d love to share with you how I spent last weekend!

I visited “Eat the World Dubai” as a part of the Dubai Food Festival 2016. It was held on a green lawn (which is called Burj Park), right next to Burj Khalifa and the Dubai mall. It was all about street food. The most exciting thing was that 15 food trucks were brought from the UK, and as it was announced ‘the best ones’- winners and finalists of British Street Food Awards. Of course, some local street food there was as well.

I think nowadays street food means more than regular hamburgers and hot-dogs. There are lots of people/cooks who are passionate for food, who have a creativity for what they cook; people who desire to prepare something extravaganza in front of you. Plus, it should be affordable and don’t ruin your family budget.

One of the thing I wanted to try was “Crabbie Shack”. I imagine myself a huge, unreal ans super tasty patty made from crab meat. After a pretty long line of waiting, finally I got it. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed. Crab was deep-fried (I rare eat such food) and seemed it was left in some skin.. plus the bun was too greasy and it was complicated to bite the huge burger. What I like – the combination of fennel seeds and almond flakes; definitely I will use it in the future cooking. Harissa (not spicy one) and smashed avocado was another delicious touch.

It’s worth mentioning the remarkable pizza preparation. Guys were made it in a truck! Can you imagine? Oven truck! 😀

Dark Sweet side was an ice cream! One of the UAE team trucks “from Miami to Dubai” sold gelato on a stick, that you could dip into various chocolate and cover in nuts, sprinkles or coconut flakes. I tried strawberry covered with white chocolate and walnuts. Yummy! 🙂

British crew “Milo&Hector’s” brought a cute little truck and made ice cream sandwiches. Never tasted before, it was soooo good! Especially after a sunny afternoon in the park. May be I’d reduce the sweetness of cookies..

And so much more..

I enjoyed every minute of this open-air festival. There were lots of amazing smells and flavours around. Music, cooking demos, smiling people who were eating&eating, siting on a grass, relaxing..

Hope you had a fabulous weekend too!

Black Forest Pancakes

When I decided to make chocolate pancakes, I didn’t expect them turn out so good and delicious: a pure indulgence! I wanted to serve them only with a black-cherry jam. But when I stumbled upon a pack of mascarpone in my fridge, that I wanted to use somewhere else, the decision came itself – use it as a topping! Mascarpone worked perfectly as a cream and cherry syrup (I mixed jam with some water to make it thinner) sucked into pancakes very well, like into a sponge cake. All ingredients worked more than good together, dark chocolate and fresh cherry on top added a nice and charming touch as well. Plus, the taste reminds the famous cake – “Black Forest”. It’s my husband’s favorite cake, so he was on a nine cloud! Honestly, these are highly recommended pancakes!

Black Forest Pancakes

Servings: 3
Time: 1hr
Difficulty: very easy
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Ingredients

200g sour cream

250ml full-fat milk

2 eggs

2 tbsp white sugar

a pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla

20g butter, melted

270-300g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

5-6 tsp unsweetened pure cocoa powder

40-50g dark chocolate (70%cocoa), chopped

sunflower or any veg oil for frying

For serving

200g mascarpone

2 tsp maple syrup or pure honey, optional

100g dark cherry jam

70ml warm water (or more to make it thinner)

1-2 tsp lemon juice, optional

Garnish

some chopped dark chocolate

fresh cherries, optional

Preparation method

In a large bowl, beat eggs with with sugar, salt and vanilla. Whisk in butter.
Pour in milk and sour cream, stir all together.
Sift flour along with baking powder, soda and cocoa into a batter. Whisk until combined. Fold in chopped chocolate.
Heat large frying pan on a high heat, pour in some oil. Using large spoon, pour in batter. Cook each pancake until bubbles appear on top, then flip and cook on another side.
For cheery syrup, in a small saucepan, bring jam and water to gentle simmer. Simmer on a medium-low heat for few minutes. If it’s too sweet, stir in lemon juice. Add more water to make it more thin, if desired.
In a serving bowl, stir together mascarpone and maple syrup or honey.
Serve pancakes with mascarpone and cherry syrup.

Enjoy!

Almond and ricotta cake

February 24, 2016
milkandbun
28 comments
almond ricotta cake, baking, Blogging, cake, food blogger, food photo, food photography, photo, ricotta cake, sweet

One of the great part of food blogging is that you can discover new and interesting recipes almost every time you open your browser; you can see what bloggers cook and enjoy in different parts of the world, and of course try to prepare those amazing international recipes at home. So, when I saw the ricotta-almond cake that Margherita shared at her blog, I immediately saved it and decided to make it the other day. The cake turned out really moist and very nutty. I even could say that you can feel more nuts than ricotta, but it’s not bad at all (especially if you love lots of nuts in baking). Moreover, orange zest gave a fantastic aroma to the cake. The only thing – it was a bit too sweet to my taste, so I will reduce the quantity of sugar next time.

And I didn’t wait for an hour before unmolding the cake, about 20 minutes was enough to get it cool and enjoy with a tea. 🙂

Almond and ricotta cake

Servings: 8-10
Time: 1hr30min
Difficulty: easy
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*Was a bit sweet to my taste, next time reduce sugar to 100g

For 20cm spring form tin

Ingredients

250g ricotta

180g ground almonds

3 egg whites

1/2 tsp lemon juice

a pinch of salt

90g butter, soft (at room temperature)

120g white sugar*

zest from 1 orange

3 egg yolks

some almond flakes

orange zest, for decor, optional

Preparation method

In a bowl, stir ricotta with ground almonds. Set aside.
Beat egg whites with lemon juice and salt until steady peaks. Set aside.
In a large bowl, blend butter with sugar and orange zest until creamy. Mix in egg yolks, one at a time.
Stir in ricotta mixture.
Carefully fold beaten egg whites into ricotta mixture.
Line the baking tin with greased parchment. Pour in batter. Sprinkle with almond flakes and orange zest.
Bake in preheated 170C oven for 50 minutes or until golden.
Let it cool in the tin for 20-30 minutes and then carefully transfer to a serving plate.

Enjoy!

Sponge cake with tvorog-cream and poached plums

Hello to you, to a person who is reading this post or just glancing at photos of this moist and delicious cake with creamy filling, that was topped with aromatic spiced plum slices. The cake itself is a sponge cake, which is very simple to make and for that you need only four ingredients. I also added a drizzle of honey to the batter, honey gives a nice golden color to the cake and of course incredible flavor!

It has been ages since I made any layer cakes, so I decided to experiment with the cream. Tvorog is a dairy product, that used very often in Russian cuisine in such dishes like syrniki, sweet bakes and many other. Thus I took tvorog, mixed it with sugar and whipping cream, and I guess the cream became very Russian. 🙂 But I didn’t stopped there and added also gelatin to the cream. Honestly, it was my first attempt adding gelatin to the cake cream (with the exception of using it in panna cotta). I wasn’t sure that it would dissolve completely in the cream, and I beat it with electric blender. I love the result – cake was super tasty as well as the cream, and it’s gone very fast, especially if you serve it with some poached plums on a side.

If you have any tips and advises how to add gelatin to a cake cream, please do share with me! I’d like to know and learn how to use it properly.

Sponge cake with tvorog-cream and poached plums

Servings: 6-8
Time: 4hr+
Difficulty: moderate
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Using gelatin in the cream is totally optional (it just makes the cream more thick); you can easily omit it.

Ingredients

Sponge Cake

3 large eggs

100g white sugar

1/3 tsp runny honey

110g plain flour

100ml plum syrup (liquid form poached plums)

1 tbps cognac or other aromatic alcohol, optional

poached plums, for decor

Cream

220g tvorog (Russian cottage cheese)

150g icing sugar

200ml whipping cream (35%)

8-10g powdered gelatin

50ml cold water

Method

For the cake, in a large bowl beat eggs with sugar until pale and increase three times in size. Add honey and beat a little bit again. Sift the flour and carefully fold into the egg mixture with spatula.
Grease 20cm cake pan with butter, sprinkle with flour and pour the batter. Bake in preheated 180C oven for 40 minutes.
Leave the cake to cool in a pan for 20-30 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack or plate and leave to cool for 4 hours or overnight. Cut the cake into two layers. Brush each cake with the mixture of plum syrup and alcohol (if using).
For the cream, soften tvorog with a folk or electric blender. Add icing sugar and beat until combined. Add whipping cream and beat again.
Dissolve gelatin in cold water and leave for 10 minutes. Add to the cream and beat again.
Spread about half the cream on one of the cakes. Layer the second cake, and spread the remaining cream on the top and sides. Decorate with poached plums.

Spiced poached plums

5-7 soft plums (about 200g), sliced

80g white sugar (or more to your taste)

250 ml water

1 cinnamon stick

1 star anise

2 cardamom cloves

Method

In a small pan, add plums and sugar. Add spices and cover plums with water. Heat until the sugar dissolves. Bring to boil, then reduce to low-medium heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until plums are soft. Leave to cool.

Enjoy!

Sharing with Angie FF#105 and co-hosts Lily and Julianna.

Sponge cake with tvorog-cream&poached plums

Salted peanut cookies

I love shortbread cookies, there are almost thousands possibilities of flavours that you can add: mandarin, lemon or orange zest, vanilla or cinnamon, cardamom and etc. I stumbled upon this recipe a long time ago on one Russian website that content was about news, conferences for chefs and there were some recipes as well. I don’t know why I haven’t tried this recipe earlier, because these cookies are amazing! They have the right shortbread cookie texture – not too crumbly neither hard, simply divine! 🙂

Salted peanut cookies

Time: 1hr 30min
Difficulty: moderate
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I mix all ingredients with my hands. You may do it with electric mixer, but don’t overmix.

Ingredients

75g butter, cold

50g caster sugar

1 medium egg

lemon zest from 1 small lemon

120g plain flour

30g salted peanuts, chopped

Method

Cut butter into 1cm cubes and bring to room temperature. Divide the egg into yolk and white.
On a flat surface (you can do it in a large bowl too), mix butter with sugar until just coarse crumbs.
Add egg yolk, half of egg white (keep the rest) and lemon zest. Mix to combine.
Mix in flour. Combine the dough. On this step you may think you need to add extra flour, stop, no need to add extra flour or overknead the dough; after resting it’ll be perfect. Cover the dough in a plastic wrap and put in a fridge for 40-50 minutes.
Once the dough is cooled, roll it out on a lightly floured surface into 5mm thick disk. Cut out cookies any shape you like. Carefully transfer cookies on a lined baking tray. Brush with remaining egg white, sprinkle with peanuts.
Bake in preheated 180C oven for 12 minutes or until cookies are lightly golden.

Enjoy!