Happy holidays!

Happy Holidays!

Chocolate & Ricotta muffins

Ingredients

• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/3 cup unsalted butter
• 50g dark chocolate
• 50g white chocolate
• 2 medium/large eggs
• 2 1/3 cup all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sugar

Directions

Melt dark chocolate and butter into a bath water. Let them cool at room temperature. In a bowl, mix together ricotta and eggs, one at time. Then add sour cream and the butter/chocolate mix. Put aside.
In a large bowl, put flour, sugar, baking powder, salt. Add the cream you prepared before.and mix them together trying to be quick. Divide the batter into muffin cups. Reduce the white chocolate into chips, and sprinkle them over the muffins.
Bake them at 170°C for about 20 min.
Let them cool before serving.

Cinnamon and icing sugar cookies

I love spiced cookies, and cinnamon is my fave spice, so here's my recipe :)


Ingredients

• 120g all purpose flour
• 100g unsalted butter
• 1 egg yolk
  
• 40g sugar
• 2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3 spoon icing sugar (for covering)

Directions
Take the butter out of the fridge 30min before starting. Put it into a large bowl together with other ingredients, and melt together with your hands. The faster you are, the better. Put the dough into the fridge for 20/30 min. Take the dough oout, smooth it out with the rolling pin, cut with a knife or cookie cutters. Bake in the oven for about 10min at 170°C.
Put the icing sugar into a mug, add 1 spoon of water, melt up to have a cream. Spread the cream on the cookies, let them dry for about 1 hour.

Chocolate moelleux

I found many recipes to bake this, but too many eggs were on them, so I decided to create a recipe myself.. and here it is!

Ingredients

• 80g icing sugar
• 50g all purpose flour
• 100g unsalted butter
• 100g dark chocolate
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions

Put a bowl into hot water bath, and melt chocolate and butter. Add icing sugar, and keep stirring. Take te bowl out of the water, and add eggs, on at time, stirring well. Add a mix of flour and cinnamon, mixing well.
Put the mix into little pans, filling half the pans. Cover with thin-film. Put in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
Turn on the oven at 180°C.
Take the pans out (as many as you need, you can leave the others in thre refrigerator), put them in the oven and bake them for 12min. (this depends a lot on the oven, so take a look at the cakes when they are baking..)
Upset the cakes onto plates, sprinkle with icing sugar and serve warm.

Apple spiced muffins

Ingredients

• 60g unsalted butter
• 40g brown sugar
• 40g white sugar
• 1 medium egg
• 200ml milk
  
• 200g all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 apples

Directions

Melt the butter into a saucepan or microwave. Peel and cut the apples into small pieces. Mix with a spoon of flour.

In a large bowl, mix the sugar with egg, butter and milk. Add the flour with cinnamon and baking powder, quickly. Add the apples and mix them into the dough.
Put the dough into a muffin pan, then sprinkle the top with a bit of brown sugar. Bake them at 170/180°C for about 20/25 min.
Serve warm or cool, with ice cream if you want, or spiced tea.

Baci di dama (hazelnut cookies)

This is a regional recipe, from Pedimont, north-west of Italy. The translation of "Baci di dama" is "Kisses of a lady", and I read the first one was baked in 1893 in a city called Tortona. There are, of course, loads of recipes about these cookies , and this is mine ;)

Ingredients

100g chopped hazelnuts
100g all purpose flour
80g white sugar
80g butter
80g dark chocolate

Directions

Let the butter melt out of the fridge for about 1 hour. Add all the other ingredients but chocolate, and mix well with your hands. Put the dough, well covered, in the fridge for 2 hours.

Take the dough out, and start making little balls of dough with your hands. Put the on a buttered baking-pan, not to close one too close one to the other.

Put in the oven at 150°C, for about 8/10 minutes. Let them cool on the baking-pan.

Melt the chocolate into a bowl. Put some chocolate on the flat side of the cookie, then put another cookie over, so you will form a kind of sandwich. Do the same with the others. Let the chocolate cool, and serve.

Ricotta cheese pie

Ingredients

For the dough

• 250g all furpose flour
• 150g butter
• 2 egg yolks
• 100g white sugar

For the cream

• 300g unsalted ricotta cheese
• 150g icing sugar
• 1/2 lemon
• 2 eggs

Directions

Take a large bowl and put all the ingredients for the dough together. Mix well with your hands, trying to be as quick as possible. Make a ball with the dough, cover it an put in the fridge.

In another bowl, put the ricotta cheese, and crush it with a fork. Then, add the sugar and mix well with a mixer. (or with a hand whisk)
Add the egg yolks, and mix well.
Squeeze the lemon, and grate the skin, and put together in the ricotta cream. Mix gently with a spoon. In a little bowl or mug, whip the white of the eggs, until they rise. Add to the cream.

Take the dough, cut 3/4 of it, and form a circle with the rolling pin. Move this circle into a cake pan, and pierce the base a bit with the fork.

Pour the cream in, flatter it a bit with a spoon. Decorate with the rest of the dough.

Put into the oven at 170°C, for about 30/40 min.

Serve it cool.

Chocolate chips and walnuts cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 eggs (medium or large)
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• a bit of salt

Directions

In a large bowl, cream the butter with a mixer. Add the sugars, and keep on beating until well mixed. Add the eggs, one at time, and continue beating. At the end, add the vanilla and incorporate it.

In a separate bowl, mix the flur, sith salt and baking soda. Then add it to the mix you prepared before. I suggest to mix the ingredients withe your hands. When you have a dough, add chocolate chips and walnuts.

Prepare baking sheets, then put the cookies on with a spoon. Half spoon is enough, add more if you want larger cookies. Don't put the dough too close to the endge of the rack.

Cook in the oven for about 10/12 minutes (until golden brown). Cool completely on wire rack.

Serve with cold milk or ice-cream.

Chocolate and whiskey pie

Ingredients

For the dough:

• 275g all purpose flour
• 150g butter
• 75g white sugar
• 3 egg yolks

For the cream:

• 1 egg yolk
• 60g white sugar
• 1 glass milk
• 1/2 glass cream
• 40g icing sugar
• 30g butter
• 1/2 glass whiskey
• 2 spoons all purpose flour
• 1 spoon potato starch
• 150g dark chocolate

Directions

Put the butter out of the fridge about 1 hour before you start.

Put the flour into a large bowl, then put into all the other ingredients. Mix well with your hands, trying to be as quick as possible. Then, make a dough ball and let it settle for a bit.

Put milk and cream into a little pot, let it warm up, then add chocolate in pieces and star stirring it well. When the chocolate has melted, take the pot away and let it cool for a bit.
In the meanwhile, put the yolk into a pot, and mix it with sugar. Then add flour and potato starch, and keep on mixing. In the end, add the milk/cream/chocolate mix, move it over the burner, and keep on stirring for a couple of minutes. Then, let it cool again.

Into a mug, put butter and icing sugar, mix it well, and move the mix into the cream you just prepared. At the end, add also whiskey, and stir a bit until well blended.

Take the dough, and form a circle with the rolling pin. Put the circle into a cake pan, and make some holes with the fork on the base of the dough. Put the cream into the cake pan, then lower the edge with the fork, enough to be a bit higher than the cream, and large enough.

Put the cake into the oven at 170°C, for about 30 min. Take the cake out, let it cool. Then move it into a plate. Help yourself!

Hi :)

I like eating. I like cooking. I love chocolate. In this site, you will only find recipes. Not only about chocolate (but I bet there’ll be a lot ;)), but about everything I experienced. Enjoy