How to preserve cherries - the easiest way of preserving cherries, either sweet cherries or sour cherries, in a low sugar way: only 1 or 2 tablespoons sugar (to taste) per large jar. I mentioned it before that we have a lot of cherries this year. In comparison to last year when we didn't have any. Two years ago we had even more than now, but I think the three years before that was also bad, either nothing growing, or cherries full of worms or birds eating everything before we could pick any. Fast forward to July 2018. We never had so many cherries as we have this year. I've made 17 large jars of preserved cherries, made cherry butter, countless cakes and desserts with cherries and the tree is still heavy with cherries. So the probability is that next year we will have nothing again, so I have to find a way of preserving the cherries we have now. I have to admit that at the moment I am so annoyed of pitting cherries that part of me wishes to leave what's still in the tree for the birds, but on the other side I know that...
Peanut butter is a wonderful thing. For me it is quite a new discovery, I made it the first time only about a year and a half ago. But ever since, I almost always have a jar of homemade peanut butter in the fridge. The first time I had peanut butter was about 15 years ago. I was a student still living in Romania and had only known peanut butter by name, from all the American movies and series in TV. I used to know an American girl working in Romania and she had some peanut butter which she had brought from home. I was curious and I tasted a teaspoon of it and found it absolutely disgusting. So bad that I refused to taste it again for more than 10 years. It was sickening sweet and weird and of a strange, unknown consistency. Then as I started reading blogs, I kept finding recipes over recipes containing peanut butter, not only sweet recipes but also pasta, spreads, soups and so on. That raised my interest again and decided to give peanut butter another try, but this time pure peanut butter with no sugar involved. I had it once and I...
This is another one of Yotam Ottolenghi's wonderful recipes. I could cook my way through all his books and not get tired of it. You can find this recipe in his book “Ottolenghi – The Cookbook”. I have “Plenty” and “Plenty More” as well and am happily anticipating my birthday (coming very very soon) because I know that I will receive “Jerusalem” from my mother-in-law. She asked me what I wanted for a present and that was my wish. Hopefully she didn't forget it. I am sorry I didn't know Ottolenghi existed during the time I lived in London, it would have been great to eat in his restaurant. The cases for this cups are quite an universal recipe, if I can call it so. I used it several times and filled the cups with different things, like white chocolate, but also cream cheese andberries, dark chocolate, pudding and fruit etc. The recipe is perfect, I had my doubts the first time I made them, I thought I would never manage to get the cups out of the muffin forms in one pieces, but I did. They came out perfectly. I found it a bit difficult to roll the dough...
I love baking, I think I have already mentioned that. About a few years ago I discovered the fondant covered cakes. They were back then really not very popular in Germany or in Romania, so I had actually never seen this kind of cakes before. Things are changing now, they are becoming more popular, especially in Romania, where, from what my aunt is telling me, there are a lot of bakers selling fondant cakes already. About 2-3 years ago I started trying to learn about working with fondant. It was pretty hard at first, but slowly I am getting better at it. I have to say that Pinterest has a lot of influence on this learning process. I mean, I bought a few books, but there is no way I could have learned so much just with the books. I am not an expert but I am doing my best, learning something new every time I make a new cake. And I have made a few of them already, for my family and friends, I am always happy when somebody asks for such a cake, the whole process from gathering ideas, making fondant, baking and of course eating is a...
